Dr. ABRAHAM WEATHERLY BOYD / ELLA WELLS

Dr. Abraham Weatherly Boyd, a member of the medical profession at
Chattanooga, who in recent years has devoted his time and efforts to a mastery of the disease known as pellagra, becoming a recognized authority in this branch of medical science, was born in Bradley county, Tennessee, March 16, 1860. His father, John Wesley Boyd, was a native of McMinn county, Tennessee, and a wagon maker by trade. In the days of the secession movement he was a strong union man but when the state decided to leave the Union he felt it to be his duty to follow the commonwealth. His service in the southern army, however, so exasperated some of the other Union sympathizers that they brought about his assassination in 1864. He was a son of Micajah and Mary (Barbe) Boyd and the latter was a daughter of Colonel Abraham Barbe of McMinn county, who organized a company of cavalry for service in the War of 1812. Both the Boyd and Barbe families were pioneer planters of Tennessee, descended from still older pioneer families of other states and both were represented in the struggle for American independence.

Abraham Weatherly Boyd of this review was educated in the schools of Bradley county, Tennessee, and of Murray county, Georgia, until he had completed his public school course, while later he pursued a collegiate course in Athens, Tennessee. He next became a student in the medical department of the University of Georgia and was graduated with the M. D. degree in 1885. Two years later he took a postgraduate course in the New York Polyclinic and throughout his professional career he has remained a close and discriminating
student of medical science. He entered upon practice as a general physician
and surgeon and won creditable success in that field but during the last few
years has been devoting all of his time and talent to the study of pellagra, a disease which has been scourging the south and which up to a few years ago
was unknown to the profession as to cause or cure. Dr. Boyd's researches, however, have resulted in the discovery of a cure in connection with which he has established a laboratory for its manufacture. In this respect his work is of vast benefit to his fellowmen, his contribution to medical science being most valuable.

In 1897, in Whitfield county, Georgia, Dr. Boyd was married to Miss Ella Wells, a daughter of Dr. W. B. and Mary (Pope) Wells, the former a surgeon of the Confederate army during the Civil war and afterward a leading and successful practitioner of surgery in Chattanooga. Her ancestors in both the paternal and maternal lines were prominent in the several communities in which they lived. One of the family was the Hon. D. H. Pope, a distinguished attorney of Albany and a brother of Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Boyd died from an accident, in March, 1922. She was at one time president of the Francis M. Walker Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and president of the St. Elmo Book Club. She also occupied the presidency of the Parent-Teachers' Association of Chattanooga and was a lady of marked popularity and prominence in connection with the social as well as civic interests of the city. By her marriage she became the mother of one son, David Huel, who was educated at the Baylor school, at the Georgia Military
Academy and at the Bliss Electrical School of Washington, D. C. He enlisted for service in the World war in April, 1917, was sent to Fort Oglethorpe, where he remained until the 12th of December, and was then transferred to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he continued until September, 1918. He was sent to the Signal Officers' Training Camp at Camp Meade, Maryland, and commissioned a lieutenant in December of that year. He still holds his commission in the Officers Reserve Corps, being attached to the Eighty-first Reserve Division. He is a charter member of the David King Summers Post of the American Legion and is a member of the Jonathan W. Bachman Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He is likewise a Master Mason and member of the Royal Arch chapter.

His business connection is that of secretary of the Boyd Medicine Company.
During the World war, Dr. Boyd participated in all the Liberty Loan drives and much war work. He is a democrat, active in support of the party yet never an aspirant for office. He holds membership in the Christian church, also in the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained the Knight Templar degree of the York Rite and is a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. Along professional lines he has membership in the Hamilton County, Tennessee State and American Medical associations and through the proceedings of these bodies he keeps in touch with the trend of modern professional thought and progress.

Tennessee The Volunteer State Vol 4, Biographies of professional individuals ( including but not limited to finance, medicine, teaching, law and politics) residing in Tennessee from 1769-1923

Source: Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 4. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.

NOTE: Use this data as a finding tool, just as you would any other secondary source. When you find the name of an ancestor listed, confirm the facts in original sources.

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