The Life, Career, and Fall of Dr. B.H. Stillyard
PROLOGUE
On February 2, 2021, we presented a Lunch With Books Livestream program for the Ohio County Public Library, exploring the lives, times, and achievements of nine leaders of Wheeling’s African American community during the era of “Jim Crow” segregation, including: barber Henry Boose Clemens; police officer William Alexander Turner; firefighter Ashby Jackson; attorney Harry H. Jones; medical doctors Boswell Henson Stillyard, Julia Katherine Pronty Davis; Robert Maceo Hamlin; and Alga Wade Hamlin; and musician Will H. Dixon.
This post, about Dr. B.H. Stillyard (1847-1916), will serve as the first supplement to our livestream video. An additional supplement will be posted soon.
A Self-Taught Man
Boswell Henson Stillyard was born January 1, 1847, in Port Tobacco, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC. The Crisis magazine, official publication of the NAACP, noted that Stillyard was “of slave parentage.” Yet, “He was an ambitious and self-taught man. He would sit up at night in a fireless room wrapped in a quilt that he might learn how to read and write.” [1]
At the age of 29, Stillyard was admitted to Howard University, an historically black college located in Washington, D.C., where he studied from 1876 through 1877. Between 1879 and 1881, he attended Union College in Albany, N.Y. studying with the medical department. He transferred back to Howard University, entering the medical college there in 1881. [2] While there, he wrote a paper published in Galliard’s Medical Journal titled, “Hydatids from disease of the chorion.” [3]
After graduating from Howard in 1882, Stillyard came to Wheeling, which at the time, was still the state capital of West Virginia. Charleston, would not become the permanent capital for another three years, in 1885. Shortly before Stillyard arrived in Wheeling, the West Virginia Board of Health had just been established by an Act pushed through state legislation by Dr. James Edmund Reeves. [4]
A Community in Need of Physicians
Dr. Reeves, a founding member of the American Public Health Association, came to Wheeling in 1868, becoming the city’s first permanent health officer in 1869. In 1881, he drafted the West Virginia Board of Health Act and helped shepherd the bill through state legislature. It passed in 1882, and Reeves became the State Board’s first Secretary. In addition to creating a state public health body, the law also vested the State Board with legal power to license medical practice. To practice medicine in Wheeling, Stillyard would have to take the newly required medical exams under the fledgling State Board headed by Reeves, a Democrat and purported Confederate sympathizer. Despite his political leanings, according to the book, Professionalizing Medicine: James Reeves and the Choices That Shaped American Health Care, Reeves appreciated that Wheeling’s black community needed its own physicians. Stillyard passed the exams and was licensed to practice medicine, June 28, 1882. The Wheeling Register applauded Reeves licensing of Stillyard, reporting: “A Democratic Board was more than willing to give the colored brother a chance.” [5]
That fall, Reeves had another physician, a white man named Frank Dent – who had been a doctor in Fairmont for six years when the State Board was formed – arrested for practicing medicine without a license. Unlike Stillyard, Dent had not passed the state exams. His arrest sparked almost immediate legal challenges to the Board of Health Act. Eventually, the challenges would lead to the landmark 1889 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dent v. West Virginia, which held that states could set reasonable requirements for physicians to obtain a medical license in order to practice. The decision made West Virginia’s system of medical licensing a model for other states. [6]
This was the zeitgeist in which Stillyard entered the medical profession in Wheeling.
“A Very Fine Scheme”
After establishing his practice as a physician and surgeon, first at 1124 and later a 1111 Eoff Street, [7] Stillyard quickly gained respect in the community, often referenced in the newspapers as a “prominent” or “well-known colored physician of this City.” In 1883, he was one of the leaders of an early civil rights meeting held at the Upper Market House along with Prof. James McHenry Jones (principal of Lincoln School) and Col. Alexander Turner, father of Wheeling’s first African American policeman William Alexander Turner. [8]
In 1885, Dr. Stillyard was selected to run for Wheeling’s (at the time) bicameral, partisan City Council representing the 2nd Ward’s second branch (the forerunner of Wheeling’s current form of non-partisan Manager-Mayor government with a single representative from each ward would not be installed until 1917). He was also listed a candidate for the Republication Delegate to the Convention for the Ward along with H.B. Clemens. [9] According to the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, city Democrats ran “Too Thin A Scheme” to lure votes away from Stillyard. [10]
“Some of the Democrats in the Second Ward are endeavoring to work a very fine scheme to secure votes from the colored men living in the ward. One proposition they make to the colored voters is, to scratch off [opponents] Messrs. Hearne and Tracy, two of the Republican candidates for the Second Branch of Council, and that in that way, they will be able to make their ballot count three for Stillyard, the third nominee on the ticket; that is the only way in which Dr. Stillyard can be elected. The ones who are endeavoring to work this racket have thus far met with little or no success. The colored voters of this city are too intelligent to be caught by such utter nonsense.
The other propositions is, that if the voter will cast a ballot for Porter Smith for Sergeant, the Democrat will vote Stillyard for Council. All such propositions should be hooted at, for they are only intended to deceive and defeat the excellent ticket the Republicans have in the field.”
Stillyard’s run for City Council that year failed. He lost the race to his two Republican opponents, garnering 316 votes to Mr. Tracy’s 377 and Mr. Hearne’s 370. It was noted that only one Democratic candidate received more votes than Stillyard, and at that, by only a 12-vote margin. The Intelligencer reported following the election that, “the Democrats are trying to create the impression that the Republicans of the Second Ward nominated a colored man, Dr. Stillyard, then deliberately deserted him… That it will not ‘hold water’ is easily seen by an examination of the vote cast in that ward.” Though the vote fell heavily toward the Republican ticket in the Second Ward, Democrats won a majority of sixteen seats to twelve in the Council’s Second Branch that year. An ugly flyer designed to thwart the Republican vote outside the largely Black Distract had been “profusely scattered over the wards south of the creek.” The Intell continued, “This sudden friendship of the Democracy for the colored man looks strange in view of one of the electioneering schemes used by members of the party.” On the flyer was printed the Republican ticket along with the words, “Niggers For Police” printed in large red letters. “This shows to some degree how much the race prejudice had to do with the vote… The intent and desire is plain, and that the dodge had its effect is apparent on the returns.” [11]
Dr. Stillyard was asked again to run for City Council in 1887, but he declined. [12]
The following year, on February 6, 1888, Stillyard appealed to Republicans to end segregation within the Party in a letter to the editor of the local Democratic newspaper, the Wheeling Register:
“Sir:—Allow me a space in your paper in which to enter my protest against what I consider to be a great wrong among our people in calling separate meetings from our white Republican friends for the purpose of forming a colored Republican club. We are Republican voters and tax payers in common with our white Republican brethren and should be so regarded and allowed to join the different clubs in the various wards wherein we live and pay tax. In my humble judgment not to be allowed to join the various clubs is un-Republican and un-American. If we are Republicans, which all must admit that we are, from the fact of our past history and our fidelity to the party, all we ask is justice for ourselves. Our votes are the same, our taxes are the same. That being the fact, then why should we have separate clubs? If we are to be represented in the formation of a State league we should be represented as Republicans and not colored Republicans.
Respectfully yours,
B. H. Stillyard, M. D.,
A voter and tax-payer in the Second ward.” [13]
The following day, the letter was met with an anonymous response, cryptically signed “J,” which reads as another attempt by Democrats of the time – this time using Stillyard’s plea – to pull the black vote away from the Republican party.
“Sir:—The card of Dr. Stillyard in your issue of yesterday is a very proper one. The colored vote is a very important factor in the Republican party. Without it they would not have the ‘ghost of a show.’ Then why, in the name of sense, should they ask the colored brother to go to the expense and trouble of organizing separate clubs? Why not receive him into full communion? The fact is the white. Republicans wish to use the colored man, as they have done these many years, to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, and give him none of the meat. It is a surprising fact that the colored man does not see the true policy of the Republican party. It is false to them in all things, even the claim that they gave their freedom is false, as all intelligent men know. As late as 1862, after the war was half fought, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation to the Confederates offering to secure them in all their rights, including slavery, if they would lay down their arms and return to the Union, and from the election in 1860 up to the time when the emancipation proclamation was issued they asserted time after time that the war was not waged for the abolition of slavery, but for the Union. As it was the men who abolished slavery were the brave men in the army, composed of Democrats and Republicans alike. It is time the colored men should know that they do not owe their freedom to Republican politicians. History proves the foregoing selfish purpose, and there is no reason to believe the policy of the party will be changed in the future. When the colored man asserts his freedom by voting to suit himself, and not in herd like sheep, then, and not till then, will the Republican politicians give him a share of the honors and emoluments. J.” [14]
A Departure and Return
On September 15, 1886, Dr. Stillyard married 21-year-old Jennie Meade. Originally from Fairmont, WV, Meade was the daughter of a hotel porter and housekeeper and had attended Storer College, an historically black college in Harpers Ferry, WV, which operated from 1867 to 1956. [15]. Just one month after Stillyard’s letter to the editor ran in the Register, the couple moved to Topeka, Kansas in March of 1888, living for three and a half years in what the Topeka State Journal called, “Hell’s Half Acre.” [16] The Intelligencer noted that “His departure is a real loss to the colored circles of this city.” [17] In addition to the state of West Virginia, Dr. Stillyard also earned licensure in Kansas and Illinois. [18]
When Jennie Stillyard’s health began to fail in 1891, the couple moved back to Wheeling. [19] After years of declining health, she died at the tragically young age of 27 on February 1,1893 of phthsis, a type of pulmonary tuberculosis or a similarly progressive systemic disease. [20]
The orator at Jennie’s funeral at Simpson A. M. E. church was Professor James McHenry Jones, [21] one of the fellow organizers of the 1883 Civil Rights meeting at the Market House. Professor Jones was the principal of Wheeling’s segregated Lincoln school from 1882 to 1898 and later president of West Virginia Colored Institute (now West Virginia State University) from 1898 to 1909. He also enjoys favorable repute as the author of the 1896 novel Hearts of Gold in which problems facing African-Americans, such as lynching and convict labor, are explored, along with the rise of black education, press, and fraternal organizations. [22].
Following her funeral, Jennie’s remains were taken to her family’s home and interred in Fairmont. A year later, widower Stillyard and widow Ada J. Luker, were “quietly” married in the same church on March 4, 1894. [23] Ada Stillyard lived to be 98 years old, passing away March 6, 1960 in Charlotte, NC. [24] Her remains were brought back to Wheeling, and she was originally buried at Peninsula but was reinterred along with her husband at Greenwood Cemetery in 1964. [25]
Wheeling’s Last Hanging
Dr. Stillyard’s professional career as a physician in Wheeling was marked with some interesting surprises over the years. In 1892, for example, Stillyard was one of a group of Wheeling doctors – including other recognizable names such as doctors Hupp, Frissell, and Fulton – to witness the hanging of murderer William Joseph Maier in the old jail yard on Eoff Street. The Intelligencer opined “There will be more people at the Maier hanging than there is any need of. It would be better to shut out everybody who has no business there.” [26] With sentiment growing against public executions, only those having a ticket of admission were permitted to witness. The tickets were primarily administered to court officials, physicians, members of the jury, newspaper representatives, and police officers. “The morbid interest on the part of the public in the approaching event is curious,” the Intelligencer wrote, “Yesterday all day small knots of people gathered about, trying to catch a glimpse through the cracks in the high board fence. It is probable that large crowds will gather about the place today, but it may said that nobody but those in the enclosure will see anything of the execution.” Thirty-five deputies were sworn in two days before the hanging to help guard area surrounding the jail yard. [27]
The hanging occurred the morning, of November 18, 1892. It did not go as planned. As the Intelligencer related:
“An unfortunate thing happened here. As Maier fell the rope stretched somewhat, and the button or cleat on which the other end of the rope was fastened slipped a little, so that Maier’s heels hit the ground with considerable force, leaving him leaning over somewhat… Sherriff Steenrod [who had pulled the rope that opened the double trap doors on the gallows] and Deputy Zane [who adjusted and tightened the noose rope and placed a black cap over Maier’s head] immediately rushed to the scaffold and pulled the rope up, then fastened it, leaving Maier’s feet about twenty-four inches from the ground. There was no movement whatever in Maier’s body except a slight twitch about a minute after the drop. The fall undoubtedly broke his neck, as no signs of life were observed.” [28]
The “unfortunate” slip of the rope added fuel to the Intelligencer’s already adamant disdain of the hanging. “If the doors had been thrown wide open the jail yard would not have held all the people who would have rushed in to see to-day’s hanging. Yet the spectacle of a human being going off at a rope’s end is one which anybody should be glad not to see.” [29] One witness of the execution was said to have fainted and been unconscious for some time before recovering while a number of others were reported to have also been “considerably affected.”
Almost immediately following Maier’s death, workers began to dissemble any evidence that the execution had occurred. “Scarcely was the hanging done and the body removed until a force of carpenters employed by the Giesey Brothers began the work of tearing down the scaffold. It will be taken apart and stored away for possible future use, but if history repeats itself, it will be nearly or quite a generation until a gibbet again figures in Ohio county’s history.” [30] It would be, as far as we can tell from newspaper reports, the last execution by hanging in Wheeling.
A Glancing Blow
In an even more gruesome incident, Dr. Stillyard was struck in the head with a hatchet by a delirious woman, on Halloween night, October 31, 1893. Shorty after 5 pm, a Miss Virginia Robinson, of Bridgeport, Ohio, was heard as she left Stillyard’s office at 36 1/2 11th Street crying, “Oh, he has poisoned me.” The outburst attracted the attention of the firemen from the Hope Engine Fire House across the street.
“She tottered the sidewalk, when she threw up her hands, swayed in an uncertain way for a second and fell prone to the ground. She had just fallen when the doctor himself followed the woman out of the building. He looked as though he had emerged from a slaughter house; his face and clothes were covered and spattered with blood.
“The spectators of this seeming tragedy were for a moment startled by the appearance of the woman, and were more than ever mystified by the gory appearance of Dr. Stillyard. Several ran over to the scene, when an explanation was had from the doctor. The woman, who proved to be Maggie Robinson, a well known character, living in Bridgeport, had entered the office a few minutes before and asked for some medicine to relieve a headache of which she complained she was suffering. Dr. Stillyard was preparing a mixture for this purpose, when the woman suddenly drew a hatchet from under her dress and deliberately struck the physician across the head. Happily the blow was a glancing one, otherwise he would probably have been killed.” [31]
According to the Wheeling Register, “the only thing which in all probability saved the doctor’s life was the fact the hatchet flew off the handle after the first blow.” [32] Dr. Stillyard suffered a cut on the right side of his head, approximately two to three inches long, which bled profusely. The firemen from the Engine House ran to his aid and called the police. Robinson was said to have passed out, suffering from “a fit with which she is often afflicted” following the attack. She was just rousing to consciousness when the police arrived to take her into custody and issue a warrant for charges of murderous assault.
In an interview with an Intelligencer reporter the day following the attack, November 1, 1893, Dr. Stillyard gave the following account:
“I was sitting in my office smoking, behind the curtains that are drawn across the front part. The door at the front was open. A woman, dressed plainly, came in and asked me for a dose of medicine for a headache. I went over to a stand to prepare the medicine; the woman followed me and stood not a foot away while I was preparing the dose, and while in this position I gave directions for using it. I then bent over to wrap the stuff up. Then it was that she drew a hatchet from under her dress and struck me a terrible blow on the right side of the head. Up to this time she had not said a word. The hatchet only struck me a glancing blow, and slipped out of the woman’s hand. After she had hit she commenced to holler and yell, and said, ‘he has poisoned me’… Then she ran out to the sidewalk and fell in a fit… She was an utter stranger; I don’t remember having seen her before, and know of no reason for her murder attempt except that she is afflicted with fits. She undoubtedly had one when this this happened.” [33]
When examined that same day by Justice R. H. Gillepsy, Robinson claimed she was carrying the axe out of fear that on her way she would run into a man named Blackberry Dixon, who had “annoyed” her several times. When asked why she hit the doctor she could give no reason, and said the only thing she remembered was that she struck him, and thought he had poisoned her. Robinson was arraigned, January 4, 1894, in criminal court on charges of felonious assault with the Intelligencer noting that “it appeared that she did not understand the situation.” [34] On January 11, she was sentenced to eight months in jail and a $100 fine. [35]
A Devoted Mason and More…
Beyond his practice as a physician, Dr. Stillyard remained active in local and national politics and civic engagement throughout his life. He was a committed Mason, earning the highest degrees of the Order. He first joined the Masons while in Albany [36], and after moving to Wheeling, became a founder of the West Virginia Black Scottish Rites Order, receiving the 33rd degree, [37] the Grand Master of the Colored Masons for the State of West Virginia [38], and often represented the black organizations at the national level as a delegate or secretary.
He was frequently a committee member of local Emancipation celebrations and in 1915 was one of twelve West Virginia delegates, along with Mrs. William Turner, wife of Wheeling’s first black policeman to be appointed by the governor to the Exhibition and Celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the “Emancipation of the Negro” held in Chicago, Illinois from August 22 through September 16. [39]
In 1912, Dr. Stillyard was elected to a state office as one of West Virginia’s Committeemen at Large, one of three African American delegates to be chosen from around the state to represent West Virginia at the Republican National Convention that year. [40]
“First of the Race”
The following year in 1913, Dr. Stillyard again made an attempt to run for Wheeling City Council. This time he was successful, being elected to the Second Branch representing Wheeling’s 2nd Ward. [41] His election made news nationally in the black media. The 1913 Negro Year Book, for example, noted that Stillyard was one of only seven African American men elected to municipal councils that year. [42] The Cleveland Gazette, a weekly African-American newspaper, noted, “…our oldest and leading physician at Wheeling, W. Va., has been elected a member of that city’s Council. The first of the race there to be so honored.” [43]
Note: Until the author made this discovery while doing research on other subjects, the consensus had been that Clyde Thomas was the first African American to be elected to Wheeling’s City Council, which occurred in 1971. Technically, Mr. Thomas was the first African American member of the non-partisan City-Manager Government set up by the 1917 City Charter, while B.H. Stillyard was the first African American member of Wheeling’s Bicameral Council, which ran from 1863 through 1917. This means that Mr. Thomas was the first African American council representative of the “modern era,” much as Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player to play Major League Baseball in the modern era, while Moses Fleetwood Walker of Mt. Pleasant Ohio played with whites in the major leagues many years before baseball was segregated. In addition to being the first African American member of the non-partisan City-Manager Government form of council, Mr. Thomas was the city’s first African American Vice-Mayor, and notably, no African Americans have been elected to council in the half-century since 1971.
Upon his election, Dr. Stillyard was placed on the City’s Cemeteries and Scales Committee as well as the Wheeling Health Committee. [44] The NAACP’s The Crisis magazine, reported that “During his term as councilman the elimination of the Wheeling Turf Exchange (which allowed the placing of bets in gambling houses) was accomplished and although he was offered bribes to cast his vote for its retention he refused them and cast his vote against its survival. He was at all times devoted to the principles of justice, liberty and equality.” [45]
Scandal and Fall
After his term ended in 1915, Dr. Stillyard’s reputation took an unfortunate and irreparable blow. Dr. Stillyard was one of three black physicians indicted on criminal operation charges within a six month period between December 1915 and May 1916. [46] The other two charged were Dr. E. S. Kennedy [47] and Dr. Newman who had occupied Dr. Kennedy’s offices. [48] All were charged with performing “illegal operations” on young girls. The Intelligencer reported on May 2, 1916:
“The latest with which prosecutor has had to deal with is that of Dr. B. H. Stillyard, colored, in which the doctor is charged with performing an operation upon Miss Gertrude Kemple, beautiful eighteen-year-old white girl, who died at the North Wheeling hospital Sunday evening… Both Miss Kemple and Mr. Lowell (father of the girl’s unborn child) are of prominent families. It is understood that Lowell, in a statement to the police, admitted intimacy with the girl, and said he had often proposed marriage. Being of a proud disposition and somewhat humiliated at her condition, it is understood she desired another course out of the difficulty.” [49]
A Coroner’s inquiry performed on May 5th ruled the cause of the girl’s death to be from blood poisoning “caused by an inflammation of the organs caused by dirty instruments having been used in the performance of a criminal operation.” A Dr. W. C. Etzler had given testimony at police headquarters on the night following Miss Kemple’s death. Dr. Etzler, the testimony showed, had been called to attend to the young girl on Friday, April 14 and Monday, April 17. He stated that he found her suffering from the effects of a criminal operation and that after considerable hesitancy, Kemple had said that it was Dr. Stillyard who had performed the operation. The testimony of Bert Lowell was also read, alleging that Lowell had stayed in an adjoining room at Stillyard’s office while the operation was performed. [50]
Kemple died April 30, 1916, thirteen days after the operation was said to have been administered. Her death certificate states she officially died of “septic peritonitis following criminal abortion.” [51].
Dr. Stillyard was arrested shortly after midnight on the night of Kemple’s death. He maintained that he was “innocent of any offense, and it is understood he claims he doesn’t remember the girl ever having visited his office.” [52] Under great duress, Dr. Stillyard fell ill, collapsing in custody shortly after being charged, and was admitted to Ohio Valley General Hospital before the case could be brought before the criminal court docket on May 3rd. [53] While at OVGH he was under the care of another African American physician, Dr. J. Katherine Pronty. [54] Dr. Stillwell was released to his home and confined to his room under a certificate by the county physician showing that the doctor was in bad shape physically and unfit to stand trial mentally. [55] He died July 17, 1916 before ever going to trial. His death overruled the indictment.[56] Though Stillyard’s death certificate calls the official cause of death nephritis, [57] the Intelligencer claimed the stress of the arrest was the actual cause of death, explaining, “struggling under the load he was forced to bear, never recovered from the blow that had been struck to his character.” [58]
Upon his death, The Crisis reported, “In his death Wheeling has lost one of her best citizens, the church a pillar of support, and the race a strong helper.” [59] The Cleveland Gazette called him “a True Reformer.” [60] And the Intelligencer, while in the same article reporting on the case that brought down his reputation, praised his civic contributions, calling him, “a man of more than usual brilliancy. Being of that class of colored people interested in civic welfare, he did much to have better ordinances passed while he was in council. His voice was oft-times raised in debate when a question of city improvement was involved… His place among the colored population of the city will be hard to fill.” [61]
Dr. Stillyard’s funeral was held next door to his first office on Eoff Street, on July 19th, 1916 at Simpson M.E. Church, where he had been a member and President of its Board of Trustees dating back to 1893. He was buried at Peninsula cemetery with the Masonic Lodge, where he had been a fervent and active lifetime member, in charge of the funeral. [62]
One week later on July 26th, 1916, the Intelligencer reported that his widow, Ada Stillyard, had been elected Supreme Grand Matron of the ladies organization affiliated with the colored Ancient Free and Accepted Masons societies at the national convention held in Pittsburgh. [63] She would follow in her deceased husband’s political and civic footsteps, continuing to be active in the ladies Masons, volunteering with the Wheeling YWCA’s segregated Blue Triangle branch [64], running for State office in 1924 [65], and serving as Clerk for the Receiving Board in Wheeling’s Clay District Precinct No. 3 in 1938 [66].
EPILOGUE
Boswell Henson Stillyard truly was, as the Wheeling Intelligencer noted, “a man of more than usual brilliancy.” By all accounts an excellent physician and the first African American to be elected to city council, Dr. Stillyard deserves to be remembered well by his home city and state. His entry into the Wheeling Hall of Fame should have been self-evidently assured. Instead, more than a century after his death he is a forgotten man, an “unperson.” Research has revealed no further mention of him, ever again, as if he had never existed. Yet, he was a reputable physician and upstanding pillar of the church. The accusation that he used “dirty instruments” to perform an “illegal abortion” just doesn’t add up. We know that Stillyard himself denied any involvement, that Ms. Kemple only accused him after “considerable hesitancy,” and that he never got his day in court as the stress of the accusation essentially killed him. We also find it suspicious that in a city with only six black doctors, three were accused of similar crimes within a six-month window. By 1919, only three black doctors were left in Wheeling, and only one of those was one of the doctors accused of crimes earlier. Were people, in a segregated city dealing with what we now know as systemic racism, pressured into accusing a black doctor (or doctors) to save a white one? We can speculate but it is likely we will never know the truth. The author and the readers must draw their own conclusions. But at least now, thanks to a surprisingly robust yet undoubtedly incomplete archival record, we may consider the accomplishments of this forgotten man in the brightest light that history will allow.
We Need Your Help
If you happen to be a descendant of Dr. Stillyard or know people who have information and photos and are willing to share, please contact us. Our goal is to create and keep as a complete a record as we can of the accomplishments of Dr. Stillyard and other key personalities from Wheeling’s past. And, largely because of the lingering effects of segregation, the history of Wheeling’s black community has been neglected.
End Notes
[1] “Men of the Month: A Useful Physician,” The Crisis, March 1917, pg. 229.
[2] A Historical, Biographical and Statistical Souvenir, Howard University Medical Department, 1900, pg 263.
[3] The Medical Fortnightly, Vol. XVI, No. 2, July 15, 1899, p. 427. Terms: A hydatid is cyst containing watery fluid, formed by and containing tapeworm larva. The chorion is the outermost membrane surrounding an embryo.
[4] Professionalizing Medicine: James Reeves and the Choices That Shaped American Health Care, John M. Harris Jr., 2019.
[5] Wheeling Register, July 15, 1882, Page 2.
[6] Professionalizing Medicine, 2019.
[7] Callin’s Wheeling Directory, years 1884-1916.
[8] Wheeling Register. November 13, 1883, p. 4.
[9] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 12th, 1885, p. 4.
[10] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 20, 1885, p. 4.
[11] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 24, 1885, p. 4.
[12] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 11, 1887, p. 4.
[13] Wheeling Register, February 06, 1888, p. 6.
[14] Wheeling Register, February 07, 1888, p. 4.
[15] Colored Register of Marriages, West Virginia Vital Records Search, wvculture.org/vrr; see also: 1880 United States Federal Census, Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia, Enumeration District 086, p. 34; “A Christian Woman Gone.” Cleveland Gazette, February 11, 1893, p. 1.
[16] “A Black Crime.” The Topeka State Journal, Oct. 21, 1889, p. 1. Online newspaper clipping.
[17] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, March 26, 1888, p. 4.
[18] Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of the United States and Canada, 1890, p. 1706; Annual Report of Illinois State Board of Health, Volume 20, Illinois State Board of Health, 1898; See also Note 2, supra.
[19] “A Christian Woman Gone.” Cleveland Gazette, February 11, 1893, p. 1.
[20] Record of Deaths in the City of Wheeling, 1893. West Virginia Vital Records Search, wvculture.org/vrr.
[21] “A Christian Woman Gone.” Cleveland Gazette, February 11, 1893, p. 1.
[22] Legendary Locals of Wheeling, edited by Sean Duffy and Brent Carney, 2013, p. 25.
[23] Wheeling Register, March 05, 1894, Page 6.
[24] Wheeling Intelligencer, March 7th, 1960, p. 10.
[25] “Dr Baswell Henson Stillyard (1847-1916)” Find a Grave.com.
[26] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 18, 1892, p. 4.
[27] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 18, 1892, p. 5.
[28] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 19, 1892, p. 5.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 18, 1892, p. 4.
[31] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 01, 1893, p. 5.
[32] Wheeling Register. November 1, 1893, p. 6.
[33] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 02, 1893, p. 8.
[34] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 5, 1894, p. 8.
[35] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, January 12, 1894, p. 2.
[36] Cleveland Gazette,September 30, 1916, p. 1.
[37] Cleveland Gazette,February 20, 1886, p. 1.
[38] Spirit Of Jefferson (Charlestown, WV), January 13, 1885, p. 3
[39] History And Report of the Exhibition and Celebration to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation of The Negro. Fraternal Press, Chicago, IL, 1915, p. 55.
[40] Wheeling Intelligencer, June 4, 1912, p. 3.
[41] Wheeling Intelligencer, May 23, 1913, p. 1.
[42] Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro. Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1914, pp.27-28.
[43] Cleveland Gazette, June 14, 1913, p. 3.
[44] Wheeling Intelligencer, May 28, 1913, p.8.
[45] “Men of the Month: A Useful Physician,” The Crisis, March 1917, pg. 229.
[46] “Three Shocking Cases Within A Year.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 2, 1916, p.8.
[47] Wheeling Intelligencer, May 2, 1916, p.14; See also Wheeling Intelligencer, May 3, 1916, p. 5; “In Shocking Statement, Negress Names Dr. E. S. Kennedy as Accessory.” Wheeling Intelligencer, March 11, 1916, p. 6.
[48] “Murder Trial Begins Today.” Wheeling Intelligencer, December 13, 1915, p. 6; See also: “Secure Jury to Try Newman On Charge of Killing Girl.” Wheeling Intelligencer, April 5, 1916, p. 8.
[49] “Three Shocking Cases Within A Year.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 2, 1916, p.8.
[50] “Coroner’s Jury Holds Colored Doctor Responsible For Death.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 6, 1916, p. 5.
[51] Death Certificate, Ohio County, West Virginia, No. 301, 1916. West Virginia Vital Records Search, wvculture.org/vrr.
[52] “Colored Physician and Young Man of Bellaire Facing Serious Charge.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 1, 1916, p. 9.
[53] “Docket Has Been Called By Judge.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 4, 1916, p. 16.; “Dr. Stillyard is Removed to Jail.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 6, 1916, p. 16.
[54] “Death Overrules Indictment Against Dr. B. H. Stillyard.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 17, 1916, p. 10.
[55] “Dr. Stillyard Will Not Be Tried Today.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 22, 1916, p. 16.; “Dr. Stillyard Was Not Arraigned in Criminal.” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 23, 1916, p. 5.
[56] “Death Overrules Indictment Against Dr. B. H. Stillyard.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 17, 1916, p. 10.
[57] Death Certificate, Ohio County, West Virginia, No. 439, 1916. West Virginia Vital Records Search, wvculture.org/vrr.
[57] “Stillyard Funeral.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 19, 1916, p. 12.
[58] “Death Overrules Indictment Against Dr. B. H. Stillyard.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 17, 1916, p. 10.
[59] Men of the Month: A Useful Physician,” The Crisis, March 1917, pg. 229.
[60] Cleveland Gazette, February 20, 1886, p. 1.
[61] “Death Overrules Indictment Against Dr. B. H. Stillyard.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 17, 1916, p. 10.
[62] “Stillyard Funeral.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 19, 1916, p. 12.
[63] “News Briefs.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 26, 1916, p. 12; For association with the church, see: “Corner-Stone Laying.” Wheeling Register, June 22, 1893, p. 5.
[64] “Blue Triangle Holds Conference at Y.W.C.A.” Wheeling Intelligencer, September 29, 1922, p. 16.
[65] “For Member State Executive Committee, First Senatorial District, (Women).” Wheeling Intelligencer, May 10, 1924, p. 11.
[66] “Republican Election Officials.” Wheeling Intelligencer, July 18, 1938, p. 14.
Hello. Dr. Stillyard has a connection with Frederick Douglass.
– John Muller, author of “Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia”