The Age, Volume 31, Number 1, January 2009 Page: 1 of 2

                                
THE AGE
Established at Houston, May 15, 1871 by
Daniel L. McGary. Moved to Wallisville
March 15, 1897. Discontinued in 1908.
Reestablished by the Wallisville Heritage
Park, December 1, 1979. $1.68 per paper;
$20.00 for one-year subscription.
Wallisville Heritage Park
Post Office Box 16
Wallisville, Texas 77597
Early Doctors Of
Chambers County
Biographical Profiles of the
Early .Pioneer Physicians and
Doctors of Chambers County ,
Texas
By Kevin Ladd
[Continued from
October 2008]
The following profiles will continue
with more of the early physicians who
practiced in Chambers County during
the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
centuries.
DR. GEORGE L. MORGAN
One of the more beloved and
colorful physicians was Dr. George
Lincoln Morgan (1868-1954). He was
born on June 5, 1868 in Somerset,
Kentucky, a son of William Lewis and
Susan (Doss) Morgan. His parents
were fairly well off and encouraged
the young man to pursue a career in
the ministry, but Morgan had different
ideas. He first headed to Texas when
he was 20 years old and worked as a
carpenter, contractor and farmer in
Velasco. Even then Morgan was
thinking of becoming a doctor. He
made such an impression on Dr.
William Van Stewart, a practicing
physician of that town, that he gave
the younger man many of his own
medical books and later assisted him
with finances as he pursued his
degree.
Morgan eventually made his way to
Colmesneil, a small community near
Woodville, where he went to work at
the local sawmill. This was an
opportune move for he soon fell in
love with Lucy Gardner. Her father
Jabez owned the sawmill. When
George asked for her hand in
marriage, Mr. Gardner gave his
blessing to the wedding but only with
the stipulation that the young man
would enroll in a medical school as
soon as it was financially feasible.
A sawmill accident prompted Jabez
Gardner to sell or give away his mill,
and they relocated to the Polecat
Ridge or Eminence community. The
young Morgan couple came along
and lived near Lake Charlotte. They
latei lived in several different houses
in the Hankamer and Turtle Bayou
area. They built an impressive two-
story house near Hankamer in 1923,
where they lived the rest of their lives.
Morgan’s daughter, the late Ruth
Morgan Biggs, said her parents
struggled during the next few years.
Lucy taught one-room schools in the
Hankamer area. One of these
schools was located near what would
later be the home of Adolph
Hankamer. Another school stood
near what would be the home of
Lawrence Otter. Morgan eventually
completed his medical training and
graduated from Memphis Medical
College in 1899. He first had an office
at Turtle Bayou first but later built an
office on Highway 61 near Hankamer.
This office stood directly across the
road from his house. Ruth Biggs said
her father would sometimes conduct
operations by candlelight on some
family dining table, with her or one of
the other children assisting.
One of the great tragedies of Dr.
and Mrs. Morgan’s lives came with the
death of their only son, Carter Doss,
who was born on August 3, 1909.
When he was ten years old, Carter
stepped on a rusty nail, and the
wound seemed to have healed. But
an infection set in and the young
fellow's condition soon worsened. In
later years, a tetanus shot would have
saved his life, but those shots were
not readily available in 1919. Dr.
Morgan rushed his son to Beaumont,
but he died there on December 5,
1919.
One interesting side note: The late
Judge Josh B. Mayes said he one
time stepped on a nail and his parents
called on Dr. Morgan to treat him.
The experience brought back his own
son’s injury, and Dr. Morgan tearfully
recalled the child’s death and his own
regrets that he could not save him.
George and Lucy Morgan also had
five daughters: Lousie (pronounced
as “:_ucy”), was born in 1896 and later
married Fred Cooper; Sueilen, bom in
1897, who later married George Virgil
Holt; Georgie, born 1900, who later
married John N. Koenig; Ruth, born in
1903, who married Morgan Biggs; and
Quida Lue, born in 1911, who was
married to Ford Williams.
Dr. Morgan cared for patients at
Galveston after the 1900 hurricane,
where typhoid was a great concern.
He also cared for many patients at
Wallisville and other points in
Chambers County after the 1915
hurricane.
One of the other important points
on Dr. Morgan was that he was one of
the first men in the county to
purchase an automobile. “And it was
quite a sensation,” Morgan told one
reporter. “People forgot their ills to
study this new-fangled method of
transportation. Gay Tufts, the editor
of the Anahuac newspaper, one time
said Morgan took his car across on
the Turtle bayou ferry. When the ferry
reached the other side, Morgan went
to the front, gave the car a crank, and
was then thrown from the ferry when
the crank spun back the other
direction.
He retired when he reached his
eightieth birthday. His wife Lucy died
in 1943, one day after their fiftieth
wedding anniversary. He died in
1954 at the age of 86 years. They are
both buried in the Anahuac Cemetery.
DR. AMON ROBERT SHEARER
There were few doctors who ever
located in Mont Belvieu, but one of
the most popular physicians of the
area was Dr. Amon Robert (Dr. Amie)
Shearer. He was born on December
8, 1871 in Ames, Iowa, a son of John
M. and Orrilla (Hipsher) Shearer. His
mother was a school teacher and
handled much of his early education.
He graduated from a school in
Franklin Township in Iowa and
afterward lived with one of his uncles
in Lufkin for a couple of years.
The young man, however, aspired
to be a doctor. He moved here to
Chambers County in 1895, settling
first at Wallisville.
An article in the Baytown Sun by
Ed Tillery provides some interesting
background on his early years: “He
was encouraged in the ambition to
become a doctor by his uncle, the late
Dr. Thomas W. Shearer of Wallisville,
in whose home the young man lived
while earning money to finance his
education.
“It was while working as farm hand,
laborer and organizer for the Wood-
men of the World, and accompanying
his uncle on missions of mercy that
he met, and later married the former
Miss Olive Wallis of Wallisville.”
Shearer was married to Miss Olive
Blanche Wallis, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Hansel Robert Wallis on June 8,
1898. The wedding ceremony was
held in the 1895 Methodist church
house in Wallisville and was the first
such ceremony conducted in that
particular building. The popularity of
the young couple and their families
made it one of the social events of
that year.
Prior to his wedding, Shearer had
attended the University of Texas
Medical School at Galveston,
traveling back and forth on a two-
masted schooner called the “Mer-
maid." His life suddenly became
much busier after he was graduated
on May 14, 1898. He started his
medical practice at Mont Belvieu,
soon after the marriage tock place.
He hung out his shingle at his office
on June 17 and immediately went to
work.
Ed Tillery wrote:    “Dr. Shearer’s
medical career was launched the first
day after establishing his office in
Mont Belvieu. He remembers the
case clearly. A young mar with a
racking cough and high fever came to
Dr. Shearer for assistance, was
diagnosed, and prescribed a medicine
compound by the doctor.
“The fee collected for that first
dosage amounted to four quarters,
and the new doctor was in business.”
Shearer delivered his first baby
three months after starting his
medical practice. Over the course of
what would be some six decades of
service, he would deliver around
2,500 babies. During one memorable
period of 38 hours, Dr. Shearer pre-
sided over the births of four babies, all
at different points in the county.
He initially traveled by horseback
on his mare, Fashion, accompanied
by his favorite hound, Blackpup. “We
covered many miles together and
were subjected to all kinds of
miserable weather,” he said once.
The trio one night traveled from
Mont Belvieu to Wallisville to treat a
patient. It was a cold, icy January
night, and Shearer rode back to the
Old River Lake ferry, arriving there at
10 o’clock that evening. Despite his
efforts to rouse the ferry keeper on
the other side of the lake, he was
forced to spend the night there.
“I built a fire, unsaddled the horse,
and bedded down under my slicker. I
had to get up several times to rekindle
the fire and was awakened other
times by the furious barking of Black-
pup to rout the hogs that had wander-
ed to the fire.”
Shearer purchased his first car in
1914, and he said Fashion was very
jealous about the change in mode of
transportation. As it turned out, how-
ever, he soon had to bring his mare
back into service during winter
months when the roads became too
muddy for vehicle traffic.
Shearer and his cousin, Dr.
Thomas Palmer Shearer, built a
modern clinic at Mont Belvieu in 1934.
The Progress provided the following
details: “ Drs. A. R. and T. P. Shearer
have announced the opening of their
clinic at Mont Belvieu, which is one of
the most modern and well equipped in
Southeast Texas. The clinic is located
at the site of the Shearer office, said
office having been remodeled
throughout with new rooms added.
“New equipment," the paper said,
“includes an X-ray machine with
Fluoroscope and treatment unit, an
Autoclave, a Basal Metabolism
machine, and a rotary compressor
with an ether attachment to be used in
tonsil operations and other treat-
ments. To complete the new clinic,
the floors are completely covered with
bright inlaid linoleum and the windows
have been draped in a cheerful
manner. Ceiling fans and the latest
lighting deflectors have been added.”
Dr. Shearer was an amateur
archeologist, collecting many Indian
and military artifacts. He was also
very interested in bird life, becoming a
member of the Inland Bird-Banding
Association as well as many ornitho-
logical groups. He served for many
years as an official of the Mont
Belvieu Methodist Church and was
also on the board of the Texas
Conference.
He died at Livingston in 1959 at
the age of 86. His wife, Olive,
survived him until her death in 1966.
They are both buried near his parents
in the Methodist Cemetery at Mont
Belvieu.
TO BE CONTINUED