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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 26, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 337
CHARLES B. WILLIAMS, M. D. The distinction of Doctor
Williams has been his devotion for more than a quarter
of a century to the practice of medicine in the community
of Philippi. He began practice with a superior education
and training, and has sought opportunities since then to
keep in touch with men of prominence and the growing
knowledge in the profession of medicine and surgery.
Doctor Williams was born at Grafton, Taylor County West
Virginia, October 1, 1872. His father, George Williams,
was a native of Maryland, and his father was a native
of Wales. George Williams died at Grafton in 1874, while
master mechanic in the Grafton Shops of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad. He was twice married. By his first wife he
had two sons and three daughters. The daughters all died
in childhood. The sons were: George, who died at Grafton,
and Chester, who died at Pittsburgh, both leaving families.
The second wife of George Williams was Christina See, a
daughter of Charles See, a farmer in Randolph County,
West Virginia, where Mrs. Williams was born. They were
married in Taylor County, and Doctor Williams was their
only child. The mother of Doctor Williams subsequently
married Moses H. Crouch at Lee Bell, West Virginia, and
died at the home of her son in Philippi in 1916.
Doctor Williams was only two years of age when his
father died. He attended his first school in Grafton, and
was a pupil of Miss Amanda Abbott, the venerable primary
teacher of Taylor County, who is still active in the service
of the schools at Grafton. When Doctor Williams was
seven years of age his mother removed to Lee Bell, Randolph
County, and he lived there until he went away to college,
completing his work in the public schools. Later he became
a student in the Augusta Military Academy at Fort Defi-
ance, Virginia, and in June, 1895, graduated from the
University of Virginia Medical School at Charlottesville.
Immediately after completing his medical course Doctor
Williams located at Philippi, and with only brief interrup-
tions has been steadily engaged in his private practice in
that city ever since. During 1911 he was absent for a time
taking work in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School
in New York City, and the following year he did post-
graduate work in the University of Maryland at Baltimore.
Outside his private practice he has served several terms as
county health officer and is now city health officer and
county health officer. He is also Baltimore & Ohio Railway
surgeon at Philippi, and is a member of the County, State
and American Medical associations and of the Baltimore and
Ohio Surgeons Association.
During 1918 Doctor Williams was commissioned as Cap-
tain in the Medical Corps, and for six months was on duty
at Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, until discharged there Decem-
ber 24, 1918. He is a charter member of Barbour County
Post No. 44 of the American Legion. Doctor Williams
is a republican, and voted at all the national elections since
casting his first vote for Major McKinley. He took his
Masonic degree in Bigelow Lodge No. 52, A. F. & A. M.,
at Philippi, has filled all the chairs in that lodge and been
representative to the Grand Lodge, and is a member of
Tygart Valley Chapter No. 39, B. A. M. He and Mrs.
Williams are Presbyterians, and Mrs. Williams took a con-
siderable part in the work of the local Red Cross Chapter
during the war.
At Philippi June 30, 1898, Doctor Williams married Miss
Annie Bosworth. Her father was the venerable Doctor J. W.
Bosworth, who is still living at Philippi at the age of eighty-
five, a pioneer physician of the city and also a former Con-
federate soldier. Doctor Bosworth married Mattie Dold,
of Waynesboro, Virginia, and Mrs. Williams is her only
child. Mrs. Williams finished her education in the Mary
Baldwin Seminary at Staunton, Virginia, and married soon
after leaving that school. Doctor and Mrs. Williams have
one son, George Woodbridge, who finished his preparatory
education in Broaddus College at Philippi, and is now a
student in the Augusta Military Academy at Fort Defiance,
Virginia.
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