Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/439

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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Medicine, whence he was graduated Doctor of Medicine in the class of 1901. For one year he was interne in the Bellevue Hos- pital, New York City, at the end of that time returning Sovith and for two years was connected with the Eye and Ear Infirmary at Richmond. Since 1904 Dr. Willcox has practiced in Petersburg, and in that city is known as a specialist and authority upon the eye, ear, throat and nose. He is popu- lar among his fellows of the medical fra- ternity, enjoys an excellent practice, and holds worthy position among those of his professional l^rethren who devote themselves to those departments in which he has labor- ed and achieved. Dr. Willcox is a communi- cant of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, and holds membership in the Benev- olent and Protective Order of Elks.

Dr. Willcox married, in Richmond. \'ir- ginia, January 2t,, 1907, Blanche Morris Smith, born in Richmond, daughter of George A. and May (Morris) Smith. Her father was a partner in the Smith, Courtney Hardware Company, and died in 1909, her mother having died soon after her birth.

Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr. There is no class of citizens more worthy of the respect and esteem of their fellows than those who labor earnestly to build up commerce and manu- factures, who give employment and labor to, and consequently add to the population of the community, and whose efforts have been instrumental in the upbuilding of the com- mercial prosperity of Virginia and the en- tire south, and a prominent figure in this class is Egbert Giles Leigh. Jr., who was born at "The Glebe," Amelia county, Vir- ginia, September 14, 1851, but has spent most of his life in the city of Richmond.

On all sides he descends from well known old Virginia families, and is closely related by blood to many others. The Leighs emi- grated from England in the seventeenth century, but the destruction of the records of King William county, where the earlier generations lived, and of the valuable rec- ords held by the family in Mississippi, pre- vents more explicit information. John Leigh lived in Prince Edward county, and a com- mission to him, dated 1759. issued as usual by the governor in the name of the reigning king (then George II.) is still preserved. The Claibornes trace to Colonel William Claiborne, secretary of state, member of

council and commander in Indian wars, while the Eppes family goes back to Colonel Francis Eppes, who was a member of the assembly in 1625, and was appointed to the council in 1637. He had large grants of land in 1635, on a portion of which some of his Eppes descendants have lived to the present time. Another ancestral line was that of Isham, which traces to a long English pedi- gree. Other emigrant ancestors were Colo- nel Robert Boiling, member of the house of burgesses; Major John Smith, also a bur- gess ; and John Wayles, a prominent lawyer, large landowner, and the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson. Of the members of these ancestral families, a number rendered im- portant service to the colony. Colonel Wil- liam Claiborne was one of the best known in the Colonial period, and his son William was a colonel in Bacon's rebellion, but not on the popular side. As has been stated, Francis Eppes was a member of council, and his son. Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Eppes, was mortally wounded in 1678, while de- fending the frontier against the Indians. All the later members of the family were in the house of burgesses, and were officers in the militia. John Stith took such an active part in the troubles which led to Bacon's re- bellion that he was disfranchised by Bacon's assembly.

John Townes Leigh, paternal grandfather of Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr., married Rebecca Walker Giles, of the family of the distin- guished William B. Giles. Their son, Eg- bert Giles Leigh, Sr., was born September 4, 1814, died November 27, 1890. He was a planter, and for some years served as clerk of Amelia county, Virginia. He was a cul- tivated gentleman, of strong positive char- acter, yet gentle, withal. He married Cor- nelia W^ayles Thweatt, daughter of Richard Noble and Mary (Eppes) Thweatt, the lat- ter named a daughter of Francis Eppes, of "Eppington," Chesterfield county, Virginia, and sister of John W. Eppes. United States senator from Virginia, who married a daugh- ter of Thomas Jefferson.

Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr., was compelled by the loss of his father's property to leave Richmond College and to secure work as a clerk in a wholesale house at the age of six- teen years. Subsecpiently he became a manu- facturer and coffee importer on his own ac- count, and for a number of years past has been one of the most successful and promi-