Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/574

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

medical practice and in a few years, by hard work, he had regained the losses incident to the war. He often said the hardest work he ever did was in 1865 and 1866, for during the four years of w^ar the surgeons of the Southern army had been deprived of most of the knowledge concerning medical progress through their inability to obtain the medical journals devoted to the subjects of deepest interest to them. He had. how^ever, gained a wide knowledge of surgery, and he soon decided to specialize in that branch, a branch that had hitherto been neglected in Norfolk. He began by giving special atten- tion to plastic surgery and gynecology, and w^as the pioneer physician in Norfolk to specialize in these branches. He continued in his practice in Norfolk until his death in 1910, and it was noteworthy that some of the most successful and most difficult oper- ations in surgery were performed by him after passing his seventieth year. He was a great surgeon and was recognized as such by the profession. He was a lifelong mem- ber of the Norfolk Medical Society, and sev- eral times its president ; w'as an ex-presi- dent and honorary fellow of the Virginia Medical Society ; vice-president of the Medi- cal Examining Board of Virginia ; member of the American Medical Association ; American Public Health Association ; an ex- president of the Norfolk Board of Health ; president of the Board of Quarantine Com- missions, Elizabeth River District ; visiting ])hysician and surgeon to St. A^incent's Hos- pital and Norfolk Protestant Hospital ; medical examiner for the Equitable and other life insurance companies, and was always a voluminous writer upon medical and surgical subjects. He was greatly hon- ored by his professional brethren, and on June 16, 1902, was the guest of honor at a dinner given by the faculty of the Univer- sity of Virginia on the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation.

Dr. Nash married, in February, 1867, Mary A., daughter of Nicholas Wilson and Elizabeth (Boush) Parker, of Norfolk. Mrs. Nash was a granddaughter of Copeland Parker, long an officer of the United States customs, appointed by Thomas Jefiferson. Colonel Josiah Parker, a brother of Copeland Parker, was an officer of the Virginia line dur- ing the revolution, and the first member of Congress from his district under the Con- stitution. The Parkers were a prominent

family of Isle of Wight county, Virginia, the ancestor coming from England. Chil- dren of Dr. Herbert Milton and Mary A. (Parker) Nash: i. Elizabeth, born in 1874; married (first) Edwin G. Lee, M. D., and had issue : Margaret Page and Herbert Nash ; married (second) J. N. W^illis. 2. Mary Louisa, born in 1876; married, in 1910, Edward Brockenbrough, of Norfolk, son of John Mercer Brockenbrough.

Edwin Alonzo Barber. The Barber fam- ily of New York, whence sprang Edwin Alonzo Barber, is descendant from Thomas Barber, who came from England in the ship "Christian" in 1635, ^^ ^^^ ^S^ of twenty-one years, settling in Massachusetts. He served in the Pequot war. and after the Indians were subdued settled in Connecticut, the forbear of numerous descendants.

Edwnn Alonzo Barber w^as born in Lyons, Wayne county, New^ York, December 28, 1840. but removed w^ith his father and sister to Chatham. Virginia, when a youth. He died at his home in Richmond, Virginia. March 5. 1910, being only son of Gaylord Samuel and Asenath (Hinckley) Barber, and grandson of Samuel and Thankful (Lewis) Barber, all of New York state.

Edwin A. Barber probably inherited his most marked characteristics from his mother. She w^as of a serious, earnest nature, a stanch Presbyterian, strong in her convictions, and lived what she believed. She died young, when Edwnn A. was but four years of age, leaving besides, an only daughter, Maria Hinckley Barber, who died in Richmond, Virginia, Alarch 19, 1912, hav- ing never married.

Edwin A. Barber received an unusually varied education at home and abroad, pecu- liarly fitting him for the responsible and important appointments to which he w^as early assigned. In 1859 he w^as appointed deputy clerk of the circuit court of Pittsyl- vania county, which office he acceptably filled until April, 1861, when he enlisted in the Confederate army, and left with the Chatham Grays for Richmond, being mus- tered into active service April 26, 186 r, as lieutenant of Company A, Fifty-third Regi- ment. At the time of his death he was a member of the R. E. Lee and Pickett Camps, Confederate Veterans.

After the war closed, Mr. Barber w-as appointed auditor of the Piedmont Railroad,