Person: Floyd Forney Farnsworth

Birthday: 2 April 1869
Birthplace: Trubie's Hun, WV.
Mother: Martha Jane (Currence) Zickafoce
Father: Franklin Leonard Farnsworth
Sex: male

He graduated with M.D. from Maryland Medical College in 1904 and postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins Univ., Bellevue Hospital, Tulane Univ., Rush Medical College and Mayo Bros. Clinic. He served in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army in WW I. He was considered among the most highly skilled physicians and surgeons of his area. Farnsworth Memorial II, 2d Edition of the Farnsworth Memorial publ. 1897 by Moses Franklin Farnsworth. Revised 1974 by R. Glen Nye

FARNSWORTH. Floyd F., (1869-1925) was born at Buckhannon, a son of Frank L. and Martha (Currence) Farnsworth, the former of whom enlisted in the Confederate army, and was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department. Participating in some of the thickest of the fighting of his division, he was seven times wounded, but each time recovered and returned to his regiment. Following the war he went back to Buckhannon and worked as a carpenter, and later became a contractor, continuing active until his death, in 1925. Not only did he have a venturesome life in the army, but prior to that he had been one of those who braved the dangers of the overland trip to California when gold was discovered in 1849. His father, Thomas Farnsworth, was one of six brothers who migrated from Staten Island, New York, to what is now Buckhannon in 1820, and they were among the very earliest settlers of whet was later to become West Virginia. The family traces back from Thomas through Daniel to Thomas, and Thomas was a son of Thomas, and grandson of Thomas, a Quaker, who came to the American colonies with William Penn in 1681 and acquired a large tract of land in New Jersey, known as Bordertown. Thomas Farnsworth belonged to the English family of the name of Farnsworth, 50 called because of the fern-covered moor where the family settled early in England's history. Dr. Floyd Farnsworth had in his possession a copy of a legal proceeding of 1681, in which one of his ancestors was tried for not taking off his hat to the King as he passed by, and fined. (He was a Quaker, whose religious belief forbade his removing his hat to an earthly ruler). The mother of Dr. Farnsworth was born and reared in Randolph County and attended its public schools.

First attending local schools Dr. Farnsworth continued his education in the Normal and Classical Academy of Buckhannon, and later was graduated from Buckhannon Union College, now Wesleyan College, in 1897. For the succeeding ten years he was engaged in teaching school, rising to be principal, and still later superintendent of Buckhannon pubIic schools. His medical education was received in the Maryland Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1904, did post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins University, Bellevue Hospital, Tulane University, Rush Medical College and the Mayo Brothers Clinic. In 1904 Dr. Farnsworth began the practice of medicine at French Creek, Upshur County, and continued there for fourteen years, or until he went into the Medical Corps of the United States army for the World war, and put in charge of the second draft examinations in West Virginia, in Charleston. On February 25, 1919, he was commissioned P. A. Surgeon, U. S. P. H. S., and detailed to serve with the West Virginia Department of Health. From that date until his resignation in 1922 he continued chief of the Bureau of Venereal Diseases. At the time of his resignation he moved to Milton, and once more engaged in a private practice. He was elected to the House of Delegates in 1913 to represent Upshur County, and while a member of that body he was chairman of the committee on medicine and sanitation, and wrote and secured the passage of the bill creating the State Department of Health He was appointed a member of the State Public Health Council by Governor Hatfield. A man of many talents, he was also an author, and his The Man on Horseback is a graphic description of West Virginia life. His Doctor Terrell Investigates is both amusing and instructive. He married Miss Lasora Martin, of Buckhannon. Mrs. Farnsworth was a daughter of 0. W. and Louisa (Stansbury) Martin. of Buckhannon. See sup. vol. 10-11 , p. 129; sup. vol. 14, p. 78.


Single card report created by Gene 4.2, Fri, Aug 1, 1997