James Alexander Templeton (Charter Member)

I want to state, at the very threshold, that this sketch is far from complete. In fact, I had second
thoughts about presenting it to the Lodge tonight. While there is a lot of information available
about this man, much of it is mere filler material and has nothing to contribute to the
framework of his life. I have been doing historical and genealogical research and writing for
almost 40 years, and this person is one of the hardest that I have ever worked on. He is the
1800s version of Jason Bourne.

James Alexander Templeton was born on October 5, 1827 to Alexander and Nancy Dunlap
Templeton. The exact location of his birth is unknown. Based on census records it is thought to
be in Augusta County, Virginia or Rockbridge County, Virginia. However, it is possible that he
was born in Rush County, Indiana. His parents were married in Augusta County, VA on
November 25, 1824 and their first child, a son named Henry, was born in the village of Henry,
which is in Rush County.

On October 5, he married Margaret Jane Johnston in Pocahontas County, then in Virginia, but
now in West Virginia. She was the daughter of Andrew Davis Johnston and wife Esther. She was
born on October 13,1829 in Greenbrier County, also then in Virginia but now in West Virginia.

The couple was living in Montgomery County, Virginia in 1849. Records show that their first
child, a daughter named Mary, was born there on the 16th of April. In June of 1850 the family
was living in the 2nd Enumeration District of Augusta County, Virginia. James is listed as a
merchant in this record.

At some point between June of 1850 and 1860 Brother Templeton decided to make a career
change. Whether his mercantile fell on hard times or he just found that owning a store did not
suit him,I do not know. It could have been that he realized a profound calling that urged him to
make a change. Either way, he opted to receive medical training and became a physician. After
months of strenuous research, I have yet to find exactly when or where he received this
training. There were but 99 medical colleges in America at that time, and he could have
attended any of a dozen or so of them.

What I am about to present is merely a theory. It is an educated guess based on experience and
the documentation that I have found regarding this particular period of Brother Templeton’s
life. While living in Montgomery County, VA in 1850, most likely in the small village of Deerfield,
there was a 35 year old physician named Silas A. Mccutchen living 13 houses away. While I
could find scant information on this man, he was very likely just the country doctor that was
known to many in those days. The record does show that he was a politically astute man,
however, and he was elected as the delegate of his community to the hearings on secession at
Richmond in the Spring of 1861.

The reader can guess that this young doctor was likely a charismatic man, and living so closely
to our subject, probably served as a great influence over him. I suspect that he swayed the
bright, young Brother Templeton toward a career in medicine. I theorize that after Dr.
Mccutchen had sparked James’ interest in medicine in 1850, possibly causing him to pursue a
study of the profession under his tutelage. I suspect that sometime in the second half of 1850
he began his two years of study, which was the custom in those days, under Dr. Mccutchen’s
watchful eye. One could expect that James` wife began corresponding to her parents about the
news.

By November of 1851, Margaret had become pregnant once again. The couple would have
realized this pregnancy by January of 1852. Knowing that her husband would have to go away
to attend a medical school soon, she again wrote to her parents, likely nervous about living on
her own in a small frontier town with a small child in the home and another on the way. I
suspect it was at this point that her father suggested that the couple move west and take up
residence with them.

Returning to the known records, we find his in-laws living in Lewisburg, Greenbrier County,in 1850, a mere hour and a half away from Deerfield by current routes, but likely a day’s travel in 1850. This fact is noteworthy, because their home was three doors down from the Lewisburg Hotel on Washington Street. Living in that hotel in August of 1850 was a 32 year old physician named George Van De Linde, an immigrant from France. It is easy to surmise that Andrew Johnston, a
fairly wealthy farmer, not only knew this young doctor due to their close proximity, but had struck a relationship on the topic of James’ study of medicine.

This relationshipwould have contributedto 1825. his urging the couple to move to Lewisburg as
it would allow James to further his studies under Dr. Van De Linde for a period before going off
to school., and allow Margaret to remain safe, under the roof of her parents while he was away.
The record seems to lend credence to this idea, because their second child, Howard was born
there on July 12, 1852. Upon completing this period of study, James left his wife and two
children at the home of his in-laws while he went away to a medical college for the next two u
fl years. While it is impossible to know exactly which school he attended, I believe I can narrow
the list down to a few.

My first inclination is that he attended the University of Virginia Richmond, VA. This was the
preeminent medical school in the Old Dominion at that time. He could have possibly attended
the medical college at Hambden-Sydney, also in Richmond. At that time, this school was in a
great period of growth and would receive a charter from the state as the standalone Medical
College of Virginia on February 25,1854. It is less likely, but still possible, that he received his
education at the Winchester Medical College in Winchester, VA. Least likely, in this writer’s
opinion, is that he attended one of the numerous medical colleges in Philadelphia, PA, which
was the medical hub of the nation in the antebellum period. This is partly because, in this time,
Virginians were as passionate about their home state as modern day Texans are about theirs.

Brother Templeton wasn’t a man of wealth at this age, and likely couldn’t afford any school,
much less the northern schools. His father-in-law, however, was a man of modest wealth. The
1850 census showed him to have an estate valued at $3000. I surmise that Mr. Johnston
encouraged his young son-in-law to pursue medicine, and even offered to pay for his education.
While he did have some wealth, Johnston likely could not have afforded the northern colleges
either, but he likely could afford to send James to one of the Virginia institutions. Therefore it is
reasonable to assume he attended either the University of Virginia or Hambden-Sydney.

As I stated previously,I do not know exactly when Brother Templeton attended school. The
evidence shows that he probably began in the Fall term of 1852 and completed his studies in
the Spring of 1854. This seems to fit the timeline laid out by the known records. In 1855 the
family was living in Greenbrier County. They celebrated the birth of their daughter, Emily, on
October 27th of that year. Lewisburg experienced a huge population growth during the 1850s.
The 1860 census shows that there are now eight physicians and two dentists living in the town.
While Andrew Johnston is still living in the town, two names are noticeably absent; Dr. Van De
Linde, and our Dr. James Templeton. They likely left due to the amount of competition during
the latter half of that decade.

In 1860 the Templeton family was living in BIacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia. That
year’s federal census lists him as a physician and he is living with his wife, two daughters and
son. He owns real estate valued at $3cOO and a personal estate valued at $500. No doubt a
healthy sum for a 32 year old doctor at that time. They were still living in Blacksburg in 1862,
where their son, James Alexander Templeton, Jr., was born that year. It is known that while in
Blacksburg, Dr. Templeton went into practice with a Dr. BIack.

Dr. Harvey Black was a native of Blacksburg, and a grandson of the town’s founder, John BIack. After serving as a hospital steward in the Mexican War, he studied under two local doctors and then attended the University of Virginia in 1848-49, where he earned his medical degree. On August 2, 1861 he was appointed the regimental surgeon of the lst Brigade of the 4th Virginia Infantry. C.S.A., better known as the “Stonewall Brigade.” ln late 1862 he was appointed as the surgeon of the field hospital for 2nd Corps, Army of Northern Virginia where he administered care to the corps’ wounded. It was there on May3,1863 that he assisted Dr. Hunter Holmes MCGuire with the amputation of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s arm. After the war he
returned to Blacksburg and resumed his medical practice. In 1872 he was appointed to the first
Board of Visitors of Virginia Technical Institute, a school that he was elemental in founding. He
later went on to become the first superintendent of the Southwestern State Lunatic Asylum at
Marion, VA.

When Dr. Black left Blacksburg for the war, our Brother Templeton was the only physician left u
in the small town. This may have left him with a sense of duty to his neighbors, and postponed
his volunteering for service in the Confederate Army. However, he was appointed as the
Assistant Surgeon, with the rank of major, of the 22nd Virginia Infantry Regiment on June 3,
1862.

It appears that he may have had some sort of sway in the decision of which unit he was
assigned to, as the 22nd was headquartered near Lewisburg. He may have chosen that
regiment because of the location of their headquarters, which allowed him to remain near his
wife and children for a period of time, or it may have been out of a sense of allegiance to the
men already in that unit. Many of them were from Augusta, Montgomery and Greenbrier
Counties, and they had been involved in heavy combat since the very beginning of the war.

His allegiance to this unit may have been swayed by the Battle of Lewisburg, which had only
occurred a few weeks earlier on May 23rd. This had been a decisive victory for an inferior Union
force against a much larger Confederate force. The Union Army had occupied the town of
Lewisburg, of which the majority of residents were Confederate sympathizers, since May llth,
when the two companies of Confederate infantry were driven out of the town. The battle only lasted an hour and a half, and resulted in 30 Confederates killed in action, and 210 wounded or
captured. The Union forces only suffered a total of 93 casualties.

This battle was actually the foundation of the earliest skirmishes that took place around Bristol
and Sullivan County. The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, which ran from Knoxville and through
Bristol, had its terminus near the town of Lewisburg. This railroad served as a major means of
transportation for the Confederate Army in feeding men and material between the western and
eastern portions of the department. Thus the Union forces were determined to destroy it. This
they set about doing at the northern end of the road with the Battle of Lewisburg.

Over the next two years Brother Templeton traveled between Lewisburg and several different stations within Virginia and West Virginia. He was called by Generals Breckenridge and Bragg to
report to wherever the fighting was heaviest, and to assist the surgeon, or establish and manage field hospitals to treat the sick and wounded. On August 31, 1864 he was admitted to the
General Hospital in Harrisonburg, VA. On September 7th he requested transfer to White Sulpher Springs, VA, and by October 12, 1864 he was transferred to the reserve forces, due to ill health, and sent to his home in Lewisburg.

On January 23, 1865 he was ordered back to active duty and assigned as the Surgeon of the Confederate Hospital and Dublin Depot, VA. This had been a major hub of Confederate activity throughout the war, but Union forces had destroyed the town during a major battle in May of 1864. One Union soldier reported that they were ordered to burn everything that they could not carry away. It was said the fire in the town burned so bright that it could be seen as far away as Radford. The actual depot was burned so badly that it could never be used again, and a boxcar served in its stead until a new building was erected in 1866. It remained a consolidation point for sick and wounded Confederate soldiers, however. Major Templeton would serve here until the close of the war in April.

After the war, Brother Templeton collected his small family and moved back to BIacksburg. The records again find the family there when their daughter Nanny Esther was born on October 9, 1866. It would seem, however, that his former partner, Dr. Black had found a protege in his hospital steward from the war. The reader can surmise that he was more interested in helping the young man initiate his career in medicine than he was in rekindling his partnership with Dr. Templeton.

By 1868 the family had relocated to Bristol, a town he had possibly traveled to in an official
capacity during the war. His move to our town is evidenced by an advertisement in the Bristol
News on September llth. Brother Templeton had partnered with Dr. Carter to treat the local
population with all manners of illness, but especially cancers and diseases of the eyes. They
kept their offices in the Lancaster Building.

By all accounts it seems that Brother Templeton was met with almost instant success in
Reconstruction era Bristol. It is said that he was equally at ease discussing worldly events with
the more sophisticated types that filtered through the growing town and with the old farmer
who had traveled to town to sell his crops. His recent service to the Confederacy no doubt
bolstered his image with the townsfolk, the majority of whom had supported the Cause for the
duration of the war.

On October 24, 1871 the City Council set up the first welfare system in Bristol, VA. Dr.
Templeton was retained as the physician to treat the needy at $1.25 per visit. This venture
likely kept him busy as there were many people stricken poor by the late unpleasantness that
had recently ended. He was likely already a Master Mason by the time that he arrived here, but
the research has yet to uncover where and when he was raised. He was made a member of
Shelby Lodge soon after arriving here, though.

On November 14 and 16,1871 a land auction was held, selling a portion of the John G. King farm.
This was the first expansion southward, further into Tennessee that the town had seen. Brother
Templeton bought lots 210 and 211 for a total of $250. The area now contains the streets south of
present Shelby Street from near the present Pennsylvania Avenue westward to about the present Volunteer Parkway, and extending southward to about the present day confluence of Ashe, 6th and 7th Streets. This writer does not know exactly where these lots were situated, but does suspect that they were at southwest corner of Broad and 7th Streets, where the current Hyde and Associates Insurance building sits. I suspect Brother Templeton built his family’s home there, but the majority of these lots were empty on the June,1897 Sanborn Fire Map. A modest home sat on a portion of the southernmost lot on this map. I hope to search deed records soon, and include more detail when this writing is finalized.

When historian and author V.N. “Bud” Phillips came to Bristol in the 1953, there were many old
residents of the town that could still remember most of the early Bristolians. several of them
relayed to Bud that our subject had a reputation as being an expert water taster. When a
citizen was digging a new well, the good doctor was often summoned to apply his test to the
water. If he declared the sample “too tasty,” the well was sank deeper until the water was
approved by our Brother. For this service he charged 50 cents. This earned him the monicker,
“Tasty” Jim Templeton. It was told, however, that he despised this nickname and few would use
it in his presence.

Tasty Jim was on the executive committee of the Presbyterian Female School when founded in
1872. The old Temperance Hall was moved to the back Of the lot and a contract was made with
John M. Crowell to build a two story brick building on the property, to be completed by
November 1872 at a cost of $2300.00. This was the actual building that King Lodge was formed
in and met in for many years to follow. The original Temperance Hall became a home, and was
still standing when Bud Phillips arrived in Bristol in the 1950s.

BrotherTempleton was also the contracted physician forsullins college for many years, beginning at its founding in 1869. He was chosen, “because it was thought that he was least likely to conduct undue examinations of the girls or to seek too familiar a closeness with them.” When the great smallpox pandemic came to Bristol-Goodson in 1872, Dr. Templeton was placed in charge of the Tennessee cases and a Dr. Whitten in charge of the Virginia cases. Quick action by these two gentlemen, in setting up separate hospitals outside of the town boundaries for quarantining patients, likely saved many lives and dramatically shortened the outbreak to only a few months.

Often referred to as “saintly” due to his strong Presbyterian faith, Dr. Templeton prayed with
his patients as often as offering them medical treatment. He treated people even though he
knew they could not pay for his services. He went above and beyond his duties by sitting up
long hours with the sick, allowing the family to rest, and even staying after a patient had died to
assist with funeral arrangements. He occasionally even paid for the funeral arrangements of the
indigent. Even after spending a good sum of his own money treating the town’s indegent, he
still quickly rose to become one the Bristol’s most wealthy citizens of the time, and by April 1,
1871 he had set up a medical practice in the elite King Block of Front Street.

ln June of 1874, when King Lodge was founded under dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, he was named the Worshipful Master by his brethren. He was officially elected and installed in this position when the Grand Lodge granted the charter to this institution on November 9, 1874. He was honored to be re-elected in December of 1875, and yet again in December of 1876. Although the records from this period of time are lost, we can imagine that he was a wise, accommodating, and courteous leader. With this stately gentleman at the helm, he and the other plank holders set King Lodge up for 150 years of success in Freemasonry.

He and other doctors founded the Bristol Academy of Medicine in 1875, which later became the Bristol Medical Society. Nearly all of the local physicians were a part of this
organization. They met monthly in the home or office of one of the members, and each month a doctor was assigned to write an essay for presentation at the
next meeting. If he failed to do so, he was fined $2.00. They established a sort o f”rules for
practice” which set rates and establish methods of practice for the group. The group also
served as a lobbying body to local governments to create a better environment for the practice
of medicine in the area. They held an annual address where a group of doctors presented a
thesis that they had collaborated on during the previous year. Unfortunately ,the society was
disbanded by 1894.

InJanuary,1876 he brought Dr. J. A. Murphy into his medical practice. Dr. Murphy had long been
a physician in Sullivan County, and was said to be an expert in the treatment of skin cancers.
The record shows that people came from far and wide to seek his remedies. Of course Dr. Murphy also became a member of the medical society a swell. At this same time, Dr. Templeton
was contracted by his Masonic Brother, W.P. Brewer to serve as Medical Advisor in his life insurance venture under the Life lnsurance Company of Virginia. Brother Brewer was the
General Agent for the counties of Washington, Scott, Lee, Wise, Russell, Buchanan, Tazwelland
Smyth.

There is but scant evidence of Brother Templeton after 1876. A February,1877 Staunton, VA
newspaper mentions that he is traveling through the area and staying in the American Hotel at
that time. The 1880 census shows Margaret, James, Jr. and Nannie living in Bristol, but no
mention of Dr. Templeton. A thorough search of the census records of that year have yet to
turn up any evidence as to where he may have been at this time. The writer suspects that he
was traveling.

The last definitive evidence we have of him in Bristol is from a Bristol News article of May 24, 1881, which tells of the family entertaining a crowded house the previous evening. It is here that James Templeton simply vanishes from the record entirely. I have searched every source that is readily available to me, yet I have been unable to find a single scrap telling me of his last days.

We know that his wife, Margaret, died in Navarro County, Texas on July 15, 1886 and is buried in the Dresden Cemetery there. This writer believes she was Visiting her daughter, Emilie, who had moved there with her husband, Robert M. Tadlock, in 1883. It is not known whether James was there at this time, though. Emilie died there just over two years later on December 1,1888. She is interred near her mother in the Dresden Cemetery. 

Cemetery records show that Brother Templeton died on December 12, 1887. It is supposed that he met his demise somewhere near Summersville, WV, as he is interred in the Methodist Episcopal Church south cemetery there. I have yet to uncover any record that states when he arrived there, why he was there, or what his cause of death was. All that is known is that he is there now. But his descendents and Brothers can take some solace in the fact that it was said that there was not a more beloved and respected Figure 8 James Alexander Tempieton’s grave
Citizen during his stay in Bristol.

Article by Bro. Shane Bouton