Dr. Atkinson Pelham (1797-1880)
Major John Pelham's father, Atkinson Pelham, was born on November 21, 1797 in Maysville, Kentucky. He was the son of Major Charles Pelham and his wife Isabella.
At age 20 he studied at the University of North Carolina and in 1825 he graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. The young doctor began practice in Person County, North Carolina, where the Atkinsons, his mother's family, lived.
Here he met Martha Mumford McGehee, daughter of William McGehee, a neighbor of the Atkinsons. Martha was born on January 13, 1808. She and Atkinson married on December 22, 1833.
Their first two sons, Charles and William, were born in North Carolina. In 1833, William McGehee left North Carolina for Benton County (now Calhoun), Alabama. He urged Atkinson and his family to join him. In the spring of 1838, the Pelhams arrived on the McGehee farm near the hamlet of Alexandria. Dr. Pelham began to build his own home, but Martha, in the later stage of pregnancy, stayed with her parents. On September 7, 1838, John Pelham was born. The Pelhams had five more children: Peter (1840-1924), Eliza (1841-?), Samuel Clay (1845-1870), Thomas Atkinson (1847-1912), and an infant, Richard Henry, who lived but a few days.
In those days doctors, like preachers, rode a circuit and Dr. Pelham was frequently absent from home. As a result the discipline of his rowdy boys fell more often to Martha. Besides being a doctor, Pelham was also a planter, eventually owning three plantations. It was not unusual back then for many to combine two demanding professions.
Dr. Pelham politically was an old Whig and was violently opposed to secession. He even made speeches across the county denouncing it. In 1861 he reluctantly granted John Pelham permission to resign from West Point. His note is revealing:
Alexandria, Alabama In consequences of the troubles & unhappy condition of our country I hereby give my son John Pelham a Cadet of the U.S. Military Academy West Point, New York permission to tender his resignation to the Superintendant or other proper officer of that Institution. A. Pelham |
When secession occurred, however, he supported the Confederacy -- all his sons serving in the Confederate army.
The Pelhams paid a terrible price in the war. Charles, the oldest, was severely wounded in the Atlanta campaign; Peter and William were for a time prisoners of war; John was killed on March 17, 1863; and Samuel contracted tuberculosis in the war, dying at the age of 25 in 1870.
Dr. Pelham was quite innovative. He gave the first smallpox vaccine to his grandson, Samuel Pelham (JPHA member Doug Pelham's father), much to the skepticism of others. Only when Sam did not develop the disease did other doctors in the county use the vaccine. Atkinson spent his last years as a widower, Martha having died in 1876. He remained active, however, and it was while making a house call on a patient that he died on July 7, 1880.
This article first appeared in Volume 3, No. 1 of The Cannoneer.
Sources:
Charles G. Milham, Gallant Pelham: American Extraordinary.
Pelham family tree provided by Katy Pelham.
Letter of J. Douglas Pelham to Peggy Vogtsberger, June 6, 1984.
