Surgeon, Lawyer, Horse Breeder and Farmer
Note: This article is from a photocopy of an unsourced article found among the papers of Benjamin Franklin Barry.
On the bluff, south of the Nashville Pike where it crosses upper Station Camp Creek, Dr. Redmond D. Barry once lived. This residence, a two story brick, was recently torn down and a brick cottage built on its site. Dr. Barry was a native of Ireland, a descendant of the nobility, and a schoolmate and friend of Gen. Packenham at Dublin University. Through the influence of Charles James Fox, he secured a position as a surgeon in the British Navy, but his sympathies being with the colonies, he resigned, settled in North Carolina, practiced medicine and made a fortune. He then studied law in the office of John Breckenridge (Attorney-General in Jefferson's cabinet) in Louisville, removed to Gallatin, married Jane Alexander, of the Mecklenburg (N.C.) Alexanders, and became a successful lawyer. But he was best known to local fame as the man who brought the first thoroughbred stallion, Gray Medley, and the first bluegrass seed into the country west of the Cumberland Mountains.
Dr. Barry's horse, "Polly Medley" and General Andrew Jackson's "Indian Queen" ran the first race of note in Gallatin, in which Polly Medley won. The grandstand was where the L&N depot now is and the track was between Blythe and Water Streets, running north from the depot.
His reputation as a farmer, race horse breeder and lawyer firmly established, Dr. Barry was not without opportunity to show his skill as a surgeon in this section. Going to Nashville in response t a message brought by a rider whose horse fell dead of exhaustion at his gate, Dr. Barry trepanned the skull of a prominent citizen -- the first time this operation had been performed in Tennessee. None of the Nashville lawyers would attempt it.*
Opie Reid pictured the Barry home in The Tennessee Judge.
*According to The Historic Blue Grass Line, published by the Nashville-Gallatin Interurban Railway, Nashville, Tenn., 1913.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment