J.W. Poindexter

A Virginian born in 1814, James West Poindexter was from Louisa County and attended the 1832-1833 session, studying Chemistry, Medicine, and Anatomy & Surgery.¹ In a letter dated February 1, 1833, Poindexter complained about his food and lodging while being a student at the University of Virginia, “I look forward to the time when I shall have finished here for it is a disagreeable place, We are under strict regulations and our fare is intolerable, We get very little to eat and that is of the most indifferent character, I am sure that it will excite your sympathy when I tell you that I have just eaten my small piece of sour bread and drunk my cup of coffee or more properly slops which is all I shall get tonight. We live in rooms scarcely large enough to contain a bed, table, and chair, We have to get up in the morning by day and eat breakfast by candlelight.”² According to an article in the Botanico-Medical Recorder, Poindexter received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania.³ However, the University of Pennsylvania does not list him as one of their medical graduates.⁴ Instead, he was awarded his medical degree by the University of Maryland the same year, 1834, as another fee bill signer, James Lawrence Cabell.⁵ Poindexter’s medical school thesis was on inflammation.⁶

In early 1838 Dr. Poindexter wrote a letter to the editor of the Botanico-Medical Recorder indicating that he had recently been convinced of the superiority of the Botanic System over the regular or allopathic medical system of the day which included blood-letting and the use of calomel. He concluded, “I have as much practice as I can possibly attend to, and there is every prospect of its increasing, for I have had the offer of about twenty families in this place, besides a number in the county.”⁷ Six years later Poindexter wrote that in the prior month he had attended 54 cases without losing a patient and his practice was increasing daily.⁸ The next year he stated he had successfully treated 14 typhoid fever cases in Charlottesville.⁹

In the same issue of the Recorder as Poindexter declared his triumph over typhoid fever is an example of the discord which sometimes arose between practitioners. Dr. John Hughes, a future fee bill signer and once Poindexter’s medical partner, was under attack in the Recorder for abandoning the botanic system. He then accused Dr. Poindexter of using calomel and the lancet, treatments forbidden for a botanic practitioner.¹⁰ However, as late as 1856 Poindexter was still writing about the need for changing the use of calomel and bloodletting.¹¹

Dr. Poindexter was one of six on an editorial committee in 1846 that sought to publish a monthly titled, Southern Friend of Temperance.¹² In 1853 Poindexter again wrote a letter that has been recorded, this time in support of a pardon for John S. Mosby who shot George Turpin. Stating that he had been the family physician for Mosby’s father for twelve years, Dr. Poindexter described the imprisoned Mosby as being “delicate” and “predisposed to pulmonary disease.”¹³

Poindexter married Mary Wayt on September 2, 1834, abut half a year after his medical school graduation and moved in with Mary’s father who owned a house at the current site of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society building.¹⁴  At the time of the 1850 census, he had two sons and two daughters living in the house as well as his father-in-law, brother-in-law, and possibly his mother.¹⁵ He was the owner of five slaves.¹⁶ Dr. Poindexter’s grave marker shows another son was born in 1859, and the 1870 census indicates his still-multigenerational household included his wife, as well as one of his daughters, a son-in-law who was listed as a retired druggist at the age of 35, and their four children. His real estate was valued in 1870 at $6,000 and his personal value at $500.¹⁷ Poindexter died in 1878, three years after his wife.¹⁸

1. University of Virginia, Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia (1832-1833). [↩]
2. Charles Ellis, “The Student Diary of Charles Ellis, Jr., March 10-June 25, 1835,” edited by Ronald B. Head, The Magazine of Albemarle County History 34-36 (1977-1978): 94. [↩]
3. “A letter from a friend in Va.,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 13, no. 6 (1845): 98. [↩]
4. University of Pennsylvania, General Catalogue of the Medical Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: The Medical Faculty of the University, 1845), 61. [↩]
5. Robley Dunglison, An Address, Delivered to the Graduates in Medicine, at the Annual Commencement of the University of Maryland, On Wednesday, March 19th, 1834, Baltimore: William Wooddy, 1834, 23. [↩]
6. Robley Dunglison, An Address, Delivered to the Graduates in Medicine, at the Annual Commencement of the University of Maryland, On Wednesday, March 19th, 1834, Baltimore: William Wooddy, 1834, 23. [↩]
7. J. W. Poindexter, “To the Editor,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 7, no. 11 (February 23, 1839): 172. [↩]
8. J. W. Poindexter, “Success of the B.M. Practice, by a converted M.D.,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 12, no. 10 (March 23, 1844): 146. [↩]
9. J. W. Poindexter, “Consumption Cured – Tetanus,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 13, no. 12 (April 26, 1845): 188. [↩]
10. “Dr. John C. Hughes,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 13, no. 12 (April 26, 1845): 196. [↩]
11. James O. Breeden, “Thomasonianism in Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 82, no. 2 (April 1974): 159, footnote. [↩]
12. “Prospectus of the Southern Friend of Temperance,” Botanico-Medical Recorder 14, no. 18 (August 15, 1846): 283. [↩]
13. William M.E. Rachal, “Petitions Concerning the Pardon of John S. Mosby in 1853,” Papers of the Albemarle County Historical Society 9 (1948-1949): 18. [↩]
14. Sara Morrow, “Archaeology in Charlottesville: The Historic Residents of Lot 8 Rediscovered,” Magazine of Albemarle County History 71 (2013): 130. [↩]
15. Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia (Bridgewater, Va.: C.J. Carrier Co., [1956?]), 341; U.S. Census: Albemarle, Virginia, 1850, accessed 29 March 2011. [↩]
16. Slave Schedule, 1850, Federal Census, Albemarle, Virginia (Charlottesville), accessed 23 March 2011. [↩]
17. U.S. Census: Albemarle, Virginia, 1870. [↩]
18. Woods, 406. [↩]