GED4WEB version 4.41 Spiers Jesse Baugh [Male] b. 22 AUG 1817 Prince George Co, Virginia, USA - d. 11 JAN 1892 Salem Meth. Ch., Prince George Co, Virginia
Jesse Baugh Spiers, the third son of Jesse and Susannah Brown Spiers, was
born on August 22, 1817 in Prince George County, Virginia.
In 1838, he became a school teacher. In 1845, he was ordained as a minister
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1848, he became a medical doctor with a diploma from Petersburg Medical College, Petersburg, Virginia. He furthered his medical knowledge in 1854 with a diploma from the Metropolation Medical School, City of New York. He, also, was a surveyer and farmer.
Jesse B. Spiers married his first cousin Jane Frances Spiers on April 7,
1841. The wedding took place at the home of the bride's father.
Jane Frances and Jesse Baugh Spiers were the most distinguished members of the Spiers Family, descended from Henry Spiers, the Pioneer Scotsman, to the date of 1892.
When Dr. Jesse B. Spiers was fifty-five years old, he wrote an autobiography
which included some of his sermons and poems. Many of his descendants have copies. References and information throughout this genealogy are taken from this autobiography.
From Dr. Jesse Baugh Spiers' autobiography:
"I was born August 22nd, 1817, Prince George County, Virginia. Of my mother I recollect but little as I was between five and six years of age at her death. I was now, after my mother's death, entrusted to my father's care, and in a short time to a stepmother's care; my father having married gain in less than one year from my mother's death.
My father Jesse Spiers was born in Prince George County, Virginia on
February 10, 1785. He was married to Miss Susannah B. Brown on February 6,1810 and bought a plantation within one mile of where she was raised and lived there during the remainder of life. My mother died a happy death in the winter of 1822-23, leaving four children, all boys, myself the third living son, then being about five and a half years of age.
I became a member of the M.E. Church at the age of fourteen. I atended neighborhood schools until it was considered unnecessary for me to attend them longer. I then left school and was employed on a farm until I was nineteen years of age, and then I made known to my father that I wished to attend school again and he veryreadily afforded me the necessary assistance. So that in the year 1837 I entered a grammar school in Sussex County. I then returned home on the farm one more year 1838. Again the years 1839-1840, I attended a classical school, Boy's School of Leasburg, North Carolina where I engaged in studies of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and some English branches of study.
In the year of 1841 and 1842 I took charge of a school at Tabernacle Church. On the 7th of April 1841 I was united in matrimony to Jane Frances Spiers, my first cousin. I then lived on a farm, near Tabernacle Church, which my father had given me.
In the year 1845 in August a camp meeting was held at Bethelem Church of Sussex Circuit. Brother J.W. White was preacher in charge and Reverend J. Eaerly presiding elder. At a Quarterly Meeting Conference, held at this camp meeting, I was licensed as a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. This was the last camp meeting ever held in this section of the country up to the present time 1872.
Some two or three years before I was licensed to preach, my father who had been class leader for twenty years or more, gave up the class books to the preacher in charge and requested him to relieve him and, without saying a word to me on the subject, announced to the congregation that Brother J.B. Sppiers was their class leader. This position I occupied until after I was licensed to preach.
Towards the end of this year (1846) I changed my place of residence to another near Oak Grove Church. Our Church membership was then changed to Oak Grove also. After several years our membership was removed from Oak Grove on Sussex Circuit to Popular Spring Church on Dinwiddie Circuit. My principal work as a local minister was in the bounds of Dinwiddie Circuit.
About the time that I moved to this place of residence (1846) the Legislature of Virginia granted a charter to a Medical College to be located in Petersburg, Virginia, about nine miles from my residence. I attended through the week, staying at home Saturday and Sunday nights until March 1848 when the proper authority of the Medical College gave me a Medical Diploma. I then in a short time offered services to the public as a medical practitioner and continued to practice regularly until near the close of 1863, when a severe attack of sickness put an end to my physical ability to render a country practice. In the year 1854 I was granted another Medical Diploma by a Medical Institution in the City of New York.
My oldest son Thomas Adam Spiers died at nearly eleven years of age in the year 1853.
In the years 1854, 55, & 56, I kept a school at my place of residence for the neighborhood boys and girls. I still practiced medicine to some extent during that time.
My wife's father was taken sick and died in January 1864. After the death of my wife's father I removed to the place on which he had lived for forty years or more. I removed here in March 1864.
My church membership and that of my family was then removed to Salem Church in Prince George County but on Sussex Circuit."
Dr. Jesse B. Spiers died January 11, 1892. His burial was the first in Salem Church Cemetery. (Note by Elizabeth Spiers Brown).
Compiler's note: The illness Dr. Jesse referred to was blood poisoning from the sap of pine trees. He was cutting suckers from a stand of pine trees when he noticed his hand was covered with a rash and bleeding slightly. He was ill for months.
Jane Frances Spiers was born September 5, 1825 in Prince George County, Virginia. She was the third child of Sally Magee and Adam Spiers, Jr. She and Jesse Baugh were first cousins. Their fathers were brothers.
So far, the Spiers heritage has been English and Scotch, and now the Irish entered the family. Sally Magee was Irish.
Jane Frances inherited the gracious traits of the Irish. She was jolly and good natured with a love of people. She took great pleasure in being of service whenever she could. Her education was average for women of her time.
Jane Frances was married to Jesse Baugh Spiers on April 7, 1841.
She became interested in her husband's work as a doctor and began studying his medical books. With the guidance of Dr. Jesse, she became adept at diagnosing cases. People became so accustomed to her advice they would willingly see her if Dr. Jesse was not available. At an early age she began delivering babies. "During her life time she delivered over 100 babies and lost a very few and those were for good reasons."-J.B.S.
Jane and Frances had an herb garden and made many of their own medicines. Ingredients that they did not have they obtained from the Medical center in Petersburg, Virginia.
Jane and Dr. Jesse had a family of ten children. Only four of these children married. Jane died on February 21, 1907 in Smithfield, North Carolina at the home of her youngest son Joseph Dwight Spiers.
OBITUARY TAKEN FROM NEWSPAPER 1892
Dr. Jesse Baugh Spiers
Was removed from the natural to the spiritual world on the 11th of January 1892 at Talpa, Prince George County, Virginia in the 75th year of his age.
Dr. Spiers was a graduate of the Randolph Macon College, Virginia (this was a mistake - it was the Boy's School, Leasburg, North Carolina), and was a member of the Methodist Church, into the ministry of which he was ordained when quite young; and shortly after he entered the medical profession, graduating first from the Petersburg, Virginia Medical College, and afterwards receiving a diploma from a Medical School in New York.
He was a man of great kindness and benevolence, of the strictest integrity, self-denying in the extreme, beloved by all who knew him. Most of the people where he lived and practiced were poor, and he would prefer to lose a bill for services rather than push any of his patients for payment or put them in the least inconvenience. He therefore lived and died poor in this world's goods, but affluent in heavenly graces, rich in those imperishable treasures which constitute a man's true greatness and glory. Of a family of ten children, five survive to cherish and honor his memory, and to rejoice in the assurance of his entrance into the society of the blessed.
WILL OF JESSE BAUGH SPIERS, MAY 17, 1888
I, Jesse B. Spiers of Prince George County, Virginia do make and ordain my last will as follows:
I leave in the hands of Thomas P. Howard a parcel of land containing 52 acres more or less lying north of the land all ready held by the said Thomas P. Howard for the benefit of Florence H. Spiers and bounded East by the land of George E. Wilkerson and West by the land of J.R. Spiers and Merry Branch, and the said parcel of land to be used for the benefit of said Florence H. Spiers as the said Thomas P. Howard may think best during her life and the said land to go to the children of James A. Spiers and Florence H. Spiers, his wife.
All the balance of my property of any kind I leave in the hands of my wife, Jane F. Spiers to manage as she thinks best and I give to her the power to sell land or any other property belonging to my estate and to use the proceeds as she may think best for her benefit and benefit of her children.
I appoint said Jane F. Spiers executrix to this will without being required to give security.
Witness my signature this 17th day of May 1888, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight.
WILL FILED FOR THE PROBATE MARCH 10, 1892
At a county court held for
Dr Jesse Ba ugh Spiers was a Doctor among other things, see his other things in the book. Mary Clarke Kennette had his Dr's bag so she gave it to the Virginia Historical Society and they put it in their museum. I have a little brass tea pot that has been welded in many places, in fact the tea spout is welded on backward. It belonged to his wife Aunt Jane, and she was a midwife. When ever she went to help with a baby she took the tea kettle and it kept her feet warm on the way over, and then when she got there she had a cup of tea. It's no good but the story is true, and the tea kettle has a lot of history.
When Daddy got ready to retire they had no way to tell how many hours he worked or his salary. His time was a lot before 1935. So I took his time books, which all Railroad people kept, down to the Railroad Retirement, a Mr Staples, and I sat and read them all day and he copied down the time and his pay. He said it was the most interesting day he had spent at that job. He said it read like a book. Mother had his time in there and extra notes, like all the babies, deaths, sicknesses and all the Christmas presents and how much they cost, anything she thought was important went into the time books also.
Nancy and Tom are going to take them over to the Railroad Museum, because I think they should be somewhere that they keep a record of such things, but Tom Sr is busy getting ready to be Potentate of the Shriners in the year 2012 and Nancy is right along working with him. One day they will get there.
Here is one Frances Phillips wrote about her Mother Florence, does anyone know who it was they buried.?
Mom said she was about eight years old. the year would have been about 1912. Someone in the neighborhood died. I assume Mom must have been in Stony Creek visiting since the person was to be buried at Salem Church. This person had been ill for years and had a curved spine. When he died, he was washed by relatives dressed in his best clothes and put in his coffin. Since he had a curved spine he was tied down in his coffin so that he was lying flat. In those days, deceased persons were placed in the parlor and watched over by family members until the funeral. Mom was very impressed by this process. It was in the summer Mom remembered her dress sticking to her legs from the heat. The whole community came to the funeral. The children were instructed to be on their best behavior. The Salem Church was full. The church part of the funeral was about half over with, when the gentleman in the coffin sat up - his rope had either come untied or broke. Mom said the church emptied through doors and windows. No one wanted to go back in to take care of replacing him in his coffin. Eventually he was buried. I am sure this was the talk of the neighborhood for years. You never know when you will make an impression on someone. Mom never forgot this incident. signed Fran Phillips
This HTML database was produced by a registered copy of GED4WEB version 4.41
Copyright 2017 Kevin Spiers