My Genealogy Hound

Dr. Randolph Brunson, of Pine Bluff, whose career as a medical practitioner is favorably known, comes from a family of physicians and surgeons. His paternal grandfather was a surgeon in Edinburgh College, Scotland, one of the leading schools of the world. He came to America when a young man, during the Revolutionary War, and served in the army as surgeon. He added to an extensive reputation already enjoyed by a large practice all through the South, and died in Tennessee, a wealthy planter and stock raiser. He had several sons, all medical students, one of whom, Jesse, was the father of the subject of this sketch. He (Jesse) attained his majority and was married in Tennessee, where Randolph was born, in Stewart County, in 1836. In December of the same year the father, an iron manufacturer by occupation, died, and his wife, formerly Louisa Shelby, took charge of the estate, which she managed for several years in a creditable manner and settled to the satisfaction of all. Large mining interests, as well a share of the estate of $200,000, were left by the father of Jesse. Mrs. Brunson was a lovely woman, well-educated and possessed of unusually superior business abilities. She married the second time and lived to a good old age, dying in 1880, having been a strict member of the Episcopal Church. In her family were six sons and three daughters, of whom one son and the daughters are living, all the sons being physicians of note, and having graduated from the leading medical colleges of the United States. Randolph, the subject of this sketch, received his diploma from the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, which he left in 1858, subsequently settling in Arkadelphia. In August of that year he came to Pine Bluff, where he has since resided, becoming the leading physician of the place, as well as one of the oldest settlers. During the late war be served as surgeon, going to Virginia in 1861, whence he was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department, taking a very active part till the strife was ended. Then he returned home and resumed his practice with the attention and energy which have redounded to a well-deserved esteem and honored reputation. In 1860 he married Miss Fannie White, of Pine Bluff, daughter of one of the county early settlers, Drew White. Four children have been given them: Randolph, John W., May (Mrs. Turner), and Atherton, now at school in Virginia. Dr. Brunson has been a delegate to conventions of his State and of the United States, and he and his wife are both members of the Episcopal Church.