DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just passing it along the road to you. Robert Henry Harrison, M.D. Born November 13, 1826, in Georgia.
The son of a doctor, which means medicine was probably in the air before he ever picked up a textbook. He earned his medical degree in Ohio in 1846, and from there life took him in several directions at once. He married Martha V.
Towell in 1856. He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army. And then, in 1869, he packed up his family and came to Columbus, Texas.
Right here. He set up a home on this very site and opened a doctor's office on the town square, which is exactly what a man like this does when he rolls into a new town. He does not wait.
He gets to work. And work he did. Harrison became a founding member and president of The State Medical Association.
He helped establish Texas' Board of Health. He wrote, extensively, as a medical journalist, putting ideas into print for the whole profession to reckon with. Then in 1880 he built a hospital in Columbus, specifically for railway employees.
Just to make sure nobody missed the point about what kind of man he was. Robert Henry Harrison died October 17, 1905, leaving behind a town square that still carries the shape of what he built, and a legacy the marker sums up simply: civic leadership, and volunteer medical service. Some legacies need a lot of words.
His just needed the work.
What the marker says
(November 13, 1826 - October 17, 1905) A Georgia native and a doctor's son, Robert Henry Harrison received his medical degree in Ohio in 1846. He married Martha V. Towell in 1856, then served as a colonel in the Confederate Army. He moved to Columbus with his family in 1869, lived in a home at this site, and opened a doctor's office on the town square. He was a founding member and president of The State Medical Association, helped establish Texas' Board of Health, and was a prolific medical journalist. He built a hospital in Columbus in 1880 for railway employees. He left a legacy of civic leadership and volunteer medical service.