Author: Dr.
Amos D. Wood
Many of my forebears settled on the land that became
Floyd County. The Wood’s manuscript has provided missing links in my
family tree. Interesting sidelights appear with each family sketch, and a
desire to visit Floyd County is always present.
Dr. Amos D. Wood acquired a voluminous collection. He
was a prodigious researcher—questionnaires were sent out and returned to
him—some filled with family names, dates and traditional stories. As Mrs.
Eula Willis Carter once wrote him, “There’s the story of three brothers
again!”
Individual family members did not always agree on an
identical name for a relative. Therefore the reader may find ambiguous and
repetitious information. As editor of an eighteen month duration, I was
unable to authenticate what Dr. Wood assembled over a ten-year period.
Neither was there an attempt to revise his material [except where these
brackets are evident], or it is so stated. Time did not permit the actual
rechecking of each family’s genealogical data.
Miss Marguerite Tise, a native of Floyd, was the best
co-worker one could ask for. She knew a great number of families, facts
and faces. She retyped the manuscript from an often confusing network of
editorial changes and addenda. I am deeply grateful for her expertise in
genealogical research.
The editorial difficulties were magnified by the fact
that when Dr. Wood revised a page, it was retained but not dated.
Perhaps Floyd County: A HISTORY of ITS PEOPLE and
PLACES will prove genealogically useful in future generations. I
welcome corrections and addenda. The original manuscript and material not
included for publication will be filed at a later date by the New River
Historical Society at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum, Newbern VAA
24126.
Many of my forebears settled on the land that became
Floyd County. The Wood’s manuscript has provided missing links in my
family tree. Interesting sidelights appear with each family sketch, and a
desire to visit Floyd County is always present.
Dr. Amos D. Wood acquired a voluminous collection. He
was a prodigious researcher—questionnaires were sent out and returned to
him—some filled with family names, dates and traditional stories. As Mrs.
Eula Willis Carter once wrote him, “There’s the story of three brothers
again!”
Individual family members did not always agree on an
identical name for a relative. Therefore the reader may find ambiguous and
repetitious information. As editor of an eighteen month duration, I was
unable to authenticate what Dr. Wood assembled over a ten-year period.
Neither was there an attempt to revise his material [except where these
brackets are evident], or it is so stated. Time did not permit the actual
rechecking of each family’s genealogical data.
Miss Marguerite Tise, a native of Floyd, was the best
co-worker one could ask for. She knew a great number of families, facts
and faces. She retyped the manuscript from an often confusing network of
editorial changes and addenda. I am deeply grateful for her expertise in
genealogical research.
The editorial difficulties were magnified by the fact
that when Dr. Wood revised a page, it was retained but not dated.
Perhaps Floyd County: A HISTORY of ITS PEOPLE and
PLACES will prove genealogically useful in future generations. I
welcome corrections and addenda. The original manuscript and material not
included for publication will be filed at a later date by the New River
Historical Society at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum, Newbern VAA
24126.
Dr. Amos DeRussia Wood, doctor of medicine, author
and businessman as born at Floyd, Viriginia on May 16, 1869, the son of
Richard J. and Judith Anne (Shortt) Wood. He is a descendent of
Scots-Irish, English and German ancestry who settled that part of
Virginia, now Floyd County, prior to our war for independence with
England.
In his early years he worked on his father’s farm and
attended the public schools of the district where it was his assigned duty
to keep heat in the one-room school by attending the fire in the potbelly
stove. One of his humorous stories from these early years was that he won
a spelling competition when his opponent was asked to spell “bucket.”
There happened to be a bucket by the stove which was used to hold
firewood. This bucket apparently had a trade name of “RAT,” since R-A-T
was pained on the side of the bucket, so the opponent answered the inquiry
by saying R-A-T—BUCKETT.
Dr. Wood later attended Floyd and Oxford Academies.
The headmaster of the Oxford Academy was the Rev. John K. Harris, long a
distinguished preacher and educator in Floyd.
Following his graduation from the oxford Academy he
taught school in Floyd County. He was inspired by the country physicians
who called to see the sick throughout the county so he began preparing
himself to enter the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore,
Maryland, now the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He graduated
from this institution with a degree in medicine in 1893.
