Thomas
Fanning Wood (1841-1892)
by William R. Burk, 2006
Couch Biology Library, Botany Section
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Thomas Fanning Wood, born February 23, 1841, in Wilmington, North
Carolina, was the son of Robert Barclay and Mary Ann (Wilber)
Wood. Young Wood attended several local schools. While at the
Odd Fellows School from 1850 to 1857, later called Mr. McGinney's,
he first studied scientific disciplines, including botany (Wood,
1914). Thomas Wood claimed that in his botany class he “learned
very little, [and] didn't gain a high opinion” of the discipline
of botany. Although Wood's introduction to botany was not very
favorable, he later devoted much of his spare time to its study,
publishing several articles on the flora of the Wilmington region.
Wood's early years were spent studying
in various settings. At age 17, he entered the office of Dr. James
Fergus McRee Jr. as a regular medical student. He taught at the
school of Thomas H. Williams in 1858. He then worked in an office
for Eli W. Hall, a lawyer, followed by a stint under the tutelage
of Dr. William George Thomas. By 1860, he was a clerk for Eli
W. Hall again, but he was also keeping a new drugstore that had
been established by Louis B. Erambert. Wood enjoyed working in
the store, where he could read and learn about drugs.
When the American Civil War commenced,
Wood joined the Wilmington Rifle Guards, which later became one
of several companies of the Eighteenth Regiment, North Carolina
Infantry (Koonce, 2000). He joined the regiment in 1861, and he
became a surgeon's assistant in Richmond, Virginia. He entered
the Medical College there about October 1862. In January 1863,
Wood received an invitation from the Surgeon General of the Army
to appear before the Board of Medical Examiners in Richmond during
February. After a successful examination, he served as an assistant
surgeon at the rank of captain in the 3rd North Carolina Infantry,
Army of Northern Virginia.
After the war ended, Wood devoted a lifetime
to medical practice in his hometown of Wilmington. With fellow
physician Moses De Rosset III, he co-founded in 1878 the North
Carolina Medical Journal, a “Monthly Journal of Medicine
and Surgery, published in Wilmington, N.C.” He was founder
of the North Carolina State Board of Health, holding offices of
secretary and executive officer from 1878 to 1892. He was a member
of the American Medical Association, the American Public Health
Association (vice president, 1891), and the Medical Society of
North Carolina (secretary, about 1868-1871; president, 1882).
Interested in medical and scientific literature and in book collecting,
Wood was an active member of the Library Association of Wilmington,
in which he served as president at the time of his death.
About 1867, Wood earnestly began studies
in botany, becoming particularly knowledgeable about the diverse
flora of the New Hanover County, North Carolina, region. Among
his botanical correspondents were William Marriott Canby, Moses
Ashley Curtis, Allen Hiram Curtiss, Job Bicknell Ellis, Gerald
McCarthy, Francis Peyre Porcher, Henry William Ravenel, and George
Vasey. Of his forty-eight botanical publications, the best known
was Wilmington Flora, which was published in the Journal of the
Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society (Wood & McCarthy, 1886).
It was a revision of the 1835 publication by Dr. Moses Ashley
Curtis (1835), his botanical mentor, and it listed additional
species, updated names, and expanded distributional stations.
Also included was a folded map of the area covered.
Serving as chairman of the section on botany
of the Historical and Scientific Society of Wilmington, Wood presented
several papers at its meetings. Among those known are “North
Carolina as a Field for the Naturalist” (Wood, 1881), “The
Insectivorous Plants Growing Around Wilmington” (Wood, 1882),
“The Edible and Poisonous Fungi” (Wood, 1928), and
“Biographical Sketch of Moses A. Curtis, D.D.” (also
read before the Mitchell Society on May 23, 1885 ([Wood, 1885]).
He reissued Dr. Curtis's (1835) description of the Venus' flytrap
(Wood, [1887]) along with a new commentary on its distribution.
A copy of this rare pamphlet is held in the North Carolina Collection
at UNC-Chapel Hill. Wood's botanical expertise provided an appropriate
background for his position on the Committee for the Revision
of the Pharmacopeia, to which he was elected to serve ten-year
terms first in 1880 and then in 1890. He was a charter member
of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society. He served as its president
from 1885 to 1887, and while ill-health kept him from meeting
with society officers, “in various ways he [gave] assistance
and encouragement” (Anonymous, 1887). One biographer (Anonymous,
1892a) noted that Wood had developed a herbarium and a collection
of botany books; however, the fate of his herbarium is unknown
(Stafleu & Cowan, 1988).
Thomas Fanning Wood died on August 22,
1892, at age fifty-one in his home at the corner of Second and
Chestnut Streets, now the site of the New Hanover County Public
Library (Anonymous, 1892b,; 1892c). The medical community commemorated
his professional and social contributions with biographical memorials,
and UNC professor Joseph A. Holmes gave an outline (unpublished)
of Wood's valued life before the December 6, 1892, meeting of
the Mitchell Society. Wood was survived by his wife, Mary Kennedy
(Sprunt) Wood, whom he had married in Wilmington on November 17,
1875 (Anonymous, 1875) and his five children, Edward Jenner, Thomas
Fanning, John Hunter, Jane Dalziel, and Margaret. Internment took
place at the Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington. Further insight into
Wood's life has been recorded in publications by his biographers
(Burk, 2006; Cooper, 1928; Koonce, 2000; Magruder, 1996). Several
archival collections also house relevant papers on Wood (LHR,
NCSA, and UNC-W).
REFERENCES
Anonymous. 1875. Married. Wood—Sprunt.
The Morning Star (Wilmington, NC) 17(52): [1], Tuesday, November
23, 1875.
Anonymous. 1887. [President of the Society]. Journal of the Elisha
Mitchell Scientific Society 4: 7.
Anonymous. 1892a. Dr. Thomas Fanning Wood. North Carolina Medical
Journal 30: 168-175.
Anonymous. 1892b. A good man gone. The death of Dr. Thomas Fanning
Wood—Brief sketch of this able physician and influential
citizen. Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, NC), Tuesday, August
23, 1892, p. [4].
Anonymous. 1892c. Funeral of the lamented Dr. Wood. Wilmington
Messenger (Wilmington, NC), Wednesday, August 24, 1892, p. [4].
Burk, William R. 2006. Thomas Fanning Wood (1841-1892) and his
botanical contributions. Huntia 12(2): 113-148.
Cooper, George M. 1928. The Woods—father and son. Thomas
Fanning Wood, M.D. Edward Jenner Wood, M.D., S.B. (D.T.M. London).
Southern Medicine and Surgery 90: [787]-794.
Curtis, Moses Ashley. 1835. Art. VIII—Enumeration of plants
growing spontaneously around Wilmington, North Carolina, with
remarks on some new and obscure species. (Communicated, September
3, 1834). Boston Journal of Natural History 1(2): 82-141.
Koonce, D. B. (editor). 2000. Doctor to the Front; The recollections
of confederate surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood 1861-1865. (Voices
of the Civil War). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. xxvi,
252 pp.
LHR. Local History Room, Wood Family Clippings, etc., Bill Reaves
Collection, New Hanover County Public Library, North Carolina
Room, Wilmington, North Carolina.
Magruder, Nathaniel F. 1996. Wood, Thomas Fanning, pp. 261-262.
in William S. Powell (editor), Dictionary of North Carolina Biography,
vol. 6. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
NCSA. North Carolina State Archives, Dr. Thomas Fanning Wood Papers,
Private Collection #1346, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Stafleu, Frans A. & Richard S. Cowan. 1988. Thomas Fanning
Wood, p. 441. in Taxonomic Literature; A selective guide to botanical
publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types,
2nd edition, vol. 7. Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema, Utrecht/Antwerpen,
dr. W. Junk b.v., Publishers, The Hague/Boston.
UNC-W. University of North Carolina, Wilmington, Wood Family Papers.
#172, Randall Library Special Collections.
Wood, Thomas F. 1881. North Carolina as a field for the naturalist.
At Home and Abroad 1: [145]-151, [217]-224, [289]-291.
Wood, Thomas F. 1882. Insectivorous plants of the Wilmington regions.—:read
by:—Dr. Thos. F. Wood. At Home and Abroad 3: 416-423.
Wood, Thomas F. 1885. A sketch of the botanical work of the Rev.
Moses Ashley Curtis, D.D. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific
Society 2: 9-31.
Wood, Thomas F. [1887]. Interesting Description of the Venus Fly
Trap, an Insectivorous or Flesh Eating Plant. Found Near Wilmington,
N.C. [no publisher given, no place given]. [3] pp. (North Carolina
Collection, Louis Round Wilson Library, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill).
Wood, Thomas F. 1914. T. F. Wood. Some
Recollections of His Life, written by Dr. Thomas F. Wood. Copied
by his daughter Maggie H. Wood, 18th August 1914, Wilmington,
N.C. 218 pp. June - July 1914. Typescript based on a three-volume
manuscript. (Original manuscript and typescript version are in
the Wood Family Papers, Special Collections, #172, William Madison
Randall Library, University of North Carolina, Wilmington). (see
typescript version, pp. 16, 19 & 48).
[Wood, Thomas F.]. 1928. Autobiographical
sketch of Thomas Fanning Wood. (written in 1892). Southern Medicine
and Surgery 30: 794-795
Wood, Thomas F. & Gerald McCarthy.
1886. Wilmington Flora: A list of plants growing about Wilmington,
N. C. with date of flowering, with a map of New Hanover County.
Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 3: [77]-141
& folded map.
