**Let the Ancestor Speak: The Jail Museum, 50 Doctors, and the Medical Rabbit Hole (Part 3)**
- Feb 27
- 3 min read
(Posted February 27, 2026)
On another trip to Sandersville, Brenda and I stopped by the Old Jail Museum and Genealogy Research Center, housed in the historic Washington County Jail—built in 1868 and used until 1974 (https://wacohistorical.org/the-genealogy-research-center-and-old-jail-museum/). The staff there are always kind and helpful.
I actually found a relative of mine in their files! A small thrill—proof my family had ties to the area—but it was on my mom’s side, so it didn’t connect to Brenda. Still, it was a little win in the genealogy game.
While there, something from my earlier Washington County census study kept nagging at me (again, from original records—the indexing is atrocious). When I ran pivot tables on the 1850 and 1860 population schedules, one number jumped out: **50 doctors** listed in the county.
Fifty. In a small rural area.
For comparison, in Hardin County, Tennessee (where my Reed line lived), there was usually just one or two doctors across the entire county in the same era. Why so many in Washington County? It felt like an anomaly begging for explanation.
My mind immediately went to J. Marion Sims, the controversial “father of gynecology” who performed experimental surgeries on enslaved women in Alabama in the 1840s without anesthesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims). If that kind of medical history happened nearby, could something similar have been going on in Georgia? I went down that horrible rabbit hole.
Then there’s Grandison Harris, the enslaved man (later employed) who became a grave robber for the Georgia College of Medicine in Augusta, supplying “fresh bodies” for surgical practice well into the 20th century (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-grandison-harris-grave-robber-enslaved-and-then-employed-georgia-college-medicine-180951344/). The medical history of the region is dark and complicated.
Back to our story: Sylvey Turner was a midwife. Could there have been a medical connection—doctors, midwives, training, or some kind of network? I asked the museum ladies. They were sweet but firm: no. That answer didn’t sit right.
They pointed out that William Rawlings purchased the Julia Hotel in 1901 and converted it into a sanitarium. Around 1906 he established a school to train nurses. The first true hospital in Washington County, Washington County Hospital, wasn’t established until 1949 (https://wacohistorical.org/the-genealogy-research-center-and-old-jail-museum/). That timeline doesn’t explain the 50 doctors in 1850 and 1860—way too many for the population and era.
I did a whole study on those doctors (you can find it on my blog if you’re curious). I followed almost all of them to Jefferson Medical College in Pennsylvania, the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, or even overseas in Europe and South Carolina Medical College. They weren’t just calling themselves “doctor” without training—not as much formal education as today, but these men were trained. The numbers remain a mystery—excessive, intriguing, and probably tied to something deeper in the county’s past.
The search continues, and the questions keep piling up. Some lead to dead ends, some open new rabbit holes, and every trip to Sandersville adds another layer.
If you’ve ever chased an anomaly in census data (too many doctors? too few farmers? something that just doesn’t add up?), drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear your stories.
More soon. The ancestors are still talking… and they seem to have a thing for medical mysteries.
Lana Reed
@ltas411
Let the Ancestor Speak
**Citations for further reading**
- Old Jail Museum and Genealogy Research Center: https://wacohistorical.org/the-genealogy-research-center-and-old-jail-museum/
- J. Marion Sims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims
- Grandison Harris: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-grandison-harris-grave-robber-enslaved-and-then-employed-georgia-college-medicine-180951344/
Let me know if you'd like any further tweaks!
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