OLIVER T. EVERHART

A man of medicine who wanted to be of service to his nation in its darkest hours. OLIVER TROXEL EVERHART A Man of Medicine

        The Everhart family of Manchester, Maryland and its surrounding area goes back to the mid-1750’s when Oliver’s great, great grandfather, Paulus Eberhardt came to the area from Germantown, Pennsylvania and originally from Germany in 1742. The generations of Everharts worked and profited from the farmland over the decades. Oliver’s father was in the merchandize business and served as a Justice of the Peace in Manchester. So Oliver and his brothers received the best schooling available.
        Oliver, born in 1832, was first educated at the Manchester Academy and then at Marshall College in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania starting in October 1851. By April 1853 the Marshall College joined with the Franklin College in Lancaster to form Franklin and Marshall College. Oliver seemed to excel in everything he did in school. He graduated with Salutatory Honors on July 26, 1854. He knew it was medicine he wanted to study and to become a doctor. For that career he entered the University of Maryland in Baltimore City in October 1854. He achieved his goal of a degree of Doctor of Medicine on March 5, 1856. After graduation he settled in Goldsboro, Pennsylvania to start his practice of medicine.
        Over the next few years life was good to Oliver, his practice steadily increased and he fell in love. In the spring of 1859 he married Sarah Kister in Goldsboro. By the March of 1860 a child was born to the young couple, a daughter, Carrie Kate Everhart. Oliver felt he had an ideal world but that image soon dissolved. Within just a couple weeks of the baby’s birth, she developed convulsions. Oliver tried everything in his power as a doctor to save his baby girl but nothing worked. Tiny Carrie was only 21 days old when she died. During the summer months that followed there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in the area. Oliver was kept very busy treating the town’s sick. What he couldn’t prevent was his own wife catching the deadly fever. Sarah died on September 19, 1860 at the age of 23 years.
        Oliver’s perfect world came crashing down onto him. Here he thought being a doctor he could prevent the ills of the world and relieve suffering. But he couldn’t even save the two most primary people in his life over the last six months. Things were soon to change for him and in a permanent way. The storms of a domestic war were about to overboil onto the country.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861 there was a demand for medical doctors and surgeons. He sent letters offering his services to the officials of the Union Army. But it was not until September 16, 1862 before he received a telegram offering him a contract as a physician for three years with the US Army. Now he felt he could truly be of some help with his medical knowledge and serve his country. He first reported to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and then was sent by September 25th to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to serve as an assistant surgeon. He was under the direction of Dr. J. A. Wolf at the hospital.
Within a couple weeks some of the Confederate Cavalry under the direction of General J. E. B. Stuart, raided Chambersburg. There was the burning of the Cumberland Valley Railroad Depot and the explosion of 500,000 pounds of ammunition by the Rebel forces. They even took control of the Chambersburg hospital where the doctors (including Dr. Oliver Everhart) and patients were taken prisoner. They were soon released as the Confederate Army gathered up horses and supplies to head back across the Potomac River into Virginia. Now Oliver and the other doctors were busier than ever taking care of the additional wounded soldiers that were streaming into the hospital daily. While working long hours dressing wounds and administering to the ill, Oliver contracted a case of chronic diarrhea. But he was needed and he kept working day and night. By October 18th, Oliver and Dr. W. J. Underwood were ordered to Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Within days of his arrival while working under poor conditions, sleeping in a tent and still suffering from the diarrhea, Oliver caught a severe cold. This then produced an inflammation of the spine and over the next few days he found himself unable to move his limbs. His condition was determined to be paraplegia, where he had little or no use of his legs and feet. With no chance of any quick improvement in his health and of no use as a doctor anymore, Oliver was honorably discharged from the US Army on November 1, 1862 in Harrisburg.

        Oliver’s plans of being a lifesaver, a physician and to treat those suffering were gone. He had only been in the military for five weeks.   He was barely able to help a tiny fraction of the many that were wounded in the war’s fighting. Now all he could do was remain bedridden for months.
        He returned to Goldsboro where it took over four months of Oliver remaining in bed before he could move slowly about with the use of a cane and crutch. For a man with such promise, dreams and hope, life seemed to have handed him a severe blow. But with time he made some improvement but was never the strong young man he was in 1861. Oliver did manage to return to his medical practice, remarry and have children in the years to come. He even studied the homoeopathic system of medicine since he had not found much success in treating his own pain with conventional drugs.
        War had not been kind to Oliver; war never is to anyone. But he did carry on in spite of his physical limitations and tried to serve as an example to other veterans that there were things still to be accomplished and goals to be achieved.

Oliver had joys and heartaches in his life but he tried to make the best of his situation. His son, George Shelly Everhart would later become a medical doctor and serve in Hagerstown, MD for decades. Besides the field of medicine, one of his best contributions by O. T. Everhart was the writing of the Everhart family history as of 1883. That history has served as a wonderful source of information for decades to come to the Everhart and related families of Maryland and Pennyslvania. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: Book "Everhart and Shower Families of Manchester, Maryland" by O. T. Everhart, MD,
published in 1883. Federal Government Military Pension Records on O. T. Everhart were also used.

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