Alexander
Darnes
and Kirby Smith Share
Rare History
A.H.
Darnes and Kirby Smith
were born at the same St.
Augustine home and
spent
a portion of their lives
working side by side. In
1880, Darnes moved to
Jacksonville to practice
medicine. A unique statue
reunites the two men.
On
November 8th, 2004, the
St. Augustine Historical
Society dedicated a
monument
to two of the city’s
favorite sons, Dr.
Alexander H. Darnes and
General
Edmund Kirby Smith. The
men were born and grew up
within the same St.
Augustine
household, although Darnes
was approximately 16 years
younger. Darnes
was
son of black slave Violent
Pinkney who was a servant
in the Smith
household.
..........
Left,
the only known
photograph of Dr.
A.H. Darnes. At
right is Edmund
Kirby
Smith.
(Both
photos are courtesy
of the St. Augustine
Historical
Society.)
In
1855, Darnes left St.
Augustine and headed to
the western frontier to
serve
as valet to Edmund Kirby
Smith, then a captain in
the U.S. Army,
according
to Charles Tingley,
Director for the St.
Augustine Historical
Society
Research
Library. Darnes continued
to serve Smith after Smith
joined the army of
the Confederate States of
America. Tingley says that
Darnes is the only
African American private
servant in either “the
U.S. or Confederate
Armies
to leave an
autobiographical account
of his experiences…”
After
the
war, Darnes left the
service of the Smiths to
attend Lincoln
University.
In 1880, he received a
medical degree from Howard
University and soon
opened
a practice in downtown
Jacksonville. He was the
first Black physician
in
Jacksonville —the second
in Florida — and a highly
respected member of
the local community. In
fact, one Jacksonville
newspaper account at the
time of his1894 death said
more people gathered for
Darnes’ funeral
than
any funeral in the city’s
history.
Kirby
Smith has long been A
Favorite Son
Edmund
Kirby Smith was born in
1824 in St. Augustine
where his father was a
lawyer
and a judge. He graduated
from the U.S. Military
Academy in 1845 and
served
under Generals Zachary
Taylor and Winfield Scott.
He taught math at the
academy and served in the
cavalry on the western
frontier. After
accompanying
the Mexican Boundary
Commission, his botany
reports were published by
the
Smithsonian Institution.
In 1861, Smith resigned
from the U.S. Army to
join the Confederate
forces. Commissioned as a
colonel, he rose to the
rank of general. After the
war he became president of
the Atlantic and
Pacific Telegraph Company,
chancellor of the
University of Nashville
and
professor of mathematics
at the University of the
South at Sewanee. He
died March 28, 1893, the
last surviving full
general of either army.
Edmund
Kirby Smith’s popularity
in Florida is noted by his
selection as one of
the state’s two citizens
chosen for inclusion in
the Capitol building’s
National Statuary Hall in
Washington, D.C. A
Congressional law dating
to
1864 allowed each state to
contribute two statues
featuring a citizen
of
the state “illustrious for
their historic renown or
for distinguished
civic
or military services.” One
of Florida’s selections
for this honor was
Kirby
Smith, and the other was
John Gorrie.
In
1914, a marble statue of
John Gorrie, created by C.
Adrian Pillars, was
given by the state of
Florida. The Kirby Smith
statue, also a Pillars’
work, but in bronze, was
given by the state in
1922. As the Hall
crowded,
Congress allowed the
statues to be dispersed
throughout the Capitol
Building,
and today the Kirby Smith
statue is located in the
Hall of Columns.
Obituary
for
Dr. A.H. Darnes
Reveals Respect of the
City’s Citizens
Excerpted
from
the newspaper, The
Evening Telegram
(Jacksonville, Florida)
Tuesday,
February 13, 1894
The
largest number of people
ever gathered within the
walls of any church
in
this city was at Mt.
Zion A.M.E. Church
yesterday to attend the
funeral
of Dr. A. H. Darnes,
deceased. Long before
the appointed time for
the
ceremonies
to begin, people could
be seen coming from
every direction wending
their
way towards the church,
and by 1 o’clock p.m.
the church was already
crowded.”
The deceased stood high
in the estimation of the
people of the city,
both
white and colored, and
was one of the most
prominent colored masons
in
America. The procession
started from the parlors
of undertaker Clark on
Forsyth Street and was
led by the Union Coronet
[sic] and Excelsior
bands,
both of which played
sacred music. The
Knights of Archer and
other
masons
were…attired in full
regalia and made a
credible appearance much
admired
by everybody. … The body
was enclosed in …in a
beautiful rosewood
casket…
Rev. J.E. Lee
officiated, and
eloquently did he speak
from the first
chapter
of Joshua, and said that
he wished he had time to
explain the
possibilities
of men of our race such
as Darnes… The Rev. J.R.
Scott read the ritual
services. Just at this
time, two pigeons flew
to the top of the church
and remained there. Some
of the people present
said that t’was angels
that
came to guard the soul
home to heaven. Dr.
Darnes, the deceased,
was
about
48 years of age, and had
been a popular
practicing physician in
this
city
for about 16 years, and
rendered valuable
services during the
smallpox
and yellow fever
epidemics. … The
internment was in the
old city
cemetery
[sic], and the body was
followed there by a
procession of people. …
At
least 3,000 people
attended the funeral.
James
Weldon Johnson’s
memories of City’s
first Black physician
A
goldmine of early
Jacksonville history,
James Weldon Johnson’s
autobiography, Along
This Way, offers the
following fond account of
Dr. Alexander Darnes:
When
I
was perhaps ten years
old, a strange being
came to Jacksonville,
the
first colored doctor. He
practiced…a number of
years and made a
success,
but he had a hard uphill
fight. Few were the
colored people at the
time
who had the faith to
believe that one of
their own knew how to
make
those…marks
on a piece of paper that
would bring from the
drugstore something to
stand
between them and death.
Dr. Darnes made himself
a big chum to Rosamond
[brother of James Weldon
Johnson] and me, and we
liked him
tremendously.
He constantly brought us
some of the odds and
ends so much prized by
boys.
He once gave us fifty
cents apiece for
learning the deaf and
dumb
alphabet
within a given time. ….
But best of all, Dr.
Darnes was an
enthusiastic
fisherman, and he opened
up a new world of fun
and sport by teaching us
how to fish.
In
April 1884, The New
York Globe reported
that A.H. Darnes was
becoming
one of the sound
businessmen of
Jacksonville and that he
had a large
and
handsome residence in an
upper class section of the
city. The home and
office were located in the
same structure on Ocean
Street.
The
Florida
Times Union offered
a short tribute to Dr.
Darnes after his
death stating he was
“universally esteemed by
all who knew him” and
noted
his valuable services
during the 1888 yellow
fever epidemic. The
article
also observed Dr. Darnes’
prominence in the Masonic
order; Darnes was
the
Florida Deputy Grand
Master and High Priest of
the Royal Arch Chapter
of
Washington, D.C. at the
time of his death.
A
monument to Smith and
Darnes was unveiled in St.
Augustine on November
8, 2004, depicting the two
men together in a
lifesized
bronze sculpture. The
sculptor is Maria
Kirby-Smith who is the
General’s
great granddaughter.
The
sculpture is fittingly in
the garden
of the Segui/Kirby Smith
House, 6 Artillery Lane,
the corner of
Artillery
Lane and Aviles Street,
St. Augustine.
In
the sculpture, “Dr.
Darnes is portrayed with
his doctor’s bag
greeting
his former master and
old friend Professor
Edmund Kirby Smith of
the
University
of the South in Sewanee,
Tennessee, dressed in
his academic gown. This
image circa 1885 shows
how men of different
races who grew up in the
same
household were
transformed by the War
Between the States and
became
leaders
in their chosen new
professions and
communities,” said
Tingley.
Sculptor
Maria Kirby-Smith is
shown at left.
