THE ALTOGA DOCTOR
[John Thomas Mantooth]
Courier Gazette, July 11, 1976, Section II
By Billy G. Thompson
Altoga was a
Centennial Community this July 4th as the United States celebrated its 200th
birthday.
Baptists of
Scotch-Irish-French descent cleared and settled the farming hamlet 10 miles
northeast of McKinney in the first decade after the Civil War that left their
croplands, homes and economy in Tennessee and Georgia stripped and drained.
If Baptists were
Altoga's creators, then, a part-Cherokee Christian-John Thomas Mantooth of
Campbellite persuasion-is held, by many, to be Altoga's saviour.
Hundreds of sons and
daughters of Altoga who have scattered to such faraway places as Dallas, Houston
and beyond will tell you that Doctor Mantooth delivered Altoga from pestilence
and poverty ...and them at birth... over more than 50 years of practice as a
country physician-pharmacist.
John Mantooth
started practicing medicine in Altoga at the turn of the century. He never quit
until he was hospitalized a few weeks before death in 1953 at age 76.
Doctor Mantooth
moved to Melissa in 1930, but the move didn't diminish his interest in Altoga
nor lessen his care and concern for patients and friends there and in Climax,
Womble, Verona, Ardath and other communities of the area.
Nor did his patients
and "children" ever forget him.
The deep imprint of
Doctor Mantooth on the lives of many persons who came from Altoga was best
described, perhaps, by a nephew a few years ago.
"Very often,"
recalled the nephew, now farmer-banker, "I meet someone and in our conversation
it is mentioned that they are originally from Altoga, Valdasta, Verona, Blue
Ridge or the Melissa area.
"Nearly always, when
they learn that I am also from the area, they ask if I am related to Doctor
Mantooth.
"It is surprising
how many say, "He brought me into this world."
The credit to Doctor
Mantooth is always paid in boastful tones.
Doctor Mantooth
always liked to muse about his first delivery-first cousin John Lacy-in 1898
when he was working for Doctor S. J. Dobbs as an apprentice in readying himself
for medical school.
As was necessary, in
most instances, before the turn of the century, John Mantooth went east to
prepare for a career in medicine. He studied at Memphis, Tenn., Hospital and
Medical College in 1898-1900, and at the University of Chattanooga College of
Medicine in 1900-1902.
Upon earning his
doctorate of medicine from Chattanooga, he returned to Altoga and began his
practice in association with Doctor Dobbs.
The deaths of his
mother and twin brothers during his boyhood are thought to have motivated John
Mantooth to become a doctor.
As a boy, he liked
to read and write, and took more interest in school house than did most country
boys of the day.
He attended the
Johnson Schoolabout two or three miles south of the Altoga townsite and the
area's first educational facility- from about 1884-1894. He earned a teaching
certificate from the Hawthorne College in McKinney in 1895.
The future doctor
returned to Altoga to teach a year in a newly-built community school.
"He used the money
he earned from teaching that year to go to medical school," recalls Mrs. Hattie
Baxter, 88, a second cousin of Doctor Mantooth. Today, she resides in the Wysong
Nursing Center.
When John Mantooth
returned from Chattanooga, he brought home to Collin County new techniques in
the practice of medicine which won him early recognition among his doctor
colleagues and, more important, contributed to an immediate upgrading in the
quality of life around Altoga and the longevity of its residents.
The new doctor
introduced an improved and cleaner procedure in child delivery to the area of
his practice.
Also, he brought
home knowledge which enabled him to make early diagnosis of the symptoms of
appendicitis, which, at the turn of the century, was taking a high toll in
fatalities.
Doctor Mantooth
stuck to the general practice of medicine throughout his career.
Even so, his
expertise in spotting maladies and injuries needing major surgery drew praise
from contemporary specialist of scalpel and swab. He worked closely with eminent
surgeons of the area, like Drs. W. S. Wysong and J. C. Erwin of McKinney, Doctor
Cantrell of Greenville and others to bring new and rapid treatment to those
requiring the specialist.
Doctor Mantooth
spent most of his career in an isolated area, but the locale of his practice
never dented his pursuit of an endless curriculum of continuous medical
education.
Altoga was a hard
place to get to in the first half of the twentieth century. Not until 1953 was
the village accessible by hardtop road. The rich black waxey soil in and around
Altoga produced splendid cotton, corn and oats during the years of Doctor
Mantooth's practice there-but then, as now, the soil produces the deepest and
stickiest crops of mud to be found anywhere.
Nevertheless, Doctor
Mantooth would make his way out of the mud and burgeoning practice to attend
"post graduate" courses at Tulane in New Orleans and-or Baylor College of
Medicine in Dallas in those years when this country was starting its climb to
preeminence in medical science.
By saddle, buggy,
Model T and Model A, the Altoga physician made his rounds to the sick, lame and
halt for 28 years before bowing to a petition of Melissa resident in 1930 to
move his office to that community which had a hardtop road and interurban line.
The move to a more
concentrated area of practice expanded - rather than reduced- his service to
humanity. For, Doctor Mantooth never got around to an interpretation of his
Hippocrates Oath that restricted a day's work to eight hours and eliminated
"house calls."
Some Altogans-there
are no Altoga Exes no more than there are Texas Aggie Exes-are still alive who
remember the battles that Doctor Mantooth fought against flu epidemics that
struck hard at the Altoga area in 1918. He called on and treated the victims for
days and weeks, seemingly, without a blink of sleep.
Even the good doctor
fell victim to the 1918 siege and had to be put to bed. Fortunately, the Altoga
farm girl, Georgia Ethel Cate, whom he married in 1910 had become proficient as
a medical aide and soon nursed him back to health.
Ethel Mantooth was
an excellent paramedic long before the world was to know the word.
John and Ethel
Mantooth made a splendid medical team for the rural area of Altoga and Melissa
for 44 years- until his death in 1953 on the birthday of their only child.
Aunt Ethel,
"although she had no formal training, soon learned quite a bit about medicine
and became a very capable assistant.
"She had a natural
talent for assuring children that the shot would not hurt and at the same time,
kept a firm hold on them in case it did.
"She always knew
which instrument the doctor would need next and had it ready for him," nephew
Ross Mantooth of Princeton recalls.
Ethel Mantooth died
in 1966, thirteen years after her doctor-husband.
However, their bent
for science and service to their fellowman did not go to the grave with them.
Their daughter, Mrs.
George Madden of 1709 Josephine, McKinney, nee Johnnie Marie Mantooth-is a
research specialist with responsibility for quality control for one of the
world's largest food organizations.
The Mantooth's
son-in-law, a bomber crewman from Missouri in World War II, is comptroller for
the Lighthouse for the Blind organization in Dallas.
Grandson John Edward
Madden, a track star during his years at McKinney High School, became a civil
engineer.
Granddaughter Helen
Madden Johnson this year is starting a career in teaching.
Altoga was colonized
mostly by Tennesseeans and Georgians. In many instances, they knew each other as
neighbors and relatives before trekking to Texas in the big post-Civil War
migration to the West.
Many of the
Morelands, Lacys, Lawsons, Vermillions, Dunns, Carson, Hales, Priests, Rays,
Orenduffs, Watkins and others who settled in and around the Altoga crossroads
came from Bradley, Cocke and James Counties in Tennessee or Catoosa County,
Georgia.
Doctor Mantooth, in
the late years of his life, recalled that "they were hard-working people,
cooperative and considerate people." Others have identified the early Altogans
with "togetherness."
The oneness of the
first settlers spawned a belief that Altoga came from a Latin or Indian word for
unity or unselfishness.
Another version
holds that Altoga was taken from a list of Washington-approved names for the new
post office that was established in the community near the turn of the century.
From the standpoint
of size and activity, Altoga peaked in the 1910 - 26 era. At one time there were
a dozen or more businesses - a bank, general stores, barber and blacksmith
shops, a boarding house, doctors' offices and a picture show-walling the Altoga
square.
Doctor Mantooth
practiced from a three-room office on the southeast corner of the square, on the
north side of Bear Creek and opposite a cotton gin-Altoga's first- that was
built by his farmer-father Woodson Mantooth.
The north-south and
east-west roads leading into and from Altoga intersected on the northeast corner
of the square, as they do today. The west road took the traveler to High Point,
Ardath, New Hope and McKinney. The north road led to Stiff Chapel, Squeezepenny
and Melissa, while the south road ran to farms below Altoga before swinging
westward to join the McKinney road briefly before splitting for Princeton. The
road east led to Verona, Valdasta and Blue Ridge.
"Woods" Mantooth,
who had a strong strain of Indian blood, and Lucinda Cansada Lacy were married
in Bradley County Tennessee in 1873. The headed for Texas in the next year.
John Thomas Mantooth
was born October 19, 1876 in the Donna Community, near today's Westminster. The
mother died in Altoga in 1883; the father lived until 1922.
Woods Mantooth in
1885, took Belle Watkins for his second wife. She was the sister of John
Watkins, on of John Mantooth's boyhood chums. The step-mother died in 1936.
John Watkins grew up
to become an extensive landowner and successful trader and cotton ginner in the
Altoga region. He and Doctor Mantooth were partners in a general store at one
time and fast friends throughout their lives.
Another of Doctor
Mantooth's buddies of Johnson School days was John Ray, who also became a highly
successful farmer near Altoga.
John Mantooth was
slender, almost skinny, in youth, but tall five feet eleven-for boys of that
era. He is remembered by some as being "shy to the point of timidity" and
"bookish" during his boyhood.
His adult years,
however, proved such descriptiveness to have been misjudgments. "Compassion"-for
his family, friends and patients-and "dedication"-to a lifetime of service to
mankind-turned out to be more accurate words of evaluation.
One of John
Mantooth's few flashes of intemperance in youth occurred when John Ray decided
to quit school at 16 to marry Hattie Mantooth.
Young John Mantooth
wasn't mad about John Ray marrying his sister, but he was angered by his
school-desk sharing friend's decision to end his pursuit of a formal education.
In later years,
friends of John Mantooth often said he was "a boy ahead of his time when it came
to realizing the value of an education."
Friends and family
also remember John Mantooth as being so intensely dedicated to the practice of
medicine that he took only one vacation in his 50-plus years of doctoring. In
1928, he joined several brothers-in-law on a South Texas deer hunt, bagging a
well-racked deer whose head was mounted and displayed in his Altoga and Melissa
offices for several years.
The wedding and
"honeymoon" of John and Ethel Mantooth was a one-day event, marked by a buggy
and interurban trip to Dallas where Dr. George W. Truett, the great Baptist
preacher, read them their vows in his home. The Mantooths returned to Altoga
immediately after the wedding.
A young nephew of
another name, however, found Doctor Mantooth an "easy one" to top to take him
fishing on Sister Grove Creek, east of Altoga. Before the nephew's school days
began in McKinney, the youngster was a constant companion of Doctor Mantooth on
his house calls and other trips to minister to the sick. (Daughter Johnnie Marie
accompanied her father on his calls for several years after the nephew started
to school.)
Somehow, most of the
homebound trips of Doctor Mantooth and the nephew were interrupted for an
hour-or- so stop at a fishing hole where the youngster discover Uncle Doctor was
an expert at catching sun perch. Doctor Mantooth never ceased to be amazed at
the rate the nephew devoured sacks of cookies that his Aunt Ethel packed for
those house call-fishing hole trips.
Another of the
pleasures of practicing medicine from the Altoga square in the first quarter of
this century was watching and listening to the 12-to-15-piece Altoga Band. The
musicians were as popular and well-received elsewhere as they were on the
village square. One year they traveled all the way down to Galveston to
participate in a bandfest.
Doctor Mantooth was
one of the band's best fans and strongest supporters.
The band played from
1900 to 1926 and it members bore the name of almost every family in the
community. Three former Altoga bandmen are still alive-Ross Moreland, Clarence
Cox, a longtime and well-liked Collin County public Schools educator, and Clint
Farley.
Other names on the
band's rolls, from time to time, included:
Grover Priest,
Charlie Dunn, Will T. Dunn, Ross Orenduff, Dave Watkins, Russell Lawson, Pryor
Moreland, Luther Ray, Oren Vermillion, Walter Lacy, Wilfred Lacy, Bob Braswell
and Charlie Moreland.
Prof. W. S. Smith,
the beloved teacher of the Men's Bible Class at the First Baptist Church in
McKinney for many years before his death, led the Altoga Band from 1900 to 1915.
Will Dunn, who
headed the Altoga bank, also served as a band director. (1915 - 1926).
Turn-of-the century
needs of Altogans and their remoteness from drug stores in McKinney prompted
Doctor Mantooth to obtain a pharmacist license. In 1907, the Texas Board of
Pharmacy issued him License Number 1953. Doctor Mantooth kept the license in
effect until his death 46 years later.
Doctor Mantooth was
one of Collin County's first specialists in eye care. His reputation as "a good
eye doctor" spread rapidly and afar. Into the last years of practice and life,
people from as far away as Frisco and Celina came to Altoga or Melissa "so
Doctor Mantooth could fit them in glasses."
Doctor Mantooth,
remembers a relative, would counsel young patients and friends to prepare
themselves for careers of service to their fellowmen.
John Lawson, a farm
boy-turned-clerk in Charlie Chafin's grocery store, was one of those who heeded
"the good doctor's good advise."
Lawson, with some
support from Doctor Mantooth, went to Fort Worth to train for a career in
pharmacy. On earning his license, he returned to McKinney and was employed as a
pharmacist for several years. Later he established his own business, Lawson's
Drug Store, in Princeton and was greatly admired and respected by his counsellor.
Long before
spectacles and contact lens became so fashionable and helpful to those needing
or desiring them-and a rewarding work, financially, for those supplying them-
Doctor Mantooth encouraged the townboy nephew to train himself for a career in
opthamology.
It didn't happen,
however. Today, the nephew is an itinerant journalist.
Of all the sons of
Altoga, none are remembered longer nor admired more than John Thomas Mantooth in
this Bicentennial Year when Americans are calling up their heroes for the
celebration.
Were he alive today,
1976 would be Doctor Mantooth's Centennial Year.
The
admiration-almost reverence-for Altoga's Doctor-comes on best, perhaps, in
retelling The Great Altoga Bank Robbery in 1912.
It is said that the
robbers, in planning the nighttime heist, kept John and Ethel Mantooth's moves
and their cottage on the south side of Bear Creek under close scrutiny to ensure
that the Mantooths were not endangered if shooting occurred. The cottage was
about 200 yards from the money house.
The robbery "went
down," as they say on TV police shows nowadays, about 15 minutes after Doctor
Mantooth returned safely to his home after a late-hours errand of mercy to an
ailing Altoga family.
The robbers were
never found, but years later word leaked out that the roadmen had Doctor
Mantooth under surveillance from the time he left home until he was safely back.
Altogans were
destined to lose their money. But the robbers weren't going to cost them their
doctor on that infamous night.
Surname Index
Recommended Citation:
"The Altoga Doctor,
EARLY SETTLERS OF COLLIN COUNTY." Collin County, Texas History
and Genealogy Webpage by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13, 2004 ].
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