Henry C. Hood, M.D., was welcomed with open arms by the pioneers living around the shores of Lake Worth when he arrived in 1889. He was the second practicing physician on the lake, the first being Dr. Richard B. Potter.
Dr. Hood was born in March 1855 in Pennsylvania and came to south Florida from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He married Mary Minna Breisford in 1889 at Palm Beach. Minna, born in October of 1858 in Ohio, had been living on the lake since the fall of 1880 when she arrived with her mother, Dorinda, and brother, E.N. Breisford, to join their brother. J.H. Brelsford. They all homesteaded on South Lake Trail in what became Palm Beach. When Minna married Dr. Hood, they lived with her mother on the property south of brother J.H. Breisford.
Minna and Henry Hood had two daughters, Mary, born in Tennessee in July 1891, and Margaret, born July 1895 in Florida.
Dr. Hood maintained his office in his residence near the Royal Poinciana Hotel, but his practice extended north and south for many miles, at a time when there were no roads and most travel was either by boat or by walking the beach.
Dr. Hood was also active in local politics and in the Pioneers’ Association. He died at Emergency Hospital in West Palm Beach at age sixty- one, following an operation.
|
