Hon. JAMES HENRY COLSON

One of the widely known professional and public men of Florida is Dr. JAMES HENRY COLSON, a prominent physician and surgeon at Gainesville, who is serving with marked distinction as a member of the Upper House of the Florida State Legislature. Senator COLSON was elected to his office as an exponent of the highest principles of citizenship, and as a statesman he has fulfilled every promise, still further adding to the confidence, respect and esteem he already enjoyed in the medical profession.

Senator COLSON was born on a farm in Alachua County, Florida, August 26, 1866, the fourth in a family of seven children born to JOHN G. and SARAH FRANCES(CONE)COLSON, the latter of whom a native of Georgia, is now deceased. The father of Doctor COLSON was born in Florida in 1834, and now lives in comfortable retirement at Lake City in Columbus County, Florida. He is a Confederate veteran of the war between the states, and served earlier in the Indian war of 1854-55. During his active years he engaged in agricultural pursuits in Alachua and Bradford counties.

JAMES HENRY COLSON spent his boyhood on his father's farm in Bradford County and attended the district schools. Cherishing a desire to become a physician, from the age of eighteen years he bent every effort in that direction. That he was largely dependent upon his own efforts did not discourage him, and through teaching school and in other ways he was enabled to complete a high school course at Starke and a normal and business course at White Springs, and ultimately to enter the College of Physicians and Surgeons, now the University of Maryland, at Baltimore, Maryland. From this institution he was graduated in 1896 and entered upon the practice of medicine at Lake Butler, Florida, removing later to Waldo, where he remained six years.

In 1901 Doctor COLSON was appointed chief surgeon on the Florida State Hospital for the Insane at Chattahoochee, but in the following year retired and came to Gainesville, where he has carried on a general practice ever since and has a substantial and honorable reputation in his profession. At times he has taken post graduate courses in relation to scientific subjects in which he is particularly interested, one of these being taken in the Post Graduate Hospital, Chicago, in 1899, and another of decided value in the Post Graduate College, New York, in 1912. He has been president of the Alachua County Medical Society, and is a member also of the Florida state and the Southern Medical societies , and the American Medical Association. During the World war Doctor COLSON was a member of the Volunteer Medical Corps. In addition to his other interests he is a director in the Florida Bank & Trust Company of Gainesville, one of the leading financial institutions in this section of the state, which is amply financed and ably officered.

In political life Senator COLSON is a democrat, and for many years has been prominent in civic affairs at Gainesville. He has repeatedly served on the city council, and was president of this body when the electric light plant was installed and the first brick paving laid on Main street. He has always been a man of progressive ideas, and his election to the State Senate in 1922, has afforded him a wider field in which to make them operative. He is particularly interested in the public schools, in increasing and maintaining good roads, and in the humanitarian operation of state institutions. The effort of such a statesman can scarcely fail of being of the greatest value to the general public.

At Savannah, Georgia, on April 30, 1901, Doctor COLSON married Miss ELOISE WEEKS, a daughter of JAMES S. and CORNELIA (FOX) WEEKS, residents of Savannah. Mrs. COLSON is prominent in social life at Gainesville, and is active in church matters and the Twentieth Century Club. Doctor and Mrs. COLSON have one daughter, CORNELIA LUCILLE, who is attending college at Tallahassee. Doctor COLSON is a deacon in the Presbyterian church. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, and is a member also of the Elks and the Knights of Pythias, in the latter organization being a past chancellor commander of Waldo Lodge No. 38, at Waldo, Florida. He is too busy a man to devote a great deal of time to any kind of recreation, but motoring is the form in which he finds most enjoyment.

Author: The History of Florida: Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1923, Vol.III pg.242

File contributed for use on the Official Alachua County FLGenWeb site, by Nancy Rayburn (naev@earthlink.net)