Lemuel Offut, M.D.

LEMUEL OFFUTT, M.D., one of Greensburg's successful medical practitioners, was born May 8, 1851, on a farm between Darnestown and Seneca Mills, Montgomery county, Maryland. The Offutt family are descended from Scotland through the following line of ancestry: 

I. William Offutt, settled in Prince George county, Maryland, where he died in 1734. He married Mary Brock, by whom was born children including a son named William. 

II. William Offutt, son of William and Mary (Brock) Offutt, died in Maryland, in 1737. He married Jane Joyce, and after his death she married Dr. James Doll. Among the children of William and Jane (Joyce) Offutt was one named William. 

III. William Offutt, son of William and Jane (Joyce) Offutt, was born in Montgomery county, Maryland, February 14, 1729, died in 1786. In 1750 he married Elizabeth Magruder, born November 8, 1730. Among their children was a son James. 

IV. James Offutt, son of William and Elizabeth (Magruder) Offutt, was born April 23, 1753. He became the grandfather of Dr. Lemuel Offutt. James Offutt paternal great-grandfather with his two brothers emigrated from Scotland early in the eighteenth century and located in Maryland, engaging in farming. 

V. James Offutt, son of James Offutt, a farmer by occupation, was born near Great Falls, Maryland, October 3, 1803. He married Mary White of Olney Maryland, March 17, 1849. She was the daughter of Samuel White, whose ancestors came from England. Among the children of James and Mary (White) Offutt was Dr. Lemuel Offutt, born May, 1851. 

On the genealogical line of Dr. Offutt's great-grandmother (Elizabeth Magruder, born November 8, 1730) the ancestors trace back to 1605, in Scotland, when Alexander Magruder married Lady Margaret Drummond, daughter of "Laird of Avernchiel, Clan Campbell." Alexander Magruder was born in 1569, in Scotland. His son Alexander, an officer under Charles II, emigrated to Calvert count, Maryland, in 1652, and died in 1677. His son Samuel married Sarah Beall, born 1669, died 1734. He died in Prince George county, Maryland, in 1711. He was a member of the Maryland house of burgesses--1704-1707. He held civic and military positions, and was a vestryman of St. Paul's Parish. This line of ancestry then runs through Ninian to his son Samuel, who married Margaret Jackson, who died in 1801. Samuel was born in Montgomery county, Maryland, in 1708: died 1786. Elizabeth, their daughter, born November 8, 1730, became the great-grandmother of Dr. Offutt by marrying William Offutt, as above mentioned. 

VI. Dr. Lemuel Offutt, son of James and Mary (White) Offutt, was reared to farm labor and attended public and parochial schools, finishing his studies in Andrew Small Academy. He then taught school three years and read medicine under the tutorage of Dr. C.H. Nourse, of Darnestown, Maryland, entering the medical department of the Maryland University, from which he graduated in 1876, having been a resident student in the Maryland Infirmary eighteen months. He located at Penn Station, Pennsylvania, May 8, 1876, and there practiced his chosen profession until December, 1883, when he moved to Greensburg, where he is still an honorable and highly successful physician. In Politics Dr. Offutt has ever adhered to the time-honored principles of the Democratic party, but has never sought or held public office. Not unlike so many generations of his sturdy Scotch forefathers, he, too, is identified with the Presbyterian church. He is also connected with numerous beneficiary societies. In stating that Dr. Offutt is a self-made man the term is used in the true sense. By a defaulting county treasurer in Maryland his father lost his property and died when Lemuel was a small lad, hence he was early thrown upon his own resources, which were but a good sound body and a determination to gain for himself a place among men. Dr. Offutt has been twice married. In January, 1877, he married Sarah E. Dukes, of Baltimore, Maryland. She died in December, 1900. They had eight children: James H., a contractor: Mary E., wife of I.C. Ruffner; Lemuel, died in childhood; Sarah D.; Susan R.; William G., died in infancy; Courtney C., died in infancy, and Rose E. Offutt. For his second wife Dr. Offutt married, June,. 1904 Leola R. Edwards, daughter of Rev. Charles Edwards, of Alliance, Ohio. 

Source Pages 73 and 74 History of Westmoreland County, Volume II, Pennsylvania by John Boucher. New York, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906. 
Transcribed March 24, 2001 by Marilynn Wienke for the Westmoreland County History Project. 
Contributed for use by the Westmoreland County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/westmoreland/)

Westmoreland County Genealogy Project Notice:

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format, for any presentation, without prior written permission.