Virginia Veterinary Medical Association

It was 1894...........

Tuesday, February 6, 1894 was an icy day in Richmond. The Virginia General Assembly was in session, and the Richmond Dispatch news scope fixated on the administrators and the happenings at the Capitol. That evening six veterinarians assembled at the workplace of Dr. W. H. Harbaugh, a specialist responsible for the veterinary healing facility on South Adams Street, a couple squares west of the Capitol. After a long discourse of the different issues defying the veterinary calling, both in the Old Dominion and the country, the men made the move for which they had met up. The additional proclamation was decided and marked by the six:

"We, the undersigned veterinarians, have composed ourselves into a general public to be known as the Virginia State Veterinary Medical Association."

Marked: W. H. Harbaugh

E. P. Niles

A. W. Swedberg

W. T. Gilchrist

T. A. Donaldson

George C. Faville

Drs. Niles, Faville and Gilchrist were designated an advisory group to draft rules and by-laws.

Drs. Harbaugh, Donaldson and Swedberg were designated a board of trustees to have the association joined by state laws of Virginia.

Dr. Harbaugh was chosen Chairman of the Board of Censors and Drs. Gilchrist, Faville, Niles, Donaldson and Swedberg mate individuals.

Over 35 years after the fact, in a brief history of the association, Dr. Faville noticed that without the "untiring endeavors and energy" of Dr. Harbaugh "it is uncertain in the event that we could have ready the begin we did."

Dr. Faville was excessively unassuming. Surely, Dr. Harbaugh assumed a crucial part in the arrangement and proceeding with life of the youthful affiliation, yet it was Dr. Faville, the record demonstrates, who for a long period was the paste that held the association together.

The following day two more veterinarians united the fledging bunch. They were J. H. Adamson and Joseph T. Bushman.

Clearly the men who met in Dr. Harbaugh's office had chosen their strategy. The Association was not something that left an exchange in a solitary evening, yet a choice that had been on the brains of members for relatively a while. They had met when and where they accomplished for the straightforward reason that the General Assembly was in meeting and in this way, they could look for the consolidation of the Association by the legislators as fast as could be expected under the circumstances.

Only two days after the fact, on February 8, the General Assembly endorsed the demonstration setting up the then-named Virginia State Veterinary Medical Association.