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Some of the earliest settlers in Pike County were the Allred’s.  William Burt and Jane O. Park Allred moved to Pike County between 1826 and 1829.  They settled six miles south of Troy on the Three Notch Road.  William Allred served  in the War of 1812.

Mrs. W. P. Cox, is daughter of one of Pike County’s pioneer doctors, John Park Allred.  In answer to the appeal for facts concerning some of the county’s first doctors, Mrs. Cox offered the following information about her father.  In this article, it references that J. P. Allred “read medicine” with Dr. Williams.  Typically, those interested in medicine would apprentice under a knowledgeable doctor.  Apprenticeship was the most respected route to becoming a doctor.  A person would work with a doctor who was willing to teach them about medicine.  The length of apprenticeships varied and depended on how quickly the apprentice could learn and how much the doctor could teach them.  Needless to say, medicine has come a long way from  the early days.  This article was published on March 26, 1958.

John Park Allred 1826-1891, son of Major William Burt and Jane Park Allred, was a pioneer doctor in Pike County.  He “read medicine” with Dr. D. M. Williams of Troy in the 1840s and was sent back to his native state of Georgia for part of his education, the journey being made on horseback.

Dr. Allred enlisted in Co. A., 57th Alabama Infantry in 1863.  After the war he attended the medical department of the State University of Augusta, Georgia.  After that he practiced his profession with success in connection with his farming.  He lived and served the Allred community for the remainder of his life.  When the railroad was completed about 1890, a whistle stop was established near his plantation and the place was called Allred.

Mrs. W. P. Cox, his daughter, recalls when sickness was in a family they would “stop the plow” and send someone on a mule to get the doctor.  She recalls one typhoid fever epidemic when her father treated forty cases of typhoid fever.  He would often leave home in the morning traveling in his buggy to visit patients, and would be gone for several days.  Frequently his pay was quilts, syrup, etc. or nothing at all.

The little office from which he practiced is still standing at Allred.  Mrs. Cox s says that her father had a large collection of medical books and that she recalls a young man who came to his office to “read medicine.”  This man was Dr. Tom Mullins who afterwards practiced medicine in Troy for a number of years.

Dr. Allred and Dr. J. S. Beard operated a drug store in Troy about where the Carroll building now stands.

All of these articles can be found in previous editions of The Troy Messenger.  Stay tuned for more.  Dianne Smith is the President of the Pike County Historical, Genealogical and Preservation Society.