WOOD COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA 
******************************************************************
Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Pam Honaker
pam_honaker@hotmail.com
May 21, 2000
******************************************************************

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
page 463

EDWIN W. CROOKS, M.D. WOOD COUNTY

Edwin W. Crooks, M.D., has been established in the successful general 
practice of his profession in the City of Parkersburg since the year 1908, 
and his character and ability mark him as one the the representative 
physicians and surgeons of Wood County.  The doctor is an exemplar of the 
benignant school of Homeopathy, and has become one of its specially 
successful represtatives in his native state.

Doctor Crooks was born at Belleville, West Virginia, on the 15th of 
September, 1874, and is a son of Horatio N. and Marian (Muir) Crooks.  
Horatio N. Crooks was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ans was a 
child of about one year at the time of the family removal to West Virginia, 
his father, Capt. Horatio N. Crooks, having been for may years a skilled and 
popular captain of steamboats plying the Ohio River between the cities of 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Memphis, Tennessee.  Captain Crooks purchased 
farm land in the the vicinity of Belleville, West Virgina, and improved the 
property into a productive farm, he and his wife having there maintained 
their home until the time fo their deaths.  On this old homestead their son 
Horation N. continiued to reside until the close of his life, and he held 
prestige as one of the the substanial farmers and influential citizens of 
the community.

Dr. Edwin W. Crooks acquired his preliminary education in the public 
schools, and in his youth he began reading medicine by utilizing the medical 
library of his uncle, Dr. Edwin W. Crooks, who had removed to California.  
Finally he entered Pulte Medical College in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
this institution, one of the oldest and best Homeopathic schools in the 
West, having been founded by another uncle of the doctor.  He was graduated 
as a member of the class of 1906, and since thus receiving his degree he has 
continued a close student of the best standard and periodical literature of 
his profession and thus kept in touch with the advances  made in medical 
surgical science.  As previously stated, Doctor Crooks has been engaged in 
practice at Parkersburg since 1908, and this city has been the stage of his 
earnest and able representative practice which gives him precedence as one 
of the leading physicians of the metropolis of his native county.  He is a 
member of the Little Kanawha and Ohio Valley Medical Society and the 
American Institue of Homeopathy.  He gave nine years of effective service as 
president of the Board of Health of Wood County, is a republican in 
political allegiance, and the the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has 
completed the circle of each the York and the Scottish Rites, in the latter 
of which he has received the thirty-second degree.  His maximum York Rite 
affiliationis with the Commandery of Knights Templars in his home city, he 
is identified also with Nemesis Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and is an 
appreciative and popular member of the Parkersburg Lodge of the Benevolent 
and Protective Order of Elks.

The year 1917 recorded the marriage of Doctor Crooks and Miss Rebecca Dils, 
and they have two sons, Edwin W., Jr,. and Horation N. (III).  Doctor and 
Mrs. Crooks are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.