This leather doctor’s bag was recently donated to the collections of Heritage Frederick. It traveled on horseback, by wagon and later by automobile to the scenes of accidents, the bedsides of illness and, it is estimated, 4,000 homes where a child was being born. The bag belonged to Dr. Ira Washington Beall who practiced medicine from his home on Main Street in Libertytown for 66 years.
Ira Beall was born in Liberty in 1868, one of the eight children of Washington and Jane Beall. Washington Beall, like his father before him and like three of his sons after him was a stone mason but son Ira decided on a different path. After completing public school, Ira spent three years teaching in Burkittsville before moving to Baltimore to attend the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Ira graduated in 1893, moved back home to Liberty and immediately set up his practice.
An article in The News, Frederick tells us that just three years later he successfully reattached the finger of two year old Ada Bohn, who had been separated from it when another child struck her with a hatchet. Through his six and a half decades of service, Dr. Beall and his wife Rosa Kate Lohr whom he married in 1898, were heralded as pillars of their community, willing to help people of all stations and situations regardless of their color, background or their ability to pay.
Dr. Beall passed away in 1959, at the age of 91, having treated his final patients just days before his death. In addition to the leather doctor’s bag, Dr. Beall’s stethoscopes, his favorite chairs, his medical diplomas and even the shingle he hung out on the front of his Libertytown home advertising his practice were all donated by his great-niece and her daughter.
This article by Amy Hunt, Heritage Frederick Curator, was originally featured in the September 2026 edition of Frederick magazine. To see the original article, click here >>