ISAAC C. McCOY, M. D., a distinguished physician and surgeon of Fort Worth and an inventor of several devices of great value to the profession, was born at Columbus, Georgia, a son of Henry Reese and Saletha (Cheney) McCoy. The father was born and reared at Columbus, which town was founded by his father, Jeremiah McCoy, in 1828. The McCoys are a Scotch family, noted for strong constitutions and longevity, but the mother of our subject was of French ancestry. The paternal grandfather and both the parents of Dr. McCoy all died in Sherman, Texas, having removed to this state in 1878.
Dr. McCoy acquired his literary education in the schools of his native city and his professional training was received in the medical department of the University of Georgia, at Augusta, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1870. He located for a short time at Thomaston, Georgia, and in the summer of that year went to New Orleans with the intention of joining a party going to Honduras. He changed his plans, however, and came instead to Texas, locating in Elizabeth, Denton county. That was then a better town and in a better country than Fort Worth. It required twenty-one days for Dr. McCoy to make the trip up the Red river to Shreveport, for there was then no convenient rail transportation. He practiced general medicine at Elizabeth, and was married there to Miss Maggie Kelsey, by whom he has one son, Olan McCoy. Subsequently he removed to Denison, Texas, and in 1884 came to Fort Worth. About that time he began to limit his practice as a specialist in genito-urinary and rectal diseases, to which branch of the profession he has since confined his attention with eminent success. He is the oldest genito- urinary specialist practicing in the south and recognizing the needs of the profession in that direction he has invented and placed upon the market several devices and instruments that have greatly facilitated the practice and promoted the success of the treatment of diseases in these special branches. He stands very high in his profession and his labors have been attended with gratifying success.
Dr. McCoy was for five years president of the board of medical examiners and for three years was president of the United States pension examiners, while for three years he served as trustee of the public schools of Fort Worth. He has always been interested in local progress and the city has benefited by his efforts in its behalf, for his labors have been far-reaching and beneficial. He is a prominent member of the Odd Fellows lodge, in which he has served as past grand, and his prominence is none the less the result of an irreproachable private life than of marked skill in the field of his chosen endeavor.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 547.