The Scruggses were prominent members of the Huntsville, Alabama community. Burgess was a physician and well known as a leader in political and civic affairs. Sophia Davis Scruggs was a distinguished educator and community leader. Newell Scruggs, Burgess and Sophia's only child, became prominent in Ohio after he completed his education.

Burgess E. Scruggs was an American physician, alderman, and civic leader in Huntsville, Alabama. He was one of Alabama's first African American doctors, and the first in Huntsville. He served four terms on Huntsville's city council.

Dr. Scruggs was born on October 16, 1860, in Madison County, Alabama. He was enslaved at his birth by the Thomas Sanford McCalley family. His Black family was Christian. After being freed after the American Civil War ended, he attended school and graduated from William Hooper Councill High School.

Scruggs attended Central Alabama College in Birmingham, Alabama, and Central Tennessee College (now Walden University) in Nashville; before graduating from Meharry Medical College in 1879, a private historically Black medical school in Nashville.

Dr. Scruggs returned to Huntsville after graduation and opened a private medical practice at 316 W. Holmes Street. Other early Black doctors in Alabama at this time included Arthur McKinnon Brown of Birmingham, Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson of Tuskegee, and Cornelius N. Dorsette of Montgomery.

In 1881, Scruggs and Sophia J. Davis married. After her death in 1919, Dr. Scruggs and Harriet T. Humphrey married in 1923.

Scruggs served four years as city alderman for Huntsville from 1892 until 1896. He also served as a trustee for the Rust Normal School, was president of the Black Fair Association, and served on the U.S. Board of Examiners, and Board of Pensions.

Scruggs died after an illness on January 21, 1934, at his home in Huntsville, and is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Huntsville.

Sophia J. Davis Scruggs was a distinguished educator and community leader. She was a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she excelled academically. She dedicated her life to education, held leadership roles in the Lakeside Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a founding member of the Eastern Star, a Masonic appendant body.

Together, Dr. and Mrs. Scruggs were prominent landowners in Huntsville, holding properties across the city, including a sizable farm.

Newell Scruggs was their only child. Born on July 31, 1895, Newell Scruggs followed in his family’s tradition of education and achievement. He began his studies at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1911, pursuing academic excellence. On July 31, 1926, he married Florence Somerset of Cuyahoga, Ohio, marking the start of their life together.

Newell Rison Scruggs passed away on April 3, 1941, and was interred at Highland Park Cemetery in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. His life reflected the values of education, community, and perseverance instilled by his accomplished parents.

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