Dudley Malcolm Clagett was born in Natchez, Mississippi, March 24, 1846, and is the son of Hezekiah and Elizabeth Clagett. He lived with his parents at his birth-place until he was ten years old, when they removed to St. Louis, where he lived with them until 1870, excepting four years that he worked on a farm for his father in Franklin county, Missouri. He obtained his education by attending the public schools and the St. Louis High School, from which he graduated in 1865. In 1868, while on his father’s farm, he began the study of medicine under the instruction of Dr. G. O. Hardeman and graduated as Doctor of Medicine, from the St. Louis Medical College, in the spring of 1872. In the following May he came to Daviess county and settled at Victoria, where he practiced until January, 1875, when he came to Winston and established his present practice which has become lucrative and is constantly increasing, extending over Daviess and DeKalb counties.
January 1, 1875, Dr. Clagett married Miss Mary A., daughter of James and Martha Wood, pioneers of Daviess county. They have one child, Oscar F., born at Winston, August 7, 1881. They have lost three children all dying when very young. In 1880 he was elected coroner of Daviess county. He is a member of Winston Lodge No. 371, I. O. O. F.