Alexander H. Darnes (1840 - February 11, 1894) was an African American born into slavery in the city of St. Augustine, Florida who became one of the first black physicians in the state of Florida. Darnes was the son of Violent Pinkney a black slave owned by the parents of Edmund Kirby Smith who served as a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Both Darnes and Kirby were born in the same home in St. Augustine, the historic Segui-Kirby Smith House on 12 Aviles Street. In 1855 at about the age of 15 Darnes left St. Augustine to serve as personal valet to Smith then a member of the United States Army serving in the Western territories. He continued to serve Kirby throughout the Civil War including at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia.
After the South's defeat, Darnes attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He then attended Howard University, an historically black university in Washington, D.C., where he graduated with a medical degree in 1880. Upon returning to Florida he set up a private medical practice in Jacksonville, Florida becoming the first black physician in the city and the second in the state of Florida.
Darnes built a thriving practice operated out of his home on Ocean Street and became a pillar of the community. He joined the Freemasons, was a member of the local Masonic Temple and rose to a position of prominenence becoming the Florida Deputy Grand Master and High Priest of the Royal Arch Chapter of Washington, D.C.
Darnes died in February 1894, less than a year after Edmund Kirby Smith's death in March 1893. He received a large and extravagant funeral attended by both black and white citizens of Jacksonville.
A bronze sculpture of Smith and Darnes was created in 2004 by artist Maria Kirby-Smith the great granddaughter of Smith. The life sized bronze sculpture the only one of an African American in St. Augustine, is located in the courtyard garden of the Sequi-Kirby Smith House.[1][2][3]