BIOGRAPHY. 485 



subsequently graduated from that institution. After gi-aduation, he, for a short 

 time, practiced in Kentucky ; but in ^826 he set his face for his future residence in 

 Indiana, and arrived here that year, expecting to make his home in Parke county. 

 But after reaching Parke, he attended a camp-meeting in Putnam county, held 

 on the Cumberland road, in what is now Warren township, and near the present 

 Bethel M. E. Church. The journey to this meeting brought to his notice the 

 "blue-grass" lands of north and central Putnam, as well as the situation and ad- 

 vantages of Greencastle. These considerations induced him to change his loca- 

 tion, and he cast his lot with the people of Putnam, and at once entered on the 

 practice of his profession at the county seat. He was now among freemen, in a 

 free State, in splendid health, in mature manhood, soon had a lucrative practice, 

 and felt that success was assured. Here was an epoch in his life. Naturally rever- 

 ential, he, from a sense of duty, committed himself to the Christian religion ; con- 

 nected himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church ; and now after eighty-two 

 years have passed over him, declares that in every period of life Christianity is the 

 best investment. He rapidly rose to eminence in his profession, and as a physician 

 and surgeon was without a peer. His parents came to him in Indiana, and he, 

 with them, brought from Kentucky the slaves owned by his father and gave to 

 them their freedom, and they remained in Putnam until after the Constitution of 

 1850 was adopted. That instrument, as he thought, restrained them of liberty, and 

 he aided them to a home in the colony of Liberia. 



At an early period of professional life his practice so frequently brought him 

 in contact with the retail liquor traffic as to compel an investigation of it. This 

 investigation convinced him that drinking was an unmitigated evil and the traffic 

 a most flagrant wrong. In his own life total abstinence had been the rule, and he 

 felt that moral simsmi was the true remedy. A man of strong will and unques- 

 tioned courage, these convictions soon impelled him into conflict with intemper- 

 ance, and this conflict has been life-long. He it was who delivered the first temper- 

 ance lecture in Putnam county, and the novelty of it brought friends and foes 

 to hear. Men brought with them whisky in bottles, and drank bumpers to each 

 other and to the speaker, while he, in nothing daunted, hurled anathemas at the 

 traffic, and deplored the evils of intemperance. Some who heard him reformed, 

 and afterwards became Washingtonians ; others continued their evil course, and 

 met the fate of the drunkard. The Doctor, however, never let up on the traffic, 

 and while a member of the State Board of Agriculture he was among the most de- 

 termined of those who succeeded in prohibiting the liquor traffic on or in the vicin- 

 ity of the State Fair grounds. 



In early life he became addicted to chewing tobacco. To evidence what will 

 would do for an evil practice, he declared he would quit, and he did. He threw 

 aside his quid and never returned to it. This fact he used to show that a man 

 could control his appetite for stimulants. 



Careful invetigation and thorough study convinced him that free institutions 

 were wholly dependent on morality, integrity and intelligence. This conviction 

 made him the friend of common schools and higher education. In the securing 

 of Asbury University for Greencastle he was a liberal and active co-worker and 

 contributor; became a member of its first board of trustees; saw ten continuous 



