John Smythe Saunders (1826 - 1892)

Born 22 Sep 1826 in Glasgow, Barren, Kentucky, United States

Descendants

Died 28 Aug 1892 at age 65 in Bonham, Fannin, Texas, United States

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Elizabeth Price [send private message] and Kevin Walters [send private message]

Biography

Dr. John Smith Saunders, who was born at Glasgow, Kentucky (the Pennyrile area of west-central Kentucky), after attaining high standing in the medical profession in his native state, in 1857 came to Dallas, Texas, then situated almost on the frontier. As a pioneer doctor at this place in the years immediately preceding the war he became known over a wide surrounding territory. His visits across the sparsely settled county, bearing cheer and healing to the isolated families, often penetrated into Tarrant county, and to the easy-circumstanced dweller in town or city of the present day imagination alone must picture the hardships which the good doctor encountered on these horseback journeys, with his medicines packed in his saddlebags, or the joy with which he was hailed by the suffering, who had perhaps a waited his coming for days, whereas in this age the same number of hours would seem long, and who would not see him again on his rounds for several weeks. Filling the place of friend, counselor and helper, his part in the life of that historical epoch is none the less important because it was unostentatiously performed. He thus continued to practice at Dallas until the war came on. A Kentuckian, it is not strange that his admiration for the fellow citizen Henry Clay made him an adherent of old- line Whig principles, and when the question of secession came up for settlement, though a firm believer in state rights, he opposed the separation from the Union. But, like Lewis T. Wigfall, whom he so admired, and like hundreds of conspicuous and eminent southerners his loyalty to Dixie, when the issue came to settlement, aligned him without hesitation with the Confederacy. Enlisting in 1862, he was appointed brigade surgeon on the staff of General R. M. Gano, and as such served till the close of the war. On his return to Dallas he decided to give up the practice of medicine, and for several years during that period of industrial prostration following the war he took a prominent part in business affairs. He built and operated the first steam mill at Dallas, and this was also in the mercantile business, until the failure of his health obliged him to retire. His children were then at the age where they needed better educational facilities than were afforded at Dallas, and this was the prime consideration that induced him to move to Bonham in 1869. There he built up a large general practice, and lived until his death in 1891. He at one time served as president of the North Texas Medical Association, and stood very high among the members of his profession. Noteworthy and successful though he was a physician, his character was of those proportions that interest adheres more in the man than in his works. Of firm and positive convictions, he commanded respect and wielded influence among men as a leader, although he never used the qualities for any king of political preferment, and the most important position he held was a brigade surgeon during the war. In the Christian church, however, he took a very active part, and was a devoted member till his death. Though he energies were almost constantly directed to serious affairs, yet he possessed the social qualities which attached men to him through affection as well as respect. While he never posed as a raconteur, he was an engaging story teller, and was especially fond of pointing a serious principle with an illustrative anecdote. Schools of a primitive time supplied him with only the barest fundamentals upon which later insistent study and observation reared a most intimate knowledge of literature, men and events. His love for the classic in literature never deserted, and even in camp when surrounded by all the stern realities of military life he was wont to read his Shakespeare aloud to his fellow officers, and such was his sympathetic acquaintance with that author that it is said he knew half the plays by memory.

Sources

• B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. 1, pp. 130-133.
• US Census 1860-1880
• The Encyclopedia of the New West
• Gravestone, U.S. Find A Grave Index