My Genealogy Hound

Dr. James M. Keller, Hot Springs, Ark. In a comprehensive work of this kind, dealing with industrial pursuits, sciences, arts and professions, it is only fit and right that that profession on which, in some period or other of our lives, the medical profession, all are more or less dependent, should be noticed. Among the many eminent practitioners of the county who has won a lasting reputation, none have been more successful, or won the confidence of the public to a greater extent than has Dr. James M. Keller. He was born at Tuscumbia, Ala., on January 29, 1832, and is the son of David and Mary Fairfax (Moore) Keller, natives, respectively, of Maryland and Virginia. The mother was the great-granddaughter of Gov. Alexander Spottswood and a cousin of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The parents of the subject of this sketch were married in East Tennessee, and died in Alabama in 1837 and 1874 respectively. The father was a commercial man, but was also a prominent tiller of the soil, and was one of the projectors of the railroad from Tuscumbia, Ala., to Decatur, the second or third built in the United States. Of their family of ten children six are now living, and Dr. James M. Keller is next to the youngest. His early education was received in Tuscumbia, and at an early age he began the study of medicine. In 1852 he graduated in this at the University of Louisville, after which he began practicing on his farm near Louisville. In 1857 he moved to Memphis, where he still continued to practice his profession until the breaking out of the Civil War, and then enlisted as a surgeon in the Confederate army. In 1862 he was promoted to medical directorship of the Trans-Mississippi department on the staff of Major T. C. Hyndman, but in 1863 was transferred to Mobile, Ala., and made medical director of hospitals. At the fall of Mobile he went with Gen. Forrest and surrendered with him at Meridian, Miss. He then returned to Memphis, was appointed to take charge of the City Hospital, and in 1868 was called to Louisville, where he took the professorship of surgery in the Kentucky School of Medicine and Louisville Medical College. In 1877 he went to Hot Springs, Ark., to attend the State Medical Society by invitation, and then and there made up his mind to locate at that place. This he did and has since been actively engaged in the practice of his profession. He is one of the prominent physicians of the city, and as such has gained the confidence of the people as a clever, scientific practitioner. He is a member of the Garland County Medical Society, State Medical Society, the American Medical Association, and is the author of the resolution in the American Association which was finally passed, declaring that cremation was the proper method of disposing of the dead. Dr. Keller was married in 1852 to Miss Sallie, daughter of David B. and Ann Phillips, of Jefferson County, Ky., and by her he became the father of two children, both sons: The late Dr. James I. Keller and Murray P. Keller. Mrs. Keller is a member of the Roman Catholic Church.