My Genealogy Hound

G. A. Seel, M. D., of Warm Springs, Ark., and proprietor of the springs of that name, was born in Georgetown, Ohio, in 1855, and is a son of V. F. and C. A. (Houck) Seel, who were married in the State of Ohio in 1854, and moved to Kentucky about a year later. The father followed merchandising and farming in Bracken County, Ky., and was moderately successful in business. He was a man of superior education, and was able to speak three or four different languages. He served under Gen. Taylor in the Mexican War, and was with him in all the battles in which he took part. He was born in 1819, and his wife in 1816, and both their deaths occurred in 1888. He was a Democrat in his political views. He and his wife reared a family of seven children: Catherine, Peter, F. W., G. A., V. F., Henry, and Mary C. While growing up, G. A. Seel had excellent advantages for acquiring a good education, and to say that he fully improved his opportunities would be only speaking the truth. After attending the free school of his section until sixteen years of age he entered Higginsport high school, but left that institution at the age of seventeen, and began traveling, so continuing until he was about twenty years of age, at which time he returned to Kentucky, and remained there for nearly one year, assisting his father on the farm. He then began traveling again, continuing two years, and became familiar with some of the finest points of interest in the United States. He located in New Madrid, Mo., where he became conductor on the Little River Valley & Arkansas Railroad, and as such continued for four years. He then filled the same position on the Cotton Belt road for about one year, and during this time his leisure moments were spent in studying chemistry. In the latter part of 1880 he engaged in the drug business at Doniphan, Mo., and after continuing there one year he devoted his time and attention the two following years to the study of chemistry under Profs. Detmer and Stille, of the St. Louis Dairy Company’s Laboratory. From there he went to Chanute, Kas., where he established a private laboratory, remaining in that place until the fall of 1885. During the two years he spent in this place he was studying medicine under Drs. Webb & Brown of the Eclectic school, and afterward underwent an examination before the Kansas medical board, consisting of eight men, and secured a certificate to practice. He became a member of the Eclectic Medical Association of that State, and after leaving there in the fall of 1885, he came to Randolph County, and located at Warm Springs, where he passed an examination before the board in 1885, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession. Since coming here he has graduated from the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, and has made a special study of operative and opthalmic surgery under the able instructions of Profs. Louis Bower, A. C. Bernays and John Glancis, being now a successful surgeon and physician. He was married, October 14, 1885, to Miss Ella S. Kibler, of Water Valley, this county, and by her became the father of two children: Leona C. (deceased), and G. A., Jr. Mrs. Seel is a native of Arkansas. The Doctor belongs to the K. of P., and in his political views is a Democrat. In 1888 he and Capt. J. J. Handworker, of Memphis, Tenn., purchased the famous warm springs of this place, which in days gone by were used by the Indians as a health resort, this being as early as 1818, when the first settlers began to come into the region. The first hotel put up near the place was in 1840, by a man named Rice, and after his death the property fell to his heirs. In 1874, it was purchased from them by Dalton, Kibler & Waddle, who erected a substantial hotel there the same year and put up bath houses, bowling alley, etc. They also enclosed two and one-half acres with a nice fence, and in this enclosure are sixty springs, with three different kinds of water, chalybeate, sulphur and carbonate. The largest spring is carbonate water, containing 160 cubic inches of carbonic acid gas to the gallon, making it the equal of the famous chalybeate Vichy waters of Europe. In addition to this it also contains iodine and lithia. The springs are accessible by the following stage routes: Doniphan, Pocahontas, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad and the Kansas City & Memphis Railroad. The climate in the locality of the springs is fine, and the Doctor’s manner of treating diseases in the way of baths cannot be excelled, for hot, cold and electric baths can be secured at any time. The citizens in the locality contemplate erecting a high-school, and the place can then be utilized as a point for securing both a good education and the benefit of the health restoring waters of the springs. The country is very beautiful hereabouts, and the streams abound with fish and the woods with deer, turkeys, squirrels, quail, etc., making it a sportsman’s paradise.