My Genealogy Hound

David Walter Welch, M.. D., of Mt. Vernon, was born in Saline county, Illinois, near Galatia, March 5, 1848, and is a son of Egbert G. and Nancy (Upchurch) Welch. His father was a native of Tennessee, and came of an old Virginia family, and at the age of eighty-eight years he died at Galatia, Ill., where he was a pioneer settler, and his mother was born at Galatia, Ill., and was a daughter of David Upchurch, who came from North Carolina to Illinois, and was the founder of Galatia. Dr. Welch was reared on the farm, attended the country schools, and the Illinois State Normal at Normal, Ill., and then engaged in the profession of school teaching for fifteen years. He was superintendent of schools at Rockport, Ind., for two years, of the schools of Boonville, Ind., for two years, having previously been assistant superintendent of schools at Evansville, Ind. His early teaching was in Illinois. He was at Shawneetown for three years. He read medicine in the office of Dr. George B. Walker, dean of the Evansville Medical College, He then began practice in the country about five miles northeast of Mt. Vernon. He located in Mt. Vernon in 1888. He did post-graduate work at the Chicago Clinical College, and is a member of the Mt. Vernon City, the Posey County, and Indiana State Medical societies, and also of the Ohio Valley Medical Association. Dr. Welch married in 1868 Jennie R. Wright, of Cloverport, Ky. They have five sons and two daughters. The Doctor is a Prohibitionist in politics. He is not only an able and prominent physician, but as a citizen is progressive. To him is largely due the steps that led to the improvement of the public roads in Posey county, in which matter he received strong opposition, but the splendid roads of the county stand as a monument to his spirit of progress and foresight.