My Genealogy Hound

Wiley W. Neal, M. D., of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., was born in Giles County, of that State, June 4, 1833, and is a son of Wiley and Nancy (Goggins) Neal, both natives of Newberry District, S. C., where they were married. They came to Tennessee in 1818, locating in Giles County, where they both spent the remainder of their days. Our subject was reared on a farm in Giles County, and secured a fair literary education in his youthful days, attending the Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tenn. At the age of eighteen he engaged in the mercantile business with his brother, in Giles County, where he remained three years. He then taught school and read medicine under Dr. Fields, of Pulaski, after which he taught again in order to secure means to enable him to pursue his medical studies to completion. He attended medical lectures in 1857-58, at the University of Nashville, and then practiced one summer, after which, the following session, he returned and graduated in the spring of 1859. He then returned to Lawrenceburg and entered regularly on the practice of medicine until the breaking out of the civil war. He then enlisted as a private in Capt. B. F. Matthews’ company, Third Regiment Confederate Tennessee Infantry, and, after serving a few months, was honorably discharged on account of disability. Returning home he resumed his practice at West Point, where he acquired a large and successful practice. January, 1886, he removed to Lawrenceburg, and has continued practicing here, having also bought the only drug store in Lawrenceburg or the county, which he conducts in a successful manner, assisted by his son, Paul A., a practicing physician also. November 18, 1859, our subject married Sarah M. Tidwell, of Giles County, who died January 2, 1880, leaving a family of five children. July 7, 1880, the Doctor married Amanda H. Sowell, of Lawrence County, and one child blessed this union. The Doctor is a Democrat in his political views, but of the more conservative class. He is a Mason, and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.