My Genealogy Hound

Dr. Thomas W. Roane, a well known physician of Tipton County, was born in Gloucester County, Va., May 17, 1830, and is a son of Robert and Emily (Davie) Roane, both natives of Virginia. The father was of Irish descent, born in 1797 and died December 31, 1872. The mother was of Welsh descent, born in 1803, and died in 1871. Both were members of the Methodist Church. The father was a harness-maker. In 1836 he moved to Lagrange, Fayette Co., Tenn., and a year later to Tipton County, where he bought a farm, and followed farming the rest of his life. He was a Democrat, and very successful in farming. Dr. Roane received a good education at the Mount Carmel High School, under Rev. James Holmes, D. D., then read medicine a year under Dr. James Maclin. October, 1852, he went to the University of Virginia, entered the medical department, and received a diploma the next June, and after graduating at this university, in September, 1853, he went to the medical college of Pennsylvania, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in March, 1854. Dr. Roane then returned to Tipton County and located seven miles south of Covington, where he rapidly built up a large practice. In April, 1862, he entered the Confederate Army, and enlisted in Company K, Fifty-first Tennessee Infantry, and was made first lieutenant, and when the company was received into the regiment was made chief surgeon, and served in that capacity until the war closed. While acting as post surgeon at Brownsville, in April, 1865, he was captured and taken to the Irvin Block at Memphis, Tenn., and held as a prisoner until the surrender. He then returned home, after an absence of three years, and resumed the practice of medicine. November 17, 1858, he married Mary H. Somerville, who was born in Virginia in 1839. To this marriage thirteen children were born-seven sons and six daughters; two sons have died. Dr. Roane is an emphatic Democrat, and with his wife and seven of the children belongs to the Presbyterian Church, contributing freely to the support of the church and to all charitable objects. He is a man of fine intellect and strict integrity.