My Genealogy Hound

WATSON MEREDITH GENTRY, M. D., was born near Stockett’s Church, Williamson County, Tenn., January 31, 1831, the second son of Theophilus L. and Rebecca B. Gentry, and is of Welsh and English descent. Theophilus Gentry was born in North Carolina in 1802, but came with his father to Williamson County when a boy and settled at College Grove. He died at his home in Marshall County in 1883. He was a man noted for his great piety, vigorous mind, exceeding pleasantness and sobriety, and was considered, by those who knew him best, equally smart as his distinguished brother, Col. Meredith P. Gentry, who for sixteen years was one of Tennessee’s most popular and eloquent statesmen. He had a wonderful memory and was a very gifted conversationalist. Dr. Gentry, on his maternal side, was also of distinguished ancestry; his mother’s father, Dr. Thomas Sappington, of Tennessee, was the inventor of “Sappington’s Pills,” noted for their wonderful curative properties; he made a large fortune out of them; they are considered a very fine medicine in this progressive nineteenth century. Dr. Gentry’s mother was born in this country in 1810, and died in 1837. The Doctor was named for his paternal grandfather, Watson Gentry, a North Carolinian, received an academic education at Owen’s Hill and Triune Academies, after which he was a professor of mathematics and the languages for two terms. At this time he was only seventeen years of age. In 1852 he began the study of medicine under Dr. E. Edmonson, of Bethel, Giles Co., Tenn. The latter part of 1852 he went to New York to attend lectures at the University of New York City, where he graduated with honors in March, 1855. Immediately after his graduation he went to Europe, and visited and studied at the most noted colleges of that continent. On his return to this country he accepted a position as surgeon of Bellevue Hospital, N. Y., which he held for two years. In 1857 he located at Shelbyville, Tenn., where he practiced until May, 1861; in June of that year he was commissioned a surgeon of the Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment, Confederate States Army. In 1862 he was promoted to chief surgeon of Gen. Crittenden’s division, which position he held until 1863, when he was sent to Montgomery, Ala., to take charge of the hospitals there. He had nine hospitals under his charge, with 2,300 beds. In 1866 he located near College Grove, on the place formerly owned by Dr. Reuben Gentry, his cousin, where he farmed for four years. In 1870 he moved to Franklin and resumed the practice of medicine, where he still lives. In 1858 he married Miss Martha A. Jones, of Nashville, who was a great belle in her day, being a woman of remarkable beauty and sprightliness; daughter of Dr. John R. Jones, a retired cotton planter of Marshall County, Tenn., who died in 1866. Dr. Gentry has but one child, a daughter, who is said to be quite accomplished in art and music. He is a staunch Democrat and a Mason of high order, being a member of the Commandery. Himself, wife and daughter are members of the Old School Presbyterian Church.