My Genealogy Hound

J. B. TENNELL, physician, German; was born near the city of Lexington, Ky., Nov. 20, 1833; his paternal and maternal grandparents came from Scotland in an early day and settled in Virginia; remaining there a few years, they removed to Jessamine County, Ky., where Joseph Tennell, the Doctor’s father, was born in the year 1796. Our subject, Buford, as he was called when a boy, was the youngest of a family of ten children. His mother died when he was 2 years old, and a step-mother died some eight years later. From that time on, he lived among strangers, struggled with poverty and fought the battle of life on his own hook-working on a farm for 25 cents a day during the summer and fall, and attending school through the winter. When 15 years of age, he came to Franklin, Ind., and attended a select school for one year; then entered the Franklin College, and continued his studies there for about four years, teaching a district school three terms to secure means to pay his board and expenses. He then commenced and read medicine for three years as a pupil under old Dr. Mackey. Attended medical lectures in the Allopathic Department of Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1855-56. After practicing some three years, he was persuaded to abandon medicine and enter the ministry, which he did, and spent three years as a traveling minister in the U. B. Church. Not being fully satisfied, he decided to return to the business which he had spent so much of his time in order to qualify himself to follow. Before resuming practice, he attended another course of medical lectures at Cincinnati, Ohio, receiving therefrom the degree of M. D. Since then he has been actively engaged in his profession in the counties of Union, Randolph and Howard, Ind. Five years ago, on account of good roads, he located at Palestine, in this county, where he has a nice residence, and has a large and lucrative practice. The Doctor is a large, portly man, weighing two hundred pounds, is well preserved, and has never used tobacco in any form, nor ardent spirits as a beverage. His life is a practical demonstration that any young man of mind and energy can succeed, if they determine to do so.