My Genealogy Hound

DR. R. A. CANTER, one of the pioneer medical men of Graves County, was born June 11, 1811, in Rowan County, N. C., and is the son of Erasmus and Rebecca (Horn) Canter; the former a native of Maryland and the latter of Delaware. Erasmus Canter was a farmer and minister of some note in the regular Baptist Church. He died in 1871 at the age of ninety-three; the mother died in 1866, at the advanced age of ninety-five years. Dr. Canter commenced life for himself at the age of twenty-two years, following the vocation of farmer in his native State, where he remained until 1841, at which time he immigrated to Kentucky, and settled in Calloway County, which was his home until 1850, when he came to Graves County, locating on Terrapin Creek, about three miles from his present place of residence, where he lived until 1873, at which time he purchased the beautiful farm of 230 acres near Lynnville, on which his declining years are spent. Dr. Canter was married January 17, 1833, to Phebe C. Beeson, daughter of Richard and Susan (Gregory) Beeson, natives of North Carolina. Their union has been blessed with the following children: Susan (deceased), George, Jefferson, Ambrose H., Rebecca E., S. F., P. C., Mary A., John (deceased), Nancy and Robert A. In 1850 Mr. Canter began the practice of medicine in the neighborhood where he now lives, and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. He has been the leading physician in the community for thirty-four years, and is justly considered one of the most successful disciples of the healing art in the county. In politics the doctor is a stanch Republican, and was a strong Union man during the war; two of his sons served in the Federal Army. His firm stand for the Union during that trying period rendered him unpopular with a certain class of men, whose sympathies were with the Confederacy, and for some time he deemed it prudent to absent himself from his home. He returned in 1865, and during that year distinguished himself in successfully treating a dangerous malady, which raged over the southern part of the county. The doctor and his wife are prominent members of the Christian Church, belonging to the Lynnville congregation, of which society he was one of the original members. He is also a member of the Masonic fraternity, and still clings to the Republican party.