My Genealogy Hound

EDWIN CHALMERS EVANS, M. D., of Sedalia, has been engaged in practice for forty-four years and stands very high in his profession. For years he has made a specialty of ophthalmic and general surgery, and has generally had more to do than he could well manage in this field alone. In politics he has always voted with the Democratic party, but has never cared to occupy public positions, and it was against his will that he was elected Mayor of Sedalia in 1880. Once in that place, however, he did not neglect the duties of the office, but discharged them to the satisfaction of his constituents and political opponents alike.

Our subject is a son of Dr. Thomas and Dorothy (Chalmers) Evans, the latter being a direct descendant of the great Presbyterian divine. Dr. Chalmers, of Scotland. She was born in Baltimore, Md., and died in Missouri about 1834. Dr. Thomas Evans, a native of Washington, D. C., engaged in practice there until thirty years of age, when, in 1832, he removed to Boonville, Cooper County, Mo. He afterwards married a young widow, a Mrs. Joplin, who by her former marriage had a daughter, Betty. After practicing in Boonville until about 1838, Dr. Evans removed to a farm in the eastern part of Pettis County, where he bought about one thousand acres of wild land. He owned a large number of slaves, to whom he was a considerate and kind master at all times.

Dr. Edwin C. Evans was born in Washington, D. C., October 29, 1828, and was only six years of age when his mother died. His boyhood was passed in Boonville, Mo., and on his father’s farm in Pettis County. Of the nine children in the parental family he was the eldest, and when quite young his father employed him to make tinctures and pills, and also to help him in his general practice, which was very extensive. In 1852 young Evans went to St. Louis and took a course of medical lectures, graduating from the college in 1854, and practicing during the summers with his father.

Soon after taking his degree Dr. Evans married Betty Joplin, with whom he had grown up. She was born in Boonville, Mo., March 10, 1835, and was married June 6, 1854. The eldest child of the Doctor and his wife is Jessie E., wife of William M. Williams, a leading attorney of Boonville, Mo. Dollie, the next in the family, married H. H. Allen, Secretary and Manager of the Continental Building and Loan Association of Missouri, and a resident of Kansas City. Thomas, the eldest son, is married and has two children; he is a railroad engineer, having his headquarters at Marshall, Mo. Charles Clarke is Assistant Treasurer of the Missouri Trust Company and lives in Sedalia. Mrs. Sue, wife of W. P. Woods, has one child and lives in St. Louis. Edwin Joplin is interested in the Building and Loan Association of Sedalia.

Soon after his marriage our subject settled in Otterville, Cooper County, Mo., where he practiced for seven years. In the mean time, during the winter of 1857-58, he took a course of lectures at Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, Pa., and also pursued a special line of study in Wilde’s Eye Hospital. In 1862 he moved to Boonville, where he practiced until 1873. During this time, however, in 1865, he went to New York City, and the following winter spent some time in Bellevue Medical College and Hospital and in the New York Ophthalmic College.

In order to give more attention to his special branches of surgery and to his chosen work as an oculist, the Doctor left his former general practice in Boonville and became a resident of Sedalia. His reputation, however, had preceded him, and he at once had a larger general practice than he cared to attend to. He is a member of the Pettis County Medical, the Missouri State Medical, and the American Medical Associations, in each of which societies he has the distinction of being the oldest member, and before all of these he has frequently read papers possessing great merit. His services have been called into requisition in many of the most difficult surgical operations, and he made the first amputation successfully performed in Sedalia.

Although now in his sixty-seventh year the Doctor is well preserved and can stand with much unconcern a drive of sixty miles a day and then conduct a difficult and important operation. He commenced without a dollar of this world’s goods, but now owns property in this city valued at from $20,000 to $25,000.

Fraternally Dr. Evans became a member of the Masonic order in 1864, has filled various chairs, and was Master of the lodge in Boonville the last year of his residence there. In 1854 he joined the Presbyterian Church at Otterville and is now an Elder in the Broadway Church of Sedalia, to which his wife and two of his children also belong. He has been identified with the Young Men’s Christian Association for a number of years, and always uses his influence for the elevation of his fellow-men.