My Genealogy Hound

SAMUEL P. BLACK, M. D., an enterprising citizen of Rutherford County, Tenn., and proprietor of the Smyrna grist-mill, was born in Tennessee April 10, 1837, and is a son of Dr. Thomas C. and Catharine W. (Morton) Black, both of whom are natives of this State. The father was born in Sumner County March 15, 1809, and is the son of Samuel P. Black, a native of North Carolina, who received a liberal education in that State, and was noted for his learning and morality. Dr. Thomas C. Black received his literary and classical education entirely from his father; he afterward attended Bradley’s Academy, where he commenced the study of medicine. He graduated at the Transylvania University, of Kentucky, and was one of the founders of the Rutherford County Medical Society. His death occurred May 28, 1878. The mother still survives and resides on the old homestead. Our subject, Samuel P., was reared on the farm and secured a good classical education, attending school at the Stone’s River Academy and Washington Institute. At an early age he began the study of medicine with his father, and later attended lectures in the medical department of the College of Nashville, graduating at that institution with the degree of M. D. He then returned home and practiced medicine with his father until 1859, when he engaged in the milling business. In 1862 he was appointed assistant surgeon of the hospital at Nashville, where he remained for some time, but returned home on account of sickness, shortly afterward he enlisted in the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Company, and was transferred to the medical department of East Tennessee, where he tilled the position of assistant surgeon. At the close of the war he returned home and resumed his milling business, which he has since continued and in which he has been quite successful. Mr. Black is a single gentleman, a Democrat in politics and has been a Mason since he was twenty-one years of age.