My Genealogy Hound

J. C. Esselman, M. D., one of the oldest and an eminently successful physician of Randolph County, is a native of Nashville, Tenn., born in 1841, and is the son of J. C. Esselman, a native Tennesseean. The elder Esselman, after reaching manhood, was united in marriage to Miss Mary Kinkaid, a native of Missouri. He was a Whig in politics, was a great admirer of Henry Clay and was very active in political affairs. The paternal grandfather, John N. Esselman, was a captain in the British army during the Revolutionary War, was a native of Scotland and a descendant of the Campbell clan. He was an agriculturist. The maternal grandfather, Samuel Kinkaid, was a native of Kentucky, and a painter by occupation. Dr. J. C. Esselman was left motherless at the age of four years, and when seven years of age his father also died, so he was indeed left an orphan. He was reared by an uncle, Dr. John N. Esselman, of Nashville, Tenn. He studied medicine with his uncle until the breaking out of the war, when he flung aside his books and joined the Twelfth Missouri Infantry, Confederate army, as lieutenant of Company D. Later he was promoted to the rank of captain, and served in that capacity until the close of the war. He was in the battles of Fredericktown, Prairie Grove, Little Rock, Helena, Mansfield and the entire Banks’ campaign. He was at Jenkins’ Ferry, and was with Gen. Price in his raid as far as Union City, Ark. When the war closed Dr. Esselman returned to Tennessee and completed his medical studies, graduating at the University of Nashville in 1866, and the same year located at Pocahontas, where he has been actively engaged in the practice ever since. Miss Eliza R. Perkins, formerly from Virginia, became his wife in 1864, and this union was blessed by the birth of four children: Kate (a school-teacher and also music instructor), Mazie R. (wife of M. M. Carter, of Pocahontas), Emma R. (deceased) and Tarn. O. Dr. Esselman is a member of the Masonic fraternity and Knights of Honor, and has held various local offices. The family are members of the Catholic Church. The Doctor has a large practice through Randolph, Clay, Greene and Lawrence Counties, and no obstacle which human exertion could overcome has prevented him from visiting the bedside of the sick and afflicted to administer to them whatever relief a skilled and faithful physician could afford. He keeps well posted in all the medical literature of the day, and in his library may be found the latest standard works relative to the science of medicine.