My Genealogy Hound

BENJAMIN F. DUGGAN, M. D., is a son of John and Sarah A. (Burroughs) Duggan, and is of Scotch English descent. The father died a few weeks before our subject was born. Benjamin F. was born January 22, 1820, in Martin County, N. C., and was apprenticed to learn the tailor’s trade at the age of ten years. Six years later he began business as a journeyman, and at the age of eighteen he immigrated to Tennessee and began working at his trade at Beech Grove, and while here was ordained as itinerant minister of the Methodist Protestant Church. In 1883 he received the degree of D. D. from the college located at Westminster, Md., and was one of the commissioners that formed the basis of union of the Methodist and Methodist Protestant Church in 1875-77 at Baltimore, Md., and has been a member of the general conferences of his church at Baltimore in 1850; Lynchburg, Va., in 1858, and Montgomery, Ala., in 1867. About 1850 he began the study of medicine, and entered the Nashville University, in the fall of 1853 and graduated in 1877, and located in Unionville. He was married, October 23, 1838, to Nancy A. Elliott, who has borne him five children: Benjamin F., Solon S., Algie A., Sarah A. and Salome J. Our subject has been successful in life, but has also met with many adversities. In December, 1861, he became commander of Company A. Fifty-fifth Tennessee Infantry, and was acting colonel from February until the fall of Fort Donelson. When the regiment was organized our subject was made surgeon, and continued in this capacity until the battle of Shiloh.