DR. JOHN S. ORGAN

FROM: The History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887).  P. 733-734.

          Dr. John S. Organ, of Walpole, was born in Wilson County, Tenn., in 1844, the eldest of seven children of Col. Dr. James T. and Amanda (Cartwright) Organ, natives of Wilson County, born in 1822 and 1826 respectively. They were married October 24, 1843, and about 1848 removed to Wayne County, Ill., where the father resumed blacksmithing. In 1857 he went to "Marion, in 1859 to Arkansas, and in 1862 joined a Missouri regiment of volunteers. He first took his family back to Wayne County, Ill., and in the meantime being cut off from his company, Gen. Blair, in command at St Louis, commissioned him first lieutenant, to raise a company of which be was made captain. He then joined the Thirtieth Missouri, and was in active service until the close, operating in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc. He was made captain of a company in the Sixth Mississippi Heavy Artillery, and afterward lieutenant- colonel of the Seventieth Mississippi (colored), and afterward colonel. After three years of distinguished service he returned home, and in a few years moved to Harrisburg and resumed the study of medicine, began before the war. From 1869 he practiced there and in neighboring counties until his health forbid it, about three years before his death, which occurred October 7, 1879. The mother died in September, 1874, a member of the Christian Church. Our subject had an ordinary education, and when seventeen, in June, 1862, enlisted in his father's company, served about eighteen months, and was discharged in 1864. In 1867 he began medical study under Dr. Cheany, of Harrisburg, and two years later, in 1871-72, he attended lectures at tile Medical College of Louisville, and graduated in 1879 from the Medical College of Evansville. He entered upon his practice at Broughton in 1872, and since 1874 has made Walpole and vicinity his home, where he has become one of the leading practitioners in the county, and has an extensive practice. He has acquired ninety acres of choice land, well cultivated and with excellent buildings, all this from a beginning of no means. He is a Republican, first voting for Lincoln. He is a Mason. January 18, 1877 he married Nancy. daughter of David and Patsey Smith, natives of Wilson County, Tenn. Their only surviving child is John R.