Hosea August Vise, M.D.
From the History of Illinois; pub. 1927; p. 168

               HOSEA AUGUST VISE, M.D., was graduated in medicine in 1905, and since 1908 has conducted a large general practice at Benton.  He is one of the outstanding professional men of Franklin County, and is a member of a family that has lived prominent and useful lives in this section of Illinois for a great many years.

               Originally the Vise family was Welsh.  They came to America in Colonial times.  One of the ancestors of Doctor Vise was a soldier under Washington in the Braddock campaign and later fought in the Revolutionary war as captain of a Virginia company, participating in the battles of Eutaw Springs and Guilford Court House.  He is said to have reached the remarkable age of 103 years, while his wife died at the age of 107.  They had a son named Nathaniel Vice, who married Dorcas Meadows, who was of English ancestry and a descendant of Pocahontas.  Nathaniel Vise was the father of Hosea Vise, founder of the family in Illinois.  He was born in the Spartanburg district of South Carolina in 1811.  He married Lettie Moore, daughter of Ellsworth Moore.  She was born in South Carolina in 1814.  Their wedding is said to have been the first “temperance wedding” in South Carolina, marked by the absence of whiskey, a break in the common social custom which made Hosea Vise unpopular and was the main or one of the main reasons whey he came west.  In 1835 he settled in Posey County, Indiana, and a short time later came to Hamilton County, Illinois.  He settled on a farm, but became widely known all over southern Illinois as a minister of the Missionary Baptist Church.  He preached forty-eight years, and during that time filled all of his appointments but four, and for thirty-eight years was moderator of his district and missed only two meetings.  He organized more churches of his denomination than any other man in southern Illinois, and he delivered the first temperance lecture in the counties of Hamilton and Franklin.  In 1864 he established a general store at Macedonia.  The Vise family have been merchants at Macedonia continuously since then.  He was for twelve years postmaster of Macedonia and ten years pension agent.  In 1861 he entered the Union army as captain of an Illinois regiment, serving twenty months.  He gave his first vote to Andrew Jackson, but espoused the republican cause when Lincoln was nominated.  Hosea Vise died February 11, 1897, and his wife in 1886.

                Their son, Eliphas Vise, was born in the Spartanburg district, South Carolina, October 11, 1835, and died May 25, 1888.  He was a farmer and merchant.  His wife was Esther Choiser, whose father, William Choiser, lived to the age of eight-six and had a military record of service in the Blackhawk Indian, Mexican and Civil Wars.

                Harvey C. Vise, son of Eliphas H. Vise, was born in Hamilton County, Illinois, October 17, 1856, finished his education in Ewing College and was admitted to the bar, though he has never practiced.  In 1872, at the age of sixteen, he became interested in the store founded by his grandfather at Macedonia, and has made that business his principal concern ever since.  He is president of the Farmers Exchange Bank of Akin and of the Bank of Macedonia since its organization in 1897.  He also owns farming a land in Franklin County.  He is a republican a Royal Arch Mason and Odd Fellow.  Harvey C. Vise married Sarilda Plaster, daughter of John Plaster.  She died in 1886, and of her three children the youngest is Dr. Hosea A.

               Hosea August Vise was born on his father’s farm at Macedonia, August 10, 1881.  Prior to beginning his professional career he had a very thorough and liberal education.  He attended village school at Macedonia, spent three years in Ewing College and two years in Washington University at St. Louis, and in 1905, was graduated from the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons.  Doctor Vise first practiced at Thompsonville, but in 1908 removed to the larger center of Benton, and has been busy in the performance of his professional duties both in that city and the surrounding country.  He is a member of the various medical organizations and is affiliated with the Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of the Masonic Order at Benton.

               Doctor Vise married Miss Grace Mitchell, daughter of George O. Mitchell, of Marion, Williamson County.  They have one daughter, Margaret, now attending the Southern Illinois Normal University at Carbondale and fitting herself for teaching.

Note: From Legacy of Kin, Vol. I, p. 365
Pub.: Times-Leader, September 19, 1935
Dr. Hosea A. Vise, age 53 yrs.; d. 16 Sept 1935, home in Benton.  Leaves wife; 1 daughter: Mrs. Warwick Boos of Benton.


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