Biographical Sketch of Dr. John Isbell, Franklin County, Missouri

>From "History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and 
Gasconade Counties", Biographical Appendix, Goodspeed Publishing 
Company, 1888.

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Dr. John Isbell, physician and surgeon, of Washington, is a native of
Osage County, Mo., born in 1844, the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth
(Wallace) Isbell.  The father was born in Amherst County, Va., in 1812
and was of French descent.  He was a farmer and merchant by occupation.
In his youth he, with his widowed mother and one brother and three sis-
ters, came to Osage County, Mo.  It was in this county that Zachariah
was married and where he settled.  He sold goods in Linn for several
years, and was afterward elected sheriff of the county, and re-elected
serving two terms.  He also served two terms as Representative, and was
a member of the Constitutional Convention.  In 1883 he moved to Louis-
ville, Ky., and in October, 1887 left there and went to Fort Smith,
Ark., where he now resides.  His wife was born in St. Louis County, Mo.
and was of Scotch-Irish descent.  She died in 1849, and Mr. Isbell was
married again.  Three children were born to his first marriage; one son
died; our subject being the eldest living.  He received his literary
education at St. Louis University, and at the age of twenty commenced 
the study of his chosen profession under Dr. Benjamin F. Burch, of 
Washington; after studying three years, in 1866 he entered the medical
department of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, and in
June, 1867, graduated as an M. D.  In the winter of 1867 and 1868 he 
attended the St. Louis Medical College, taking a clinical and hospital
course, and after graduating practiced one year with his preceptor. In
1869 he went to the place of his birth and here practiced two years. In
1873 he went to Kansas City, where he remained until the fall of 1875,
when he came to Washington, and has remained here ever since.  While a
resident of Kansas City he was demonstrator of anatomy in the College
of Physicians and Surgeons, being elected by the board of the institute.
June 13, 1877, he married Miss S. Bell McDonald, a native of Franklin
County, Mo., born in 1858, and the daughter of James C. McDonald.  To
this marriage were born two children, viz.: Alice Maude, born in 1878
and Mary, an infant daughter, born in 1887.  The Doctor is the oldest
practicing physician in Washington, and is now actively engaged in the
work.  He is a Democrat in politics, casting his first presidential
vote for Seymour and Blair, in 1868.  He is a member of the State Med-
ical Association, is a reader of a great many medical journals, and has
the largest medical library in Franklin County.  He and wife are mem-
bers of the Presbyterian Church.  During the war he was a strong Union
man, and in 1863 enlisted in Company A, as first corporal, and when the
Twenty-eighth Regiment of Enrolled Militia of Missouri was organized
the Doctor was elected quartermaster of the regiment, with the rank of
captain, and served in that capacity until hostilities ceased.

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