J. H. ALEXANDER, M. D., was born in Blount (now Loudon) County, October 16, 1845, the son of Francis and Margaret A. (Vickers) ALEXANDER, the former born near Leesburg, Tenn., in 1809, the son of Francis ALEXANDER, a native of Buncombe County, N.C., and who married Jane O’DAIR, and became a pioneer of Washington County. He was a farmer, and, with his wife, belonged to the Presbyterian Church. The father, a farmer and blacksmith, moved to Blount County when twenty-one and died in 1870. The mother, born in the latter county in 1830, was the daughter of James VICKERS. Both parents were Presbyterians, and had ten children.
Our subject, the fifth attended the Quaker school at Friendsville, and then entered Maryville College for three years, when he began medicine with Dr. BLANKENSHIP at the latter place. During 1870, 1871, and 1872 he attended the medical department of the University of Louisville, graduating in 1872 He practiced in Blount County until September 1872, and then in Elizabethton until the fall of 1879. He entered Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia and graduated in 1880, resuming his practice at Elizabethton where he has succeeded remarkably.
In 1868 he married Sallie M., the daughter of William T. DOWELL a Methodist minister. She died in 1869, and May 7, 1873; Senorita V., a daughter of H. H. LUTZ, became his wife. She was born in Virginia November 6, 1851. Their children are an infant son, born January 31, 1874, and deceased February 2, 1874, Henry F., born December 7, 1874; Maggie, born April 3, 1877, Edwin C., born February 3, 1879; Sarah, born September 5, 1881, and deceased September 5, 1883; and Nannie, born October 30, 1888, and deceased June 23, 1886. He and his wife are Methodists.
Transcribed by Kris L. Martin
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.