Thomas Black, M. D., was born in McMinnville, June 13, 1837, the son of Alexander and Mary A. (Smith) Black. The father was of Scotch origin, was born in Kentucky in 1804, and died in 1859 in Orange County, Virginia., while on a tour to Virginia. The mother, probably of English ancestry and born in Kingston, Tenn., about 1810, died in Nashville in 1873. Soon after their marriage in Kingston they moved to McMinnville, where the father was in mercantile business during his life.

One of nine children, our subject received a good education in his youth; in 1868 he entered the medical department of the University of Nashville, Tenn., attending one course of lectures. In 1861 he enlisted in Company F, Sixteenth Tennessee Regiment Infantry, colonel, John H. Savage, and served in the medical department during the war, having charge of various hospitals. He returned home in 1865, located near McMinnville, practiced his profession, and after attending, lectures as before in 1867-68 he graduated. He then practiced in Nashville up to the fall of 1874, when he came to McMinnville where he has since controlled probably the largest practice in the county, with the experience gained also in the cholera epidemic of 1873 in Nashville.

February 13, 1867, he married Emma J., daughter of Dr. .J. S. Young, secretary of State of Tennessee, and born in the old Campbell house on the site of the capitol building at Nashville. Of their three sons and seven daughters, two are dead. Mr. Black is a Democrat and is a prominent member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, of which his wife is a member also.

Source: Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, Warren County, 1886-1887.

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