One of the most experienced physicians ans surgeons of Hancock county, Indiana, and the leading practitioner of Fortville is Dr. Simeon T. Yancey, who was born near Frankfort, Kentucky, September 2, 1835, a son of Charles L. and Jane (Hancock) Yancey, also natives of Kentucky and of Virginia parentage.

Robert Yancey, of Culpeper, Virginia, and the father of Charles L., was a hero of the Revolutionary War and was one of a number of citizens who organized a regiment, which Mr. Yancey entered as major and of which he afterwards became the colonel, and fought until the close of the desperate and glorious struggle. After the war he migrated to near Versailles, Woodford county, Kentucky, where his death occurred when he was about eighty years of age. His wife was a member of the Holloway family, which was also one of the best known in the Old Dominion.

Charles L. Yancey was reared by the Ayersman family of Lexington, Kentucky, and learned the trade of silversmith. To his marriage with Miss Hancock, whose father, Thomas Hancock, was a colonel in the war of 1812, there were born seven children, named as follows: Thomas, Robert (deceased), Simeon T., Elizabeth (deceased), Charles, Wirt and Mary, the last named being the wife of George Green, of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dr. Simeon T. Yancey acquired his elementary education in a subscription school taught in a log cabin in Kentucky, attended the common schools in Indiana, to which state he came in the fifties, and July 22, 1862, enlisted in Company A., Seventieth Indiana Volunteers, with which he served until the close of the Rebellion, having for a short time read medicine in Frankfort, Kentucky. At the close of the war he entered the medical department of the Michigan State University at Ann Arbor and pursued a medical course of study in 1865-66, and after graduation located for practice in Strawtown, Hamilton county, Indiana, where he met with flattering success, but the field of his operation was too narrow for a physician of his ability, and in 1870 he came to Fortville, where he has ever since stood at the head of his profession. In the meantime, however, the Doctor took an additional course of study in the Indiana Medical College in 1874, but with this exception his practice has been continuous and uninterrupted since 1866.

In politics the Doctor is a stanch, stalwart and unswerving Republican, and is one of the most popular members of the party in north middle Indiana. In 1880 he entered the race for the state senatorship from Marion, Hancock and Shelby counties, which as a rule poll a Democratic majority of fifteen hundred, but the Doctor carried the day most triumphantly, receiving a clear majority of eight hundred. He also served as state oil inspector during the administration of Gov. Hovey, has been examining surgeon for the Knight of Honor for two years, and is an honored member of Fortville Lodge No. 207, F. & A.M.

The Doctor's first marriage was solemnized in March, 1867, with Miss Rachel P. Flanders, daughter of James Flanders, but this lady was most untimely called away the following August. The Doctor next married Miss Harriet E. Willes, of Potsdam, St. Lawrence county, New York, a daughter of Wilder and Orrenda Willes, both now deceased. The Doctor and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Fortville and freely contribute to its support. They are esteemed very highly in the social circles of the village in which they reside and are loved and respected by all who know them.

Transcribed from Biographical Memoirs of Hancock County B. F. Bowen, Publisher, Logansport, Indiana, 1902 Pages 425-426.

Submitted by Sylvia (Rose) Duda, Laingsburg, MI Aug 15, 2006.

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