Hale County AlArchives Biographies.....Peterson, Francis Marion August 29 1821 - living in 1893
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Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
   FRANCIS MARION PETERSON, M. D., has long held high rank in Alabama as a
physician and surgeon. He was born in Pickens county, August 29, 1821. He is
descended from an old and prominent family of South Carolina, the native state
of his father, James Peterson. His ancestors participated in the Revolutionary
war under Gen. Francis Marion of South Carolina, and it was in affectionate
remembrance of that hero that Dr. Peterson was named. James Peterson came to
Alabama with his mother when he was about nineteen years old, she being then
married to her second husband„ a number of other families coming at the same
time. Mrs. Peterson had married a Mr. Cox, and when James Peterson reached
Alabama, he soon married a Miss Cox, a niece of his step-father, and whose
father also came to Alabama in 1819. Miss Cox was born in South Carolina, and
was of excellent family. She bore here husband four sons and three daughters.
James Peterson lived near Pickensville, Ala., for many years, and as a planter
accumulated considerable wealth, but having become surety for friends he lost
heavily in 1850, and that year removed to northern Mississippi, where he died in
1854, aged fifty-two years. His widow died two years later, also aged fifty-two.
Francis Marion Peterson was reared on his father's plantation, and in early
youth received a fair education, but just as he was about to enter college, his
father's financial embarrassments came upon him, and attendance at college was
an impossibility. Young Peterson was, however, of strong determination and
ambitious to advance in the pursuit of knowledge, and found an avenue to the
attainment of his aim through teaching school himself. For two years he taught
in an academy south of Pickensville, and then for another year in an academy
north of Pickensville. He had now saved sufficient money to defray the expense
of preparing for the practice of medicine, to the study of which, during the
last two years of his teaching, he had given more or less of his time. When
about twenty-one years old he went to Columbus, Miss., and there continued the
study of medicine under Dr. Lincecum, an able and learned physician and surgeon.
At the same time he studied under a private tutor Latin, Greek and the higher
mathematics, and he continued on with these studies, together with French,
German, and the sciences, under a private tutor, until about 1883. As a result
or this course of study Dr. Peterson is an accomplished scholar, both in the
classics and in science. In 1845 he took a course of lectures in medicine at the
university of Pennsylvania, at the same time attending the Blockley almshouse.
In the spring of 1846, Dr. Peterson located at Greensboro, Ala., where he has
since continued to reside, engaged in the practice of his profession. After a
successful career of twenty years in the practice of medicine, under the
authority of a diploma, from a western college, Dr. Peterson determined to
acquire a more thorough knowledge of his profession than he then possessed, and
with this end in view, entered the university of New York, from which
institution he graduated in 1869. He immediately returned to Greensboro and
resumed the practice of his profession. His close application to the study of
his profession and to the pursuit of general knowledge, together with the
kindliness of his bearing toward his patients and his fellow-men, has won for
him the esteem, confidence and affectionate regard of an. extended patronage and
a wide circle of friends. Among his professional brethren is he especially
esteemed. For years he has been prominent as a member of the state and county
medical associations. In 1886 he was president of the state medical association
and that year delivered the annual message at Anniston. He is now senior
counselor of that association, and is also president of the Greensboro board of
health. During the period in which a medical department was a feature of the
Southern university at Greensboro, Dr. Peterson was professor of materia medica
and obstetrics. To medical literature Dr. Peterson has made several valuable
contributions, among which may be mentioned a paper on the "New Theory of the
Production of Puerperal Eclampsia," which elicited much interest and favorable
comment throughout the state. Another of his contributions to medical literature
was entitled, "Advances in Gynecology and Sim's Drainage Tube in the Treatment
of Ovariotomy." In 1881 before the State Medical association meeting at
Montogmery, Dr. Peterson presented a "Monograph on Diphtheria," of no less than
100 pages, and in 1885, before the same association in convention at Greensboro,
he handled in an able manner the subject of "Dysentery in Alabama." A complete
list of his various papers on medical topics, would be too long for insertion in
these pages. Outside of medical science the doctor's pen has been perhaps no
less busy. One of these productions is entitled, "Criticism on Dr. Draper's
Theory of the Production of Butter from Clover," a subject in the field of
evolution. As a lecturer Dr. Peterson is clear, learned, forcible and
entertaining. Being of a philosophical turn of mind and thorough in his
researches in any field of thought to which he directs his attention, his
deductions and conclusions are usually accepted as authentic by the profession
of the state. No one could be more devoted to his profession than is Dr.
Peterson. He has no political ambition, and, in fact, he has often said that he
would prefer to be known as an able physician and surgeon than as president of
the United States. He has always been enthusiastic in his desire to see
educational methods improve and education progress. He has done much to aid the
Southern university financially and otherwise, as well as the Greensboro Female
college. Of both institutions he has long been a trustee, and takes much pride
in them. Dr. Peterson has been twice married. At Greensboro in 1846 he married
Miss Amanda Shivers, who died in 1858, having borne him three sons. The eldest
of these sons, Dr. James J. Peterson, died at the age of thirty. He graduated
with honor from the university of New York, and was a young man of great
promise. The second son, Rev. John A. Peterson, is a graduate from the Southern
university at Greensboro, and is a .presiding elder of the Mobile district. The
third son, Prof. Francis M. Peterson, holds the chair of ancient languages in
the Southern university, and is a licensed minister in the Methodist Episcopal
church, south. In 1861 Dr. Peterson married a daughter of Dr. Alexander Sledge,
of Greensboro, Ala., to which marriage there have been born three daughters, the
eldest of whom is the wife of Dr. H. T. Inge of Mobile; the second is the wife
of Phares Coleman of Montgomery, and the youngest is unmarried and living at
home. The doctor and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church,
south.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1067-1069
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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