History of Macon County, Illinois.  With Illustrations Descriptive Of 
Its Scenery, and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and 
Pioneers.  Published by Brink, McDonough & Co., Phildelphia, 1880.  
Reproduced through efforts of The Decatur Genealogical Society, 1972. 
pp. 132-133 [Green County].

DR. WILLIAM J. CHENOWETH.  Among the physicians of this part of the 
state who have won distinction in the practice of their profession, Dr. 
William J. Chenoweth, of Decatur, stands among the foremost.  He is 
descended from one of the earliest pioneer families of Kentucky. Two 
brothers by the name of Chenoweth emigrated from Wales to America and 
settled, one in Maryland, and one in Virgina.  Dr. Chenoweth belonged to 
the Virginia branch of the family.  Richard Chenoweth, his great-
grandfather, accompanied General George Rogers Clark on his expedition 
down the Ohio river in the year 1778.  Several members of the 
expedition, among whom was Richard Chenoweth, with their families 
stopped on an island at the Falls of the Ohio, near the present city of 
Louisville.  They were unable to cultivate any crops on the main-land by 
reason of the Indians, and so planted corn on the island which is still 
known as Corn Island.  This corn is said to have been the first ever 
planted in Kentucky.  It was only a short time previous that Boone had 
made the first settlement in this state.  Richard Chenoweth built a 
cabin on Corn Island.  He was a carpenter by trade, and was employed by 
the government to build a fort where now stands the city of Louisville.  
He received his pay in the old Continental money in use during the 
period of the Revolution, which proved to be of little value as a 
purchasing medium, though it was abundant in quantity.
        James Chenoweth, Dr. Chenoweth's grandfather, was five years old 
on the settlement of the family in Kentucky. Subsequently the 
Chenoweth's moved to Middletown, twelve miles from the river, where they 
bore their full share of Indian troubles.  James Chenoweth, when he was 
eleven years old, was wounded in the hip-joint by an Indian's arrow, 
which was not extracted till nine years afterward.  In the year 1791 
their cabin was attacked and destroyed, and several members of the 
family massacred.  Dr. Chenoweth's great-grandmother was scalped.  
Several of her children were killed.  The sleeping infant was 
overlooked, and escaped unharmed.  His grandfather as struck by a 
tomahawk; the blow fractured his skull, but he recovered without the aid 
of a surgeon, though till the day of his death, which took place when 
past his seventieth year, he carried the marks of the wound.  He married 
a grand-daughter of James Harrod, famous as one of the bravest of the 
early Kentucky pioneers, who is said to have build the first cabin ever 
erected in Kentucky.  John S. Chenoweth, the father of the subject of 
this sketch, was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, in the year 1803.  He 
married at Lexington, Kentucky, Elizabeth Ross, daughter of Captain 
Ross, a Scotchman by birth, at one time an officer in the British 
service, and a man of ability and social rank at Lexington.  John S. 
Chenoweth was a man of great natural ability, and carried on the 
mercantile business at Louisville, and afterwards at Cincinnati.  During 
the last years of his life he resided at Maysville, Kentucky, and died 
at St. Louis in 1866.
        The little town of Greensburg in Green county, Kentucky, was the 
birth-place of Dr. Chenoweth.  He was born on the first day of December, 
1823.  Shortly afterward his parents moved to Harrodsburg, where he 
lived till twelve years of age, and obtained the rudimentary part of his 
education; his father then removed to Louisville.  He entered Augusta 
College in 1837, and graduated in 1841.  After leaving school he entered 
the store which his father was carrying on at Louisville, and afterward 
was employed in the same manner at Cincinnati.  After attaining his 
majority he acquired an interest in the store.  On the nineteenth of 
May, 1846, he married Miss America Laforgee of Fleming county, Kentucky, 
daughter of Ayres Leforgee, who was of French Huguenot descent, and 
removed to Kentucky from Pennsylvania.  Dr. Chenoweth's wife's father is 
still living in Kentucky in his eighty-sixth year.
        He began his medical studies while in Cincinnati, attending 
lectures at the Ohio Medical Collee during the winter of 1849-50.  As 
was almost universally the custom of those days, he began practice after 
attending his first course of lectures, locating at Fleming county, 
Kentucky, in March 1850.  He subsequently attended a second course of 
lectures at the University of Louisville, from which he was graduated in 
March, 1853.  The same year he left Kentucky with the intention of 
making his home in Texas, but found that his sentiments on the subject 
of slavery differed greatly from the views entertained by the great mass 
of people of that section, and concluded that he would prefer to make 
his home in a free state.  Accordingly, in May, 1854, he came to 
Decatur, then a town of five or six hundred inhabitants, with two 
railroads, just reaching completion, and supposed to have a great future 
before it.  He at once established himself in practice at Decatur, which 
has been his home ever since.
        In September, 1861, during the war of the rebellion, he was 
commissioned as surgeon of the Thirty-fifth Illinois regiment, and 
served in Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Misissippi, and 
Alabama.  He took part in the battles of Pea Ridge and Perryville.  He 
resigned in December, 1862, and returned to Decatur to resume his 
professional practice.
        In his early life he was a member of the Democratic party.  Though 
born and raised in a slave state, he held liberal views on the subject 
of slavery.  He favored the colonization of the negroes and the gradual 
extinction of a system which he believed to be injurious to the best 
interests of the south.  Previous to the war he belonged to the Douglas 
branch of the Democratic party, and from the position of a strong war 
Democrat during the rebellion, he logically found his way into the 
Republican party, with which he has since acted.  He has been connected 
with the Methodist church, though his views on many theological points 
differ materially from the doctrine maintained by the Methodist 
denomination.  He has two children, Dr. Cassidy Chenoweth, and Eliza, 
wife of R. H. Piper.  
        From the start Dr. Chenoweth has maintained a leading position 
among the physicians of Decatur.  His specialities have been surgery, 
and female diseases.  For many years he was a partner of Dr. S. T. 
Trowbridge, then the leading surgeon in this part of the state, and has 
since had a large practice in surgery, in the course of which he has 
performed some of the most difficult operations known to this department 
of the healing art.  It is sometimes said, that no man does anything 
well unless in love with his work.  Dr. Chenoweth's great liking for his 
profession may account in some measure for his success.  He has been an 
enthusiastic student, and among the first to take advantage of the 
latest reliable results of progressive medical science.  In all matters 
concerning his profession he has taken a deep interest. To him, in 
connection with Dr. A. R. Small, is principally due the passage of the 
law of 1877, to regulate the practice of medicine in the state of 
Illinois, admitting to practice only graduates of medical colleges, 
physicians of ten years standing, and those capable of passing an 
examination before a state board of examiners.  His attention was called 
to the subject from the perusal of a similar provision in the laws of 
California.  Other physicians became interested in the measure, and its 
passage was finally secured.  With a strong and vigorous mind, a sound 
and well-balanced judgement, and an impulsive and earnest nature, he has 
not only been successful as a physician, but had he chosen, could have 
won distinction in other fields.  His management of a paper, which he 
published for a year at Decatur, showed marked literary ability.  On the 
few occasions on which he has addressed public assemblies, he has 
displayed an excellent command of language, and a strong, earnest and 
effective style as a public speaker.  He has been one of the public-
spirited citizens of Decatur, an advocate of improvement, and in all the 
relations of life has sustained the reputation of an honorable man.

Boone Chenoweth Clark Douglas Harrod Laforgee Piper Ross Small Trowbridge 
=
AL AR CA Cincinnati-OH Fleming Harrodsburg-Mercer Lexington-Fayette 
Louisville-Jefferson MD Maysville-Mason PA St._Louis-MO TN TX VA Wales

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/green/chenoweth.wj.txt