Thomas Gibson Farr

As printed in 1902

THOMAS G. FARR, M. D.

Close study, careful preparation and an earnest desire to be of use to the world in alleviations of human suffering have made Dr. Thomas Gibson Farr one of the most capable and successful physicians of this portion of Ohio. He is practicing in South Charleston and has a very liberal patronage. The Doctor is a native of Crawfordsville, Indiana, born on the 24th of February, 1838, his parents being James Gibson and Asenath (Bennett) Farr. The father was a trade on the river and in 1840, when on his way to New Orleans with his cargo, a tornado overtook them at Natchez, Mississippi, destroyed both his boats and everything was lost. He was injured but returned as far as Evansville, Indiana, where he died of lockjaw, caused from the injuries which he had sustained. He had been buried two weeks before his widow learned of his death. She was left in very straitened financial circumstances and returned to Selma, Ohio, in which place she had been reared from the age of seven years. Mrs. Farr made her home in that town and the Doctor became a member of the household of his uncle in Wayne county, Illinois, until his mother married again, becoming the wife of Mordecai Taylor. The Doctor then returned to his mother, who was living upon a farm in Warren county, Ohio, and in that locality he was reared to manhood, acquiring his education in the common schools and in Springboro Academy. At the age of nineteen he began teaching in the country schools. of Warren county and during his leisure hours devoted his attention to the study of medicine. For three years he was a student in the office of Dr. Smith, of Springboro, after which he pursued a winter's.

course of lectures in the Cincinnati Collegeof Medicine and Surgery during the scholars-- tic year cf 1861-2.

Dr. Farr began practice at Bellbrook, Greene county, and entered upon a successful professional career. He remained there for a year and then removed to Selma, where he was a practitioner for nineteen years, meeting with creditable and enviable success, but his health at length failed him, and in 1882 he came to South Charleston. In the meantime he had further perfected himself in his chosen calling as a student in the Starling Medical College at Columbus, in which he was graduated in the class of 1878. He has always read extensively in the line of his chosen work, thus continually broadening his knowledge and enlarging the field of his usefulness.

The Doctor was married in Lebanon,. Ohio, March 10, 1859, to Miss Helen Sweeny, a daughter of Colonel James and. Clarissa (Coffeen) Sweeny, who were early settlers of Warren county. Her mother came of Revolutionary stock. Her material great-great-grandfather was Captain

John Coffeen, who was a privateer during the war for independence. His father, John Coffeen, Sr., was a student in a college of Dublin, Ireland, and he and some young men went on board a vessel to view the ship and were fastened down in the hatch and taken to America, where they were sold today the passage. A pamphlet called the

As printed in A Biographical Record of Clark County Ohio (1902). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.