Samuel Gann of Winchester Va Family

Dewell Gann attended Emory University in Atlanta where he received a medical degree on March 31, 1886, his 27th birthday. After graduating he attended medical school in New York where he specialized in surgery. In the summer of 1888, he moved to Arkansas and settled at Sheridan, Grant County, where he opened a practice. In later years, Dr. Gann said the shortage of doctors was the reason he came to Arkansas. He operated his practice in Sheridan for two years before moving to Benton in 1890. At first he operated his medical practice from his home. Later some of his poorer patients, unable to pay their bills, offered to build an office for him. The office was built of bauxite and completed in 1893. It is now the Gann Museum in Benton, AR. He founded the Saline County Medical Society in 1903; there were two members. By 1941 he had delivered more than 3,000 babies without losing a mother--a notable accomplishment considering the medical conditions at that time. He owned the first car in Benton, the first indoor bathroom and the first telephone; his telephone number was 2, the operator was 1. At the presentation of his father's former medical office to the city of Benton for a library in 1948, Dr. Dewell, Jr., described his father's early days in Benton, "In those days wages were 10 cents an hour, and the doctor frequently accepted labor, cows, chickens, and wild honey in return for his work. Ten dollars was the usual fee for a horse and buggy drive and the presentation of an heir." He was buried in Gann Family Mausoleum. From Joy Gann Brown, Hillsborough, NC.