Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1152

NAME TENNENT 1130 TENNEY ,! and became the minister in the Episcopal Church ; he married a daughter of Gilbert Kennedy, a noted Irish divine. With his wife and four children, Gilbert, William, John and Charles, William Tennent came to America in 1718. He joined the Pres- byterian Churcli and united with the Synod of Pennsylvania, writing out the reasons for his change of denomination. In 1726 he be- came pastor of the church at Neshaminy, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, and here established the "Log College" where stu- dents were prepared for the ministry, the forerunner of Princeton University. He died at Neshaminy in 1746. Three of his sons became ministers. Gilbert, the eldest, worked with Whiteficld, who said of him, "he is the son of thunder and does not regard the face of man" ; his fervor in preaching gained him the title of "Hellfire Tennent" ; John, the third son, was the third pastor of the church at Freehold, New Jersey (afterwards called "Old Tennent Church") ; the second son was William (1705-1777), who succeeded his brother as minister at Freehold, was noted as a good man and famous preacher, and as having experienced a three-day trance "in which he saw the glories of heaven." When thirty-three years old, he married Cath- erine Noble, nee Van Brugh, widow of John Noble, and they had three sons, of whom John Van Brugh Tennent, the subject of our memoir, was the eldest. Young Tennent attended Princeton Univer- sity and graduated in 1758, then went to Edin- burgh for a medical education ; he published a thesis of forty pages on the then burning subject "De insitione variolorum" (1764). While abroad, he was made a member of the Royal Society, in 1765. In 1767, when the medical faculty of King's College was organized, Tennent was appointed professor of midwifery, his associates being Samuel Clossy, professor of anatomy, John Jones (q. v.), professor of surgery, Peter Mid- dleton (q. v.), professor of midwif e ry, James Smith, professor of chemistry and materia medica, and Samuel Bard (q. v.), professor of the practice of physic. The first class of two was graduated in 1769 with the degree of bachelor of medicine; the degree of doctor of medicine was conferred in 1771, the first time this degree was conferred in America. However, with so good an ancestry, an ex- cellent education and high attainments, Ten- nent did not live long to enjoy the fair prom- ise of his life, for liis health failing, he went to the West Indies to benefit his condition and died there of yellow fever, in 1770. His youngest brother, Gilbert Tennent. born in April, 1742, became a physician, married and had one child. The biographer of his father says that young Gilbert "indulged in the gaiety and follies of the world," and goes on to tell of his illness and deathbead repent- ance. He died, March 6, 1770, and was buried in the Tennent Churchyard at Freehold, New Jersey, where his gravestone says that when "Young, Gay, and in the highest bloom of life, death found him hopefully in the Lord." The second son of the second William Ten- nent, also named William, settled as a minister in Charleston, South Carolina ; his son was William P. Tennent, whose son was Gilbert Tennent (1800-1855), fifth generation, edu- cated at the "Old Field School," and at twenty studied medicine under Hamilton in the South Carolina College. In the early autumn of 1828, this Gilbert Tennent went to Lexington, Kentucky, and entered the office of B. W. Dudley (q. v.), "the father of western sur- gery" and professor of surgery in Transylvania University. He graduated in 1829 and re- turned to Charleston, where he died, February 16, 1855. Harriet Blogg. Hist, of the Old Tennent Church, comp. by Frank R. Svmmes, 2nd ed., Cranbury, N. J.. 1904. Life of the Rev. Wm. Tennent. Hartford. 1843. Hist, of Med. in N. T. Stephen Wickes. A. M., M. D., Newark, N.' J., 1879. Med. in the .mer. Colonies. John B. Beck, M. D.. 2nd ed., Albany, 1850. Med. Dept. of the Univ. of Penn. Joseph Carson, M. D., Phila.. 1869. Literary Hist, of Phila. E. P. Oberholtzer. Phila., 1906. Ency. Britt.. 11th ed.. 1910. Toner's Coll. (Mss.) in Lib'y of Cong. Trans. South Carolina Med. Assoc, Cliarleston, 1889, p. 177. Tenney, Samuel (1748-1816). Samuel Tenney, army surgeon, physicist and writer, was born at Byrtcld, Massachusetts, November 27, 1748, and died at Exeter, New Hampshire, where he spent most of his life, February 6, 1816. He was educated at Dum- mer Academy and graduated from Harvard College in 1772. After teaching school in Andover for a year, he studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Kittredge of that town, and settled in Exeter to begin practice, but hurried to Cam- bridge and joined the army as surgeon, on the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, continuing in this capacity during the war. .fter serv- ing one year in the Massachusetts line, he en- tered that of Rhode Island and was present at Saratoga and Yorktown. At Red Bank, on the Delaware, he fought in the ranks and there dressed the wounds of Donop. the Hes-