Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/117

BENNETT his brother, Dr. Alfred M. Belt, of Baltimore, attending three sessions at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, taking his M. D. there in 1886. He practised medicine a few months in Frederick County, then for two years was resident physician, Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Baltimore. Afterwards he studied ophthalmology and otology at the University of Vienna and in hospitals of Paris, Berlin and London, next taking a post-graduate course in histology and pathology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and acting as visiting surgeon. In October, 1889, he removed to Washington and practised his specialty and married, on May 18, 1899, Miss Emily Walker Norvel. But after seven years of wedded life a great catastrophe overtook the family.

Dr. Belt, with his two sons, aged six and seven years, lost their lives in the railroad wreck at Terra Cotta, District of Columbia, December 30, 1906.

Belt was the originator and one of the organizers of the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and was surgeon and executive officer there; also ophthalmologist and otologist, Freedmen's Hospital, District of Columbia, and consulting ophthalmologist to the City and Emergency Hospital at Frederick, Maryland. He was professor of ophthalmology and otology at Howard Medical School, District of Columbia. He was president of the Society of Ophthalmology and Otology, Washington; surgeon, Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and published in the medical journals many papers upon his specialty.



Bennett, Sanford Fillmore (1836–1898)

Sanford Fillmore Bennett, editor and song writer, was the son of Robert and Sallie Kent Bennett and was born at Eden, New York, June 21, 1836. He was one of eleven children and two of his brothers became physicians. The father came to Lake County, Illinois, in 1842, first settling at Plainfield and three years later removing to a farm near Lake Zurich. He was a farmer of more than usual prominence, serving as assessor, town trustee, school director, and for eight years as justice of the peace. At sixteen years of age young Bennett entered the academy at Waukegan, Illinois, and at eighteen began teaching school. In 1858 he entered the University of Michigan. In 1864 he resigned his position as editor of The Independent at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, to enter the Civil War, enlisting in the 40th Wisconsin Volunteers and serving to the end of the war as 2d lieutenant.

At the close of the war he returned to Elkhorn where he engaged in the drug business and studied medicine and in 1874 he graduated from Rush Medical College of Chicago. He then settled in Richmond, Illinois, and for twenty years was a successful practitioner. While living in Elkhorn he became associated with J. P. Webster and together they published numerous songs. "The Signet Ring," published in 1871, was a book of hymns of which Dr. Bennett wrote more than a hundred. Among these was "The Sweet Bye and Bye," which has been widely used and is probably best known of his writings. In 1898 he published in book form "The Pioneer, an Idyl of the Middle West." In the preface he says, "It is the pleasant work of my later years, an attempt to preserve to posterity some of the incidents common to frontier experiences in this country during the thirties and fourties, the local coloring being drawn more particularly from the early settlement of Lake and McHenry Counties, Illinois, where I have spent nearly the whole of my life." He was a frequent contributor to the Richmond (Ill.) Gazette, of which he was for a short time one of the editors and publishers.

In 1860 he was married to Gertrude Crosby Johonnatt of Richmond. They had three children.

Dr. Bennett died at Richmond, Illinois, June 11, 1898, lacking only a few days of being sixty-two years old.



Benneville, George de (1703–1793)

George de Benneville, preacher-doctor and the apostle of the Universalist faith, was born in London July 25, 1703. His father, George de Benneville, a French refugee to London on invitation of King William III, and his mother, Marie Granville, had nine children in five years after their marriage, having twins four years successively; when George, the youngest, was born the mother died. Queen Anne provided the child with a nurse. He was very wild, and at twelve years was sent to sea to learn navigation.

As he grew older he was exercised over sin and his relation to God as his judge; he had through life visions and revelations, especially