Biography
Ephraim McDowell was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, the ninth child of Samuel and Mary McDowell. His father was a veteran of the French and Indian War and a colonel during the American Revolution. In 1784 Samuel McDowell was appointed land commissioner and moved his family to Danville, Kentucky. There, he presided over ten conventions that resulted in the drafting of the Kentucky Constitution.
Ephraim McDowell received his early education at the classical seminary of Worley and James, then spent three years as a medical student under Dr. Alexander Humphreys in Staunton, Virginia. He attended lectures in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1793 to 1794 and studied privately with John Bell. He never received a diploma, but in 1825, the University of Maryland conferred on him an honorary M.D. degree.
In 1795, he returned from Scotland, settled in Danville, Kentucky and began his practice as a surgeon. In 1802, he married Sarah Shelby, daughter of Isaac Shelby, war hero and twice governor of Kentucky. They had two sons and four daughters.
Dr. McDowell played a prominent role in his community. He was a founder of Trinity Episcopal Church in Danville, donating the land for its first building. He was also a founder, original corporator, and member of the primary board of trustees of Centre College in Danville. Dr. McDowell became a member of the Philadelphia Medical Society in 1817.
One of his most famous patients was James K. Polk, for whom he removed a urinary stone and repaired a hernia.
Dr. McDowell was the great great grandfather of General John Campbell Greenway, whose statue was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection by the state of Arizona in 1930. He was cousin to woman's suffrage leader Madeline McDowell Breckinridge.
In June 1830 Dr. McDowell was stricken with an acute attack of violent pain, nausea, and fever. He died on June 25, most likely a victim of appendicitis. His wife died 18 years later. They were buried at "Traveller's Rest" the homestead of Isaac Shelby south of Danville, but reinterred in 1879 near a monument dedicated to him in Danville.
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