DR. WILLIAM ARMSTRONG

 "Greater Love Hath No Man…"

 

 

William Armstrong was born 24 July 1839 near Columbia, TN, about one mile east of Zion Presbyterian Church. His parents were William Osgood Armstrong ( 27 June 1811 - 20 Aug 1885) and Mary E. Smith (28 Jan 1815 - 28 May 1859). William Osgood Armstrong's parents were Elias J. Armstrong (11 Oct 1787 - 7 Aug 1855) and Elizabeth McCauley Frierson (10 April 1794 - 12 Aug 1841), both from South Carolina and buried in Zion Church Cemetery.

Armstrong attended Stephenson Academy near Zion Church and studied medicine under Dr. Joseph E. Dixon. During the Civil War, Dr. Armstrong served as Sergeant under Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, CSA. While his unit was in Memphis in 1863, he met and fell in love with Lula Hanna. They married on Dec. 2, 1863, her sixteenth birthday. After the war ended, Dr. Armstrong returned with his wife to Maury County, where he practiced medicine until 1873. He moved his family back to Memphis that year, just before the outbreak of a Yellow Fever epidemic.

Dr. Armstrong sent his family back to safety in Maury County and stayed in Memphis to give aid to the victims. After the epidemic was over, his family returned to Memphis, where they stayed until 1878, when a more devastating Yellow Fever epidemic hit the city. He again sent his family, which now included eight children, to safety in Maury County. Staying in Memphis to use his medical skills to aid in the crisis, he worked until he became exhausted and overtaken by the fever, died there on Sept. 20, 1878, himself a victim of the epidemic from which he had saved many others.

Source: Facts extracted from Turner's History of Maury County, Tennessee
Dates taken from They Passed This Way