Daniel
E. Nelson
Daniel
E. Nelson, M. D., is the son or E. E. and L. E. (Fultz) Nelson, natives of
Tennessee and North Carolina respectively. Soon after marriage, they moved to
Rutherford County, where the father followed agricultural pursuits. The mother
died in December, 1864, and the father four months later. Of their family of
nine children, five are now living. Our subject was born April 5, 1859, in
Rutherford County, Tenn. The close of the war found this family of children
without parents and almost without means or subsistence. Our subject worked at
all kinds of farm work, and supported himself even in childhood. Having learned
the rudiments or education, he, by his own efforts, acquired a good education
and taught a three months' school, studying medicine in the meantime. In 1879 he
entered Vanderbilt University, and after one term, practiced his profession in
Warren County for one year in order to enable him to obtain means to return and
finish his medical course, which he did, graduating in 1882. At the completion
of his course, he entered a competitive examination for a position in the city
hospital of Nashville,
and was successful in obtaining it. After serving about eleven months he was
chosen physician in charge of the small-pox hospital, and after the close of
this institution in 1883, he came to Chattanooga, recommended by the authorities
of the hospital. In 1886 he was one of six to apply for the position of coroner
of Hamilton County, and succeeded in obtaining that position. Dr. Nelson is
secretary of Hamilton County Medical Society, also a member of the State Medical
Society, secretary and treasurer of the Christian Church, and medical examiner
for the Manhattan Life Insurance Company.
"Goodspeed's History of East Tennessee," 1887