CHARLES J. BOSWELL, M. D. In Dr. Charles J. Boswell, the city of Mounds
has a citizen in whom she may well take pride. It is but rarely that a
professional man is willing to spare the time or energy which any but the
most perfunctory public service demands, but Dr. Boswell is one of those
unusual personages whose civic pride is great enough to make it possible for
him to find time for every public duty, however exacting it may prove, and
in the years of his residence in Mounds his services for the general good of
the community would be hard indeed to estimate.
Born in Union
county, Illinois, he is the son of John H. Boswell, a retired farmer of
Anna, Illinois, who was born in 1838, also in Union county. The Boswell
family was established in Illinois in a very early day by Captain Thomas
Boswell, grandfather of our subject, who came to Illinois from North
Carolina. He passed the remainder of his life in Union county as a
successful farmer, and died in 1884, at the advanced age of seventy-three
years.
John H. Boswell, father of our subject, was educated in the
schools of Union county and in Shurtleff College, Alton, Illinois. He was a
member of Company E, One Hundred and Ninth Illinois Infantry, of which his
father was captain, and with his regiment did valiant duty in the Civil war.
In 1861 he was married in Washington county, Missouri, to Miss Lucy A.
Major, a daughter of James M. Major, who was a farmer, originally from
Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where Mrs. Boswell was born in 1839. She and her
husband are the parents of two surviving children, Charles J. and John E.
Boswell.
Both sons received especially careful home training, and
were given every advantage possible in the way of schooling. They passed
through the schools of their county, after which Charles J., of whom we
write, entered the Southern Normal University at Carbondale, where he
completed two years work. He then took up the study of medicine in Marion
Sims Medical College, St. Louis, when he was but sixteen years of age, and
in 1895, after three years of close and careful application to his studies,
was graduated from that institution when nineteen years old, doubtless the
youngest practicing physician then of record. He soon became a strong factor
in his profession, winning for himself in his locality an enviable
reputation for skill and knowledge. Following his permanent establishment at
Mounds, Illinois, he took two post graduate courses in the New York
Polyclinic. He is a member of the Pulaski County Medical Society, The
Southern Illinois Medical Society and the Illinois State Medical and
American Medical Associations. He is district surgeon for the Illinois
Central Railroad Company in Mounds, and is a member of the American
Association of Railway Surgeons. He also had the distinction of being
appointed to the state board of health by Governor Deneen on July 14, 1908.
Not only has Dr. Boswell made a name for himself in the practice of
his profession, but he has become a leader in political and business affairs
of his district. He has been mayor of Mounds, and during his tenure of
office numerous reforms were inaugurated for the betterment of the civic
welfare. He has been president of the Mounds board of health, and as a
member of the county central committee has done especially effective work in
the interests of the Republican party, whose adherent he is. He was named
president of the First State Bank of Mounds upon its organization, and is
also one of its directors, in addition to which he is a director of the
Mounds Building and Loan Association. In short, there is scarcely an
industry or organization of note in Mounds which has not felt the influence
of Dr. Boswell at one time or another since he became connected with that
city.
Fraternally he is a Master Mason, being affiliated with
Trinity lodge, No. 562, and belongs to Cairo Chapter No. 71, at Cairo,
Illinois, as well as to Cairo Commandery, No. 13, at Cairo. Thus far in his
busy career Dr. Boswell has not married.
Extracted 15 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1912 History of Southern Illinois, Volume 2, pages 911-912.
| Cape Girardeau MO |
Union | |
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Pulaski | |
| Scott MO | Mississippi MO | Ballard KY |
