Anderson, John W.

According to his own short biographical account in the diary (22 Feb. 1861), John W. Anderson was born 1 April 1834, one of the eight children born to F. D. Anderson and Mary Silver Anderson of Hanford County, Md . John W. Anderson received his M.D. from the University of Maryland and subsequently accepted the offer of help to establish a medical practice from his uncle Joseph Silver, arriving in Alabama Sept. 1854.

The location chosen by his benefactor at Mt. Pleasant, Ala. near the uncle's plantation, proved to be distressingly without need of a full-time physician. In addition, Anderson 's romantic attachment to Rosalie Josephine Witter, then just fourteen years old, only intensified Anderson 's desire to break with his uncle, who disapproved of the Witter family entirely.

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