Memorial Record of Western Kentucky, Volume I and Volume II, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904, pp. 85-86. McCracken Co.

DR. THOMAS RIVERS

Dr. Thomas RIVERS, deceased, was born in Christian county, Kentucky in 1830. While he was yet a child his parents removed to Hickman county, this state, and there his father, who was a physician, died in 1838. Soon after
his father's death, his mother removed to Montgomery county, TN, and there our subject grew to manhood. After receiving a fair literary education he took up the study of medicine under Dr. Dabney, a local physician, under
whose preceptorship he was prepared to enter a medical college. In 1850 he entered the medical department of the University of Louisville, Kentucky; later became a student in the medical department of the University of New York, from which he was graduated in 1853. In that same year he located in Hickman, Fulton county, Kentucky, and began his career as a practitioner of medicine and surgery. In 1858 he removed to Arkansas, where he was enjoying a good practice when the Civil war came on. In 1862 he entered the Confederate army as a surgeon of the Thirty-first Tennessee Regiment, which position he retained through the entire war. Prior, however, to his connection with the above named
regiment, in 1861, he was assistant surgeon in a command of Missouri State Guards, under Colonel Waugh. The war closed. Dr. Rivers located in Ballard county, Kentucky, and there practiced with gratifying success till 1882, when he established himself in Paducah. He was a member of the
Southwestern Kentucky Medical Society, and of the Kentucky State Medical Association, and was also a member of the Masonic order. In 1868 Dr. Rivers was united in marriage to Miss Sue Terrell, a daughter of Horace Terrell. The marriage issue comprise six children, namely: Horace T., Thomas, Edwin A., Jane D., Robert J. and John F.Rivers.