Dr. Abner D. Kimball
Few men of the past generation in Grant County, Indiana, have been more sorely missed or more sincerely mourned than the late Dr. Abner D. Kimball. He is not only missed because of his high professional ability but also because of his splendid personality and the gifts that won him the friendship of the entire county. He bore the reputation of being one of the most skillful surgeons in the State of Indiana, but he had another reputation of which he was much prouder and that was of having the ability of winning everyone for his friend. For many years he was closely identified with the interests of Marion, Indiana, being Chief Surgeon of the Marion branch of the National Military Home, and he took an active part in the life of the people of Marion.
Dr. Abner Kimball was born in Coshocton County, Ohio, on the 24th of January, 1839, the son of Moses and Louisa (Powell) Kimball. His father was a native of Coshocton County also, but his mother was a Southern woman, having been born near Richmond, Virginia. The Kimball family were of English origin and two brothers settling in New Hampshire or Connecticut early in the eighteenth century founded the family in the Untied States. Moses Kimball lived in the State of Ohio until 1850 when he removed with his family to Miami County, Indiana, and there resided until 1872, when he went yet further west and settled in Wilson County, Kansas. There he died in 1886. The children of Moses and Louisa Kimball were nine in number, as follows: Abner D., Henry, Thomas C., Millard, Charles, Frank, Henrietta, Nancy and Harriet.
Dr. Abner D. Kimball grew up on the farm of his father, acquiring his elementary education in the schools of Miami and Grant Counties, Indiana. He then attended the high school in Marion and then took up the study of medicine with Dr. Frazier, of Converse, Indiana. This was in 1857, and during the following winter he attended his first course of lectures in Rush Medical College, at Chicago. During 1859 and 1860 he attended his second course of lectures and in the spring of 1860 he was graduated from this famous old middle west institution which has turned out so many of the best physicians and surgeons in the country.
Immediately after his graduation he began the practice of his profession at Converse, Indiana, and here he remained until he enlisted in the fall of 1862 in the Union Army. He was mustered into the service as First Assistant Surgeon of the Forty-eighth Indiana Infantry and later on in the course of the war he served as Acting Assistant Surgeon of the Ninety-ninth Indiana Infantry. He served under General Sherman in the famous march to the sea and was with him during the Carolina Campaign and again when the cry heard throughout the Army was "On to Richmond." He was mustered out of the service at Louisville, Kentucky, on the 20th day of July, 1865.
After the war the doctor resumed his practice in Converse, Indiana, and remained there until 1884 when he removed to Marion. Here on the 20th of May, 1890, he received the appointment as Chief Surgeon of the Marion Branch of the National Military Home for Disabled Volunteers. He held this position for many years, filling the post to the great satisfaction of both the soldiers unto whom he ministered and of those in authority who had placed him in charge. Shortly after the war in the winter of 1868-1869, Dr. Kimball took a course in surgery in Bellevue Hospital in New York City, and after that time he was always especially interested in surgery and in the advance which that branch of medical science has made of late years, for he had seen the horrors of the crude surgery of the battlefield and realized how necessary a greater knowledge was to surgeons. He died in Marion, November 4, 1904.
Dr. Kimball was a member of the Grant County Medical Society of the Indiana State Medical Society and also of the Association of army Surgeons of the United States. Fraternally he was a member of the Masons and was a Knight Templar in this order. He was also a member of the Loyal Legion.
Mr. Kimball was married in Wabash County, Illinois, in October, 1865, to Henrietta Haupt. Mrs. Kimball was born in Wabash County and was a daughter of Aaron Haupt. Four children were born to the doctor and his wife, as follows: Maude, who died in infancy; Clyde; Nellie and Edwin, who is County Auditor of Grant County, and of whom notice is given elsewhere in this volume.
Source: Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914, pages 1266-67.