Memorial Record of Western Kentucky, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904, pp 775-776 [Christian] DR. JOHN A. GUNN, one of the foremost physicians of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was born in Person county, North Carolina, July 30, 1840. The family originated in Scotland, and member on both the paternal and maternal sides of the house were soldiers in the Revolutionary war. The earliest ancestor of the Gunns came from Scotland and settled in Virginia in the eighteenth century. Daniel B. Gunn, the father of Dr. Gunn, was born in North Carolina, and was a physician of excellent ability and standing. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and was a graduate of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. He practiced in North Carolina for a time, then moved to Tuskegee, Alabama, and practiced in the state until 1855, when he removed to Brandon, Mississippi, where he died in 1889. He married Eliza H. Brandon, whose grandfather was a colonel in the Revolutionary war. She was a well educated lady, a graduate of the Moravian College at Salem, North Carolina, and taught school in Alabama. Dr. John A. Gunn was the oldest of five children. At the age of nine years he was taken by his parents to Yanceyville, North Carolina, about a year later to Tuskegee, Alabama, and at the age of fifteen to Brandon, Mississippi, so that his youth was passed in various places and under various conditions. Most of his early education was obtained from his mother. He was graduated in 1858 from the Brandon high school, of which Colonel Luke W. Findlay was principal, who is still living and one of the prominent citizens of the state. For a time after graduation from high school he was subscription clerk in a drug store and assisted his father. At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted in Captain Robert Smith's company of Mississippi Confederate Infantry. Captain Smith was afterward promoted to colonel and was killed at the battle of Murfreesboro. Mr. Gunn's time expired just before the battle of Shiloh, but he re-enlisted in the Thirty-ninth Mississippi Infantry, under Colonel W. B. Shelby, and was in camp at Jackson. He was in the battle of Corinth, and was besieged at Port Hudson from May 27 to July 9, 1863, being lieutenant at the time. He was taken prisoner at the surrender of Port Hudson, and was held in prison for twenty-three months, for eighteen months being on Johnson Island, and during his period of captivity was in six different prisons. He was paroled in the spring of 1865, and while at Point Lookout Lincoln was assassinated. For thirteen months he was physician at the city hospital in Vicksburg, having studied medicine at the time but was not yet a graduate. From there he attended the medical department of the University of Louisiana during the session of 1886-7, and then entered the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, where he was graduated in the spring of 1868. He then came to Christian county, Kentucky, and for the following eighteen years was in practice in Casky. He came to Hopkinsville in 1886, and has been one of the successful and well known practitioners of this place ever since. Dr. Gunn married Miss Anna Kelley, a daughter of Dr. R. H. Kelley, of Hopkinsville, and they have become the parents of five children: Henry, deceased; Caroletta, at home; Florida, the wife of T. S. Gant; Ethel; John A., Jr., in business. Dr. Gunn is a member of the Episcopal church, and in politics is a Democrat, but always votes for the man he thinks best fitted for the place. Gunn Brandon Findlay Smith Shelby Kelley Gant = Person-NC Scotland VA AL MS http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/christian/gunn.ja.txt