Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
Stamford Hospital. The best people, not roundings are a great aid to recovery,
of Stamford alone, but also of the surand the doctor's genial, magnetic personrounding
country, have always been numality must have therapeutic value. Dr.
bered among his patients. His fraternal Bohannan, being the son and grandson of
associations are with Union Lodge, Free
and Accepted Masons, and Rippowam
Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows, of Stamford.
Dr. Bohannan married Ella W. Beers,
daughter of Louis F. and Adelia Virginia
(Hoyt) Beers, the latter a daughter of
Charles Hoyt, of Darien. Dr. and Mrs.
Bohannan are the parents of two daughters
: Virginia Lee, aged fourteen ; and
Elizabeth Wheaton, aged eleven.
One of Dr. Bohannan's distinctive traits
is his love of a good horse, and both here
and in the South he bred many fine trot-
ters, some of them exceeding the 2.20
mark. He also has a kennel of Kentucky
fox-hounds. Dr. Bohannan is a true
physician, winning not only the implicit
confidence of his patients, but also their
profound respect and sincere affection.
BOHANNAN, Benjamin W.,
Physician, School Official.
Of all the myriad activities in which
the people in the centers of population
participate, there is none so exacting, so
vital to the public well-being, and withal,
so thankless as that of the physician. He
is too often only employed when every
other means of cure has been proved
without avail and when the truly unfor-
tunate patient is so far on the decline
that the good physician is, perforce,
obliged to drag him back to health alone.
If any physician among the splendid
group with whom the city of Stamford
is favored could accomplish this restoration
it would seem that Dr. Benjamin W.
Bohannan would be found to be the man,
for science has proved that cheerful sur-
237
physicians, is thoroughly imbued with
the traditions as well as the science of
healing. From childhood he has known
the anxieties and triumphs of the phys-
ician ; the conscientious endeavor and the
long wearisome hours of waiting and
watching which fall to the lot of the man
of healing.
Dr. Benjamin W. Bohannan was born
June 8, 1857, at the little village of Mathews
Court House, Virginia, the son of
Dr. John G. and Laura (Lee) Bohannan
(q. v.). His education was very thorough
and complete, and always more or
less under the general supervision of his
distinguished father. He attended the
private school of Professor A. Olmstead,
and later, while studying medicine under
the preceptorship of his father, went to
sea for four years in coastwise vessels.
He began his career as a sailor before the
mast and ended it as the holder of a pilot's
certificate. In 1886 he entered the University
of the City of New York, and was
graduated from the Medical Department,
in 1888. He took a post-graduate course
at the University of Maryland, following
special lines of medical study, and was
graduated from that institution a year
later. In 1889 he took a summer course
at the University of Vermont, in Bur-
lington. A finishing course at this col-
lege is sought by many medical students
all over the United States, for its stand-
ard of scholarship is considered to be of
the highest.
In the autumn of 1889, Dr. Bohannan
entered upon the practice of medicine in
Stamford, Connecticut, in association
with his brother, Dr. Richard L. Bohannan.
He then removed to Danbury, Con-