Biography - P Freeland
DR. P. L. FREELAND, of Nokomis, Ill., is the youngest practicing physician and surgeon in the place, and since 1885 has been the faithful and efficient professional servant of the public in a community which has become more and more attached to him as the years have rolled by, while in neighboring towns and cities his skill has become recognized, and his services are in demand. Called into a family as a physician, he becomes a sympathetic friend and counselor, and to his care, as a natural consequence, there are many trusts committed.
Our subject was born in North Carolina, near Statesville, March 20, 1854, a son of Thomas A. and C. S. (Lentz) Freeland, who were also natives of the old North State, his father being of Scotch-Irish descent, and his mother of Pennsylvania Dutch stock, her forefathers having in on early day settled in that State. Thomas A. Freeland tilled the soil throughout life on the farm on which he was born. Like other farmers' boys, the Doctor assisted his father with the farm duties during his youth, and at short intervals attended school until he was thirteen years of age, at which time his parents left their native State to take up their residence on the prairies of Illinois. They settled on a farm near Hillsboro, in Montgomery County, and here he continued his former occupation of tilling the soil and attending school, being for some time an attendant of the Hillsboro Academy.
As his father was by no means a rich man, the Doctor had to work his way slowly, and with the money he had received for his labors he paid his own tuition at the academy. He was employed to ring the bell and sweep the schoolrooms, and this he continued until he had attained his twenty-first year, when he went into a drug-store in Hillsboro as a clerk. He remained here for one year, during which time he acquired a taste for the business, but in the meantime he taught a country school one term. In the fall of 1880, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons at St. Louis, where he commenced to prepare himself for the noble calling of a physician, and in the fall of 1881 and the spring of 1882 he attended lectures at the American Medical College of St. Louis, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1882, and the following August opened an office at Sandy Bend, Montgomery County. After practicing for nearly three years, he moved to the town of Witt, of which place he was a successful practitioner until the fall of 1886, when he went to St. Louis and completed his course in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in the spring of 1887.
Succeeding his graduation, our subject returned to Witt, where he continued to reside until the spring of 1887, after which he continued his practice at Witt. In 1888, he came to Nokomis, and here he has built up a practice that is much to his credit. It may be said of him that he stands at the head of his profession. Faithful and just in the conduct of his business, as he is skillful and efficient in the practice of medicine, he is without reproach in any of the affairs of life. He devotes himself to his work with conscientious zeal and, as his profession is agreeable to his tastes, he cannot fail to become prominent. The Doctor, like all the oilier members of his family, is a Democrat, yet he takes no active part in politics. His brother, C. A. Freeland, has been quite a factor in Montgomery County politics and has served for some years as County Treasurer. On the 31st of December, 1883, the Doctor was married to Miss Nonie Casselberry, a native of Illinois and a daughter of a prominent farmer of this section. They have one child, a daughter, Noi.
Extracted 10 Jan 2017 by Norma Hass from 1892 Portrait and Biographical Record of Montgomery and Bond Counties, Illinois, pages 459-460.
