J. C. Stout., M.D. The parents of this gentleman, Dr. J. M. and
Julia A. (Henderson) Stout, were among the earliest pioneers of
Illinois, going there from Ohio with their parents while they were
children. The Doctor was born in Carrollton, Greene County,
Illinois, in the year 1846. He worked on his father's farm, and
attended the district school, until he attained the age of sixteen
years, when the Civil War was ushered in, and he enlisted
in Company I, Ninety-first Volunteer Infantry of Illinois. His
regiment joined Buell's command, and he participated in that general's
campaign in Kentucky during 1862 and early in 1863, when they joined
Grant's forces before Vicksburg, being then attached to the third
Brigade, Second Division of the Thirteenth Army Corps. After the
surrender of that stronghold he went wit his company to New Orleans,
and later on several expeditions in that pat of the county, during
which tie they had engagements in battle with Generals Dick Taylor,
Marmaduke, and Joe Shelby, after which they went on an expedition to
Brownsville on the Rio Grande, where he remained one year and was then
sent home on a sick furlough. In 1864 he was ordered to the
general hospital, and there discharged from the service. The
following fall he entered Illinois College at Jackonsville, and after
spending one year there he attended the Shurtleff College, at Alton,
Illinois for the next three years. In 1868 he engaged in the drug
business at Whitehall, Illinois, in which he continued for two years,
and then joined his father ,who had emigrated to Kansas, where he
studied medicine and practiced, with him for his preceptor. He
remained there four years. During this time he was appointed by
the county commissioners to fill the vacancy in the sheriff's office,
in Neosho County, which position he occupied one year, and in March,
1874, he came to California, and accepted a position with Charles
Langly & Co., wholesale druggists, of San Francisco. At the
expiration of a year he went to Gilroy, where he practiced medicine a
year and a half and then returned ease, where he took a regular course
at the American Medical colllege of St. Louis. Graduating in
1878, he located in Edwardsville, Illinois, where he practced three
years and then returned to California, and located at San Jose,
where he has been actively engaged in his profession since. He is
a member of the State Medical Societies of Missouri, Illinois, and
California, having been one year Vice President of the Illinois State
Medical Society, and president of the California Society for two
consecutive terms. He is also a member of the National
Medical Society, having been delegated to that association twice from
Illinois, and once from California. He is a member of various
fraternal orders in San Jose, being medical examiner in several of
them, and is medical director for California in the G. A. R.
In 1876 he was married, at Upper Alton, Illinois, to Miss Gertrude
Smith, a daughter of Hon. George Smith, formerly State Senator for that
district and the founder of Shurtleff College. The Doctor has
three children, whose name are: Pearl H., Arthur, and Olive
Gertrude. The Doctor's father died at Whitehall, Illinois, in
1886. His mother died in Spring Hill, Kansas, ten years
before. The Doctor has two brothers and three sisters in
California who came to this state since he did. His brother,
George W., is a practicing physician in Ukiah, Mendocino County; his
other brother, E. W., is a contractor and builder in San Jose.
His sister Mary is now the wife of Smith McGarvin, a carriage-builder
of San Jose. Martha, another sister, is the wife of Frank Titus,
of Gilroy, and Amy, his other sister, is the wife of J. W. Keenan, a
merchant of Placerville, El dorado County.
The Doctor is a member of the Baptist Church, and a stanch Republican
in politics, believing in the fullest protection to American industries.