A Monument to Franklin’s Medical History
By Katie Shands
Photos Courtesy of the Rick Warwick Collection
In 1815, Franklin was in the bloom of adolescence. The town was only sixteen years old, and new businesses were popping up like weeds. Few of the buildings from that era survived the years, but a tiny, brick structure defied the odds. Dr. Daniel McPhail’s former medical clinic still stands on East Main Street, bearing witness to nearly all of Franklin’s long and rich history.
Dr. McPhail was born in Inverness, Scotland in 1796 and immigrated to Williamson County around 1828. It’s believed he received his medical education before coming to America. In Franklin, Dr. McPhail moved into a home that once sat on what is now the First Horizon Bank parking lot on the corner of East Main Street and Second Avenue South. Behind the residence was the 250-square-foot building he would use as his office. In 1973, the home was under threat of demolition to make way for a parking garage, so local preservationist Rudy Jordan had the house moved farther south on Second Avenue. The office was relocated several feet from its original site.
Dr. McPhail earned himself a solid reputation in Franklin. The Medical Society of the State of Tennessee described him this way: “He had a commanding personal appearance, was well educated, and made an excellent surgeon. He was specially devoted to this department of medicine…”
According to tradition, Dr. McPhail went on to make history within the walls of his little office as the first surgeon in middle Tennessee to successfully administer anesthesia. No known surgical records exist, but it’s said the procedure took place in 1831 on a patient with gunshot wounds. This operation would have predated the discovery of ether anesthesia, so historians conjecture he used whiskey, opium, or another plant derivative as a crude painkiller.
In 1836, Dr. McPhail’s thirteen-year-old nephew Daniel Bonaparte Cliffe moved from Ohio to live with him in Franklin. The teenager went on to study medicine under his uncle and later earned an M.D. degree from the University of Louisville. After college, Dr. Cliffe returned to Franklin and partnered with his uncle.
During the Mexican War, Dr. McPhail left Franklin to serve as a brigade surgeon to the First Tennessee Regiment Infantry. While in Mexico, he died from dysentery on July 13, 1846 at the age of forty-nine. His remains were returned to Franklin more a year later and buried with Masonic rites in the Old City Cemetery.
After Dr. McPhail’s death, Dr. Cliffe inherited his uncle’s office and took over the practice. He became a prominent figure in town as the president of both the Nashville & Decatur Railroad and the National Bank of Franklin. However, controversy swirled around him during the Civil War. Dr. Cliffe joined the Confederate Army, but it’s said he returned to Franklin as a “Union man.” During the Battle of Franklin, his home (and likely his office), served as headquarters for Union General John Schofield. Although Dr. Cliffe acted as a mediator between the troops and citizens of Franklin throughout the Federal occupation, he faced much ridicule in town for his politics.
Dr. Cliffe died in 1913 at the age of ninety-one. In the years that followed, the old clinic was rented out to various tenants. For about three decades, it served as the law office of Captain Tom Henderson, who was famous for attempting to kidnap the German Kaiser in 1918. In the early 1970s, the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County restored the structure and turned it into a tourist information center. The building later became the site of Early’s Honey Stand. Today, the former medical clinic serves as private offices.
The next time you’re in downtown Franklin, take a moment to see the structure for yourself. Imagine the history it’s witnessed, the people who have crossed its threshold, the stories it could tell. It’s more than an old building; it’s an enduring monument to Franklin’s earliest days and the legacy of two doctors who helped pioneer Williamson County’s medical field.
