Note 23 — TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY

His great niece, Mrs. Waller O. Bullock, in speaking of the portrait of Doctor Overton, the only one extant, says: "It was done in Philadelphia just as he was completing his medical course, and I think it must have been soon after that he entered upon his work at Transylvania. He took a post-graduate course at Paris, France, and was considered one of the most brilliant men of his day. He had great command of language and his conversation sparkled with wit and humor, nor was he less happy with his pen. On one occasion the city of Nashville offered a handsome prize for the best essay on some disputed medical point; no one was barred; doctors of all ages entered the lists, and Uncle James—though an old man—bore off the honors. In cultivated elegant society he was at his best, and when distinguished foreigners visited President Jackson at the Hermitage it always devolved on Doctor Overton to do the agreeable, his command of French peculiarly fitting him for this post. He early left Kentucky to make his home in Tennessee, where he practiced his profession for many years, dying at an advanced age."