S. E. H. Dance, M. D., the leading physician of Lynchburg, Tennessee, was born March 30, 1834, son of Stephen M. and Sarah (Smith) Dance, born in Virginia and North Carolina, and died in 1853 and 1862, respectively, they came to Lincoln County about 1826. The father was a farmer of ordinary means and a local minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Our subject spent his boyhood days on a farm and at the time of his father’s death was attending Emory and Henry College, Virginia. He returned home and began the study of medicine and attended one course of lectures, in 1854-55 in the University of Tennessee. He graduated from the Louisville (Kentucky) Medical College in 1856 and began practicing his profession in Lynchburg. During the war he was assistant surgeon of Turney’s First Tennessee, and in 1862 was promoted to surgeon of the Eighth Tennessee, continuing until near the close of the conflict, when he was made medical director for the reserves of Tennessee. After his return from the battle field he resumed his profession in Lynchburg, in which he has met with good success. September 16, 1856, he married Miami A. Berry, and eight children blessed their union; Edward M., William H., Charles H., Frank P., Fannie, Robert R., Harry H. and Clifford C. In 1883 Dr. Dance and his son, William H., opened a drugstore in Lynchburg. He is one of the stockholders of the cotton mills, and also owns an interest in the grist mills of Dance & Waggoner, at Lynchburg.
