Eli M. Morehouse, M.D., was born on August 30, 1869, in Owatonna, Minnesota. He is the son of Dr. Eli M. and Lorinda Morehouse, with siblings Effie, Timothy N., and Dr. Quel G. Morehouse. Following in his father’s footsteps, Eli studied medicine at Drake University and Bennett Medical College, graduating in 1901. He then moved to Yankton, South Dakota, where he established a successful medical practice. Politically aligned with the Democratic Party, he served on the Owatonna board of aldermen and board of education. He married Winifred L. Hanna in 1897.
Eli M. Morehouse, M.D., who is engaged in the practice of his chosen profession in the city of Yankton, is a native of the state of Minnesota, having been born in Owatonna, Steele County, on the 30th of August, 1869. He is a son of Dr. Eli M. and Lorinda (McRostie) Morehouse, to whom were born four children, the subject of this sketch being the oldest, while the others are as follows: Effie, who is the wife of John W. Adsit, of Owatonna, Minnesota; Timothy N., who is the proprietor of the Owatonna Hotel, in that place; and Dr. Quel G., who is a physician of Chicago, Illinois. The father of the subject was born in Warren, Ohio, in the year 1833, his parents being representatives of staunch old families of New England stock, while the original ancestors in Ohio emigrated thither from the state of Connecticut. Eli M. Morehouse was reared to manhood in Ohio and as a youth determined to devote his attention to the medical profession as a vocation. In harmony with this idea he finally entered the Eclectic Medical Institute, at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he continued his studies for a time, after which he was a student in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and in a homeopathic medical college in Cleveland, Ohio. After securing his degree of Doctor of Medicine he located in Independence, Iowa, where he was successfully engaged in practice for two years, at the expiration of which he removed to Owatonna, Minnesota, where he continued his professional work until his death, which occurred on the 23rd of May, 1891. He was a man of spotless character and one of marked ability in the line of his profession. In politics he was an ardent advocate of the principles of the Democratic party, and was a power in its councils in the state where he resided. He served as a member of the state senate of Minnesota and at the time of his death was mayor of the city of Owatonna, while he had been incumbent of various other offices of public trust and responsibility, ever commanding unqualified confidence and esteem in the state where he so long maintained his home, while he was prominently identified with both the Masonic and Odd Fellows’ fraternities. His widow still retains her home in Owatonna, where her friends are in number as her acquaintances.
Eli M. Morehouse, the immediate subject of this sketch, was reared to maturity in his native town, acquiring his early educational discipline in the public schools, while he early manifested a predilection for the profession in which his father had won so marked distinction and success, and under the direction of the latter he began the study of medicine while he was still a boy. In 1887, together with five other young men who had been prosecuting their medical studies under the preceptorship of his father, he went to Des Moines, Iowa, where they were matriculated in the medical department of Drake University, and he there continued his technical studies for two years, while in 1897 he entered the Bennett Medical College, of Chicago, and was graduated in this well-known institution of eclectic medicine in the spring of 1901. He thereafter passed a short interval in Minnesota, after which he came to Yankton, where he opened an office and engaged in the general practice of medicine and surgery, bringing to bear the most thorough preparation and the personal attributes which always make for success in this most exacting of all professions. He has succeeded in building up a practice of representative character, and his reputation is one which would be creditable to one who had been for many years established in practice, for comparative youth is no longer held as inimical to professional precedence in cases where absolute ability and skill are in evidence. In politics, the Doctor accords a staunch allegiance to the Democratic Party, and while a resident of Owatonna, Minnesota, he served as a member of the board of aldermen and also as a member of the board of education. Fraternally, he is affiliated with the Masonic order and the Knights of Pythias and he is popular in both professional and social circles, being a member of the Minnesota State Eclectic Medical Society and keeping in close touch with all advances made in the sciences of medicine and surgery.
On the 28th of January, 1897, Dr. Morehouse was united in marriage to Miss Winifred L. Hanna, of St. Lawrence County, New York, where she was born and reared, being a daughter of James and Sarah Hanna.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.