Arthur I. Mitchell, a well known physician and surgeon of Macedonia, Iowa, was born in Decatur County, Indiana, February 13, 1847, the son of Dr. James H. and Nancy (Irmlay) Mitchell; the former is a well known physician of that place, and the latter is of a prominent family; her brother was once Sheriff of Decatur County. The father was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and at the age of four years his parents removed to Decatur County, Indiana. He and his father edited the first paper published at Greensburg, Indiana. He was a personal friend of ex-Governor Cumback and intimately acquainted with Mills & Co., ex-State printers of Des Moines, Iowa. He afterward commenced the study of medicine, and when he was twenty-seven years of age practiced in Decatur County. In the spring of 1853 he journeyed West with his family to Iowa, where he settled at Twin Groves, Keokuk County, Iowa, where he remained thirteen years. He then removed to Washington County, Iowa and three years after from there to Seward County, Nebraska, where he remained three years, and then came to Pottawattamie County, settling at old Macedonia, and when the new town of Macedonia was built he moved there, in 1880. He resided there until 1885-86'. When visiting his son, Brutus Mitchell, at Axtell, Kearney County, Nebraska, he died, at about sixty-six years of age. His widow still resides in Macedonia. They had six children, four sons and two daughters: A. I., our subject; Mary, wife of Henry Davison, of Axtell, Nebraska, who is in the livery and harness business; Brutus I., also in the livery business at Wilcox, Kearney County; Lewis E. Stryker, in company with Brutus I., at Wilcox; E. Summer, who died at the age of nineteen years at old Macedonia; and Delia, the wife of Henry Kennedy, of Macedonia.

The subject of this sketch enlisted at Keokuk, Iowa, in May, 1864, in the Forty-seventh Iowa Infantry Volunteers, Colonel J. P. Sanford, the well known Iowa lecturer, and Captain Harrison E. Havens, now editor of the Sigourney News, in command. The regiment was stationed at Helena, Arkansas. In 1872 Mr. Mitchell lived at Crete, Nebraska, where he studied medicine with Dr. A. D. Root, a well known physician of that place, and after three years of study he attended the Rush Medical College, at Chicago, Illinois, in the winter of 1876-'77. He then practiced in Wheeler, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, for three years, and then, in 1880, attended another year at the Rush Medical College, where he graduated February 22, 1881. He was for a year in company with his father and brother, Brutus, in the drug business at Macedonia. He was a registered pharmacist, the firm being A. I. Mitchell & Co. In 1882 the Doctor removed to Wheeler, where he resided for five years and then located at Macedonia, where he has since resided. His extensive acquaintance in this part of the county and his success in business, insures him an extensive and paying practice.

He was married April 10, 1869, to Miss Annie Efner, who was born in Brighton, Iowa, the daughter of Dr. William H. and Sarah C. (Johnston) Efner; the mother still resides with Mrs. Mitchell, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell have one son, Sumner, who was born August 2, 1879. They lost one child, Frank, by death, when an infant. Politically the Doctor is a Republican. His father was an old Abolitionist, and was a conductor on the "underground railroad." The doctor is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a class leader, and is also licensed to preach; his wife is a member of the order of the Eastern Star, and her father was a Master Mason. Dr. Mitchell is also member of the I. O. O. F., Macedonia Lodge, No. 421, of which he is secretary.