Bennett married Elizabeth Hogg in 1793 and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia, establishing his practice in a log cabin.
[3] Bennett cut his wife's abdomen with a single sweep of his knife and extracted his infant daughter, Maria.
"[1] Finally he sutured the surgical wound with stout linen thread, the kind used in frontier homes to sew heavy clothing.
Bennett declared his wife healed as of March 1, 1794, writing a cryptic case history on the title page of one of his medical books.
He said other doctors would never believe that a woman could survive this hazardous operation, done in the backwoods of Virginia, and he was "damned if he'd give them a chance to call him a liar.
Bennett refused to assist Aaron Burr and went on to serve the United States as an Army Surgeon in the War of 1812.