Jane Todd Crawford, a pioneer heroine of abdominal surgery, was born in Virginia in 1763. In 1805 she and her husband, Thomas Crawford, moved to Green County, Kentucky. Suffering from a huge abdominal tumor, she rode 60 miles to Danville, Kentucky, to undergo an operation never before performed. On December 25, 1809, Dr. Ephraim McDowell performed the first ovariotomy in his home. The ordeal lasted 25 minutes, and there was no anesthesia. Mrs. Crawford recovered completely. Years later she came to Graysville to live with her son, Thomas, a Presbyterian minister. She died in 1842 at age 78 and is buried here. The restored McDowell home in Danville is a surgical shrine.