The History of Hendricks County (Chicago: Interstate Publishing, 1885)--Clay Township, pages 559-560
H.C. Summers, M.D., is a native of Putnam County, Ind., born in 1849, a son of Benjamin F. and Marion (Collings) Summers. His paternal grandfather, Rev. Cornelius Summers, was a native of Kentucky and one of the pioneer Presbyterian ministers of Northern Indiana. His maternal grandfather, Rev. Harvey Collings, was a native of North Carolina, and a pioneer Methodist minister of Putnam County, Ind. H.C. Summers was reared in his native county, where he received his literary education. He began the study of medicine with Drs. Holman and Johnson, of Martinsville, Morgan Co., Ind., and subsequently attended, in 1872-'73, a course of lectures at the medical department of the University at Louisville, Ky. He then returned to Putnam County and entered the office of Drs. Ellis and Smythe, at Greencastle, and later entered the Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati. After being at Cincinnati two months he was prostrated with typhoid fever and was sick about three months. This prevented him from graduating, and he returned to Indiana, and in 1874 formed a partnership with Dr. S.C. Monnet, and located at Amo. In the fall of 1877 he returned to Cincinnati and graduated in the spring of 1878. Dr. Summers was married Sept. 18, 1879, to Arcada Phillips, daughter of Eli Phillips, one of the pioneers of Clay Township.