Finney was born on June 20, 1863, on a plantation near
Natchez, Mississippi. His father, Ebenezer Dickey Finney, was a
Presbyterian minister, and his mother, Annie Parker Finney, died shortly after his birth. His grandfather William D. Finney was pastor of
Churchville Presbyterian Church in
Churchville, Maryland. Finney attended
Princeton University and graduated on his twenty-first birthday. He then attended and graduated from
Harvard Medical School. he played on the football teams of both schools. After interning at
Massachusetts General Hospital, Finney joined the
Johns Hopkins University in 1889 as a member of its surgical staff. He worked alongside
William Stewart Halsted, became a professor at the university, and started the school's dispensary. He had a good reputation and received patients from across the United States and even had house calls to the
White House. Upon
Woodrow Wilson's resignation as Princeton University's president in 1911, the school's trustees unanimously chose Finney to succeed him, though Finney declined the appointment. In May 1913, he became the first president of the
American College of Surgeons and served in that position for three years. Finney had been commissioned as a
major in the
Maryland Army National Guard. During
World War I, he commanded the Johns-Hopkins Medical Unit, Base Hospital Number Eighteen while at the rank of
colonel. Upon his promotion to
brigadier general on October 1, 1918, he became the
American Expeditionary Forces' chief consultant in surgery. His method for treating
duodenal ulcers became the standard practice. For his efforts, he received the
Order of the Crown from
Belgium and the
Legion of Honour from
France. Finney wrote ''A Surgeon's Life'', published by
G. P. Putnam's Sons, in 1940. ==Personal life==