USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. Volume III > Part 27
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* For a fuller account of Mr. Upson's political activity, see the sketch in Bronson's History, pp. 444. 445.
827
THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND THE COURTS.
was "a most able judge, a man of high moral principle, of liberal and patriotic views, of energy, sagacity and business capacity. For fifteen years his name was identified with the history and prosperity. of Florida." He died at his residence, Sunny Point, Palatka, Fla., August 13, 1855.
SAMUEL LATHROP BRONSON, grandson of Judge Bennet Bronson, and son of Dr. Henry and Sarah M. (Lathrop) Bronson, was born in Waterbury, January 12, 1834. He removed with the family to New Haven in 1845. He graduated at Yale college in the class of 1855, and having pursued a course of study for the law was admitted to the bar. He was at one time judge of the city court of New Haven, where he still resides.
SEABURY BLACKMAN PLATT was the sixth son of Alfred and Irena (Blackman) Platt (see page 395), and was born in Waterbury, Octo- ber 5, 1828. He entered Yale college in the class of 1852, but on account of ill health adandoned his college course during his junior year. He became a student in the law office of J. W. Webster in 1861, and was admitted to the bar May 18, 1864. In June he removed to Birmingham, where he became judge of the borough court. He died at Derby, August 12, 1895.
TIMOTHY J. NEVILLE, son of Michael and Ann (Delany) Neville, was born in Waterbury, June 15, 1837. He was admitted to St. John's college, Fordham, N. Y., in 1856, and was the first boy of Roman Catholic parentage to enter college from Waterbury. He graduated in the class of 1859, and after two years in the Yale Law school was admitted to the bar. In March, 1862, he began the practice of law in Providence, R. I., and resided there until 1869. He then removed to New York city, where his practice has grown to large dimen- sions.
CHAPTER XLIII.
"GOING FOR THE DOCTOR TO STRATFORD" IN 1712- A PHYSICIAN AMONG THE SETTLERS-THE PORTERS AND THE WARNERS-OTHER EARLY DOCTORS- EDUCATION FOR THE PROFESSION - THE REV. MARK LEAVENWORTH'S CRITICISMS-THE FIRST MEDICAL COLLEGE -DR. FANCHER - THE WATERBURY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION - FOUR GROUPS OF PHYSICIANS-THOSE WHO DIED HERE OR ARE STILL IN PRACTICE HERE-THOSE WHO HAVE REMOVED-PHYSICIANS OF WATERBURY BIRTH-PHYSICIANS RETIRED-DENTISTS-DRUGGISTS EARLY AND LATER.
D EACON THOMAS CLARK'S "account book," which has in recent years unfortunately disappeared, contained under date of August 22, 1712, the following entry : "John Hop- kins, for going for the doctor to Stratford ; for money spent for going and coming and rumb, £o, Is, 4d." Although this was thirty-five years after its settlement, Waterbury was still a small place, and the natural inference of any one who knew nothing of the ancient village would be that it had no resident physician and that in order to secure a physician's services a long journey must be made. The circumstances which involved the bringing of a doctor from Stratford in this particular instance are unknown; if the errand had taken place a few months later we should be inclined to connect it with the exigencies of the "great sickness" described in Volume I (page 285). But as a matter of fact, Water- bury had had its own physician from the beginning, and in 1712 he was sixty years of age, and presumably still in the fulness of his powers. To be sure Dr. Daniel Porter's professional training was not received in the schools; as Dr. Bronson says, "his knowledge appears to have been empirical rather than scientific." But his father was a doctor before him, and apart from the exceptional requirements of some epidemic, like that just referred to, he must have been quite sufficient to meet the wants of the little farming community. After the "great sickness," however, the need of another practitioner was felt (Volume I, page 286), and Ephraim Warner, a former resident who had removed to Woodbury and there taken up the practice of medicine, was persuaded by the pro- prietors to return and settle among them. From about 1714 Dr. Warner was the "practitioner" of the town, and Dr. Porter the "bone setter"; and after Dr. Porter's death, in 1727, he was suc-
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PHYSICIANS, DENTISTS, DRUGGISTS.
ceeded by his son, of the same name, who was then twenty-eight years old. Further details of this remarkable family of physicians are given in the biographical sketches which follow.
Dr. Ephraim Warner had a brother, John, who was also a physi- cian. In 1715, or earlier, he removed to Stratford, and, apparently, began the practice of medicine while there. He returned to Water- bury about 1723 and settled in that part of the town which was afterward called Westbury. He was the first physician in the dis- trict, and the first deacon of the Westbury church (now Water- town), and lived until 1751. Another physician, Thomas Foot, settled in Westbury in 1736, and, according to Deacon Clark's "account book," both of these men were sometimes called into the old society to prescribe .* In a bill of the selectmen for what they had "done for Lydia Cosset" between January 5 and March 18, 1750 (see Volume I, page 373), the amount paid "to the old Dr. Warner for doctoring her" is included, and also a charge for " keeping the old doctor one night, and horse." The "old doctor Warner" is evidently Dr. John, and this is one of the instances of his being called into the old society. In the same bill Dr. Ephraim Warner's services are recognized, and also those of another physi- cian, Dr. Benjamin Judd (who was a grandson of Lieutenant Thomas Judd, and was born August 28, 1710). There was also a "Dr. Leavenworth" at that time whose bill "for medicines" is included.
With these names before us, we can form a tolerably definite conception of the condition of things in Waterbury, as regards the medical profession, down to the Revolutionary era. The second Dr. Daniel Porter of Waterbury died November 14, 1772, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. Six months before this-on May 14, 1772-the pastor of the First church, the Rev. Mark Leaven- worth, had the honor of preaching the annual "election sermon" before the General Assembly.+ In this discourse Mr. Leaven- worth referred to the education of physicians as a matter of great importance, but one that had been seriously neglected. "This respectable body," he said, "has often been reminded of the public good as the object of attention and the end of your institution ; but when particulars have been entered on there is one point has scarcely ever been touched." He then proceeded as follows :
* For the later Watertown physicians see p. 328 and note.
+ "Charity illustrated and recommended to all Orders of Men ; in a Sermon delivered before the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut at Hartford on the Day of their Anniversary Election, May 14, 1772. By Mark Leavenworth, A. M., Pastor of a Church of Christ in Waterbury. New London : Printed by T. Green, Printer to the Governor and Company." -- The passage quoted is on pages 46-48.
830
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Our lives and health we are wont to regard above every thing in the present world, and the foundation of all the rest. The vital and salutary springs in this curious animated machine are liable to a vast variety of accidents by which health is impaired and life endangered. There are healing remedies provided by the Author of nature; but when the patient is taken into the hands of such as have never been at the pains to penetrate into the human structure, to learn wherein a healthy state consists and what is essential to it, nor to learn the nature of medi- cine and of diseases, nor to distinguish between things that differ, his case is in danger of proving fatal for want of skill, when it is not so in the nature and circum- stances of it. It is as impossible to be able practitioners without studying the prin- ciples of the profession, as it is to be mathematicians without the knowledge of figures, or to understand the motions and situation of the heavenly bodies without the study of astronomy. But we, being as unable to distinguish between the pro- fessors of the medical art as many of them are between the objects of their profes- sion, securely repair to them, as an ox to the slaughter and a bird to the snare of the fowler, not knowing that it is for our life.
It is an affair (may it please your honours) of so much consequence that in many countries it has commanded the attention of the civil state, both ancient and modern. Will not charity to this people call for some inquiries in this respectable body, whether the art of healing may not, at least gradually, be put upon some more respectable footing ? We have some among us of that profession, of a pene- trating and inquisitive genius, worthy of honour; is there no method can be en- tered upon to encourage and increase their number, and to discourage ignorant and rash adventurers ? by which means generations to come " will rise up and call you blessed."
The ignorance and recklessness of the quack, the ease with which the public is deceived, and the necessity of legislative intervention to protect the community and place things upon a better basis, are here in full view, just as we see them at the end of the nineteenth century; and the question arises whether the preacher's criticism was prompted by the condition of things in his own town, or was the result of a wider outlook in which Waterbury was not included. There is no reason for supposing that Dr. Preserved Porter, and his brother Dr. Timothy, both of whom had been practicing in Water- bury for a good many years, were any less skillful or less thoroughly fitted for their profession than their fathers or their other prede- cessors in the old society. But Mr. Leavenworth was well aware of the fact that up to that time no adequate means had been pro- vided for the education of those who designed to practice medicine, that all such were dependent upon what instruction they could get in the offices of older physicians, and that a gradual lowering of the tone and culture of the profession was almost inevitable. A medical department, however, had been opened in the University of Pennsylvania in 1765, and this may have been one of the facts which led to Mr. Leavenworth's earnest plea before the legislature of 1772; but the medical department of Yale college was not estab- lished until 1813.
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PHYSICIANS, DENTISTS, DRUGGISTS.
An interesting sidelight is reflected upon this subject from a sketch (prepared for this History by the venerable Dr. William Woodruff of Thomaston, shortly before his death) of a noted char- acter known as " Dr. Fancher."
Sylvanus Fancher, called by courtesy Dr. Fancher, was a native of that part of Waterbury which is now Plymouth. He was descended from one of those improvi- dent families, so frequently found on the outskirts of our country villages, which after a generation or two are swept away by the beneficent law that involves the " survival of the fittest." His life gave abundant evidence that he inherited his full share of improvidence, if he inherited nothing else. His education was of the most meagre description even for those days, being the product of a casual attend- ance on the district school.
Singular as it may appear under the circumstances, the idea of vaccination was embraced by Dr. Fancher soon after its introduction, in 1798, by Dr. Waterhouse of Cambridge. In England Dr. Jenner's discovery was at first repudiated by the medical profession, and was termed by the clergy a delusion of the adversary. But Dr. Fancher took it up, and as a pioneer and specialist soon became widely known. The field was unoccupied, and his fame spread over New England. In families, in school-houses and in churches the people gathered to obtain his services in this " new and more excellent way," and the Royal Jennerean society of London made him an honorary member. His remuneration was for that day ample, and might have insured to him an independence, had it not been frittered away in useless and foolish inventions. One of his inventions, however, aided him in his calling. It was an instrument which, when laid upon the arm, resembled a silver bar, but it carried a concealed lancet with which the incision was made.
His appearance, as I remember him, was singular in the extreme. Velvet small clothes, a parti-colored waistcoat from which dangled a half dozen watch-chains and trinkets for the amusement of the little folks, a faded blue cloak-all these sur- mounted by a slouched hat overhanging green goggles-made up the figure. No wonder he produced a sensation among the juvenile subjects of his craft when they were brought into his presence!
As the beneficent influence of vaccination won for it a way into popular favor and approval, physicians in general adopted the simple operation of inserting the vaccine virus, and Dr. Fancher found himself shut out from his only means of support. Poor and bereft of friends, he drifted about for a time amidst the scenes of his former labors and prosperity. He finally made his way to Hartford, and there, it is said, died in abject poverty.
During the period to which Dr. Fancher belonged-say the last years of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nine- teenth-the "licensed " physicians of Waterbury were Preserved and Timothy Porter, already mentioned, Joseph Porter, Abel Bronson, Daniel Beckley and Nimrod Hull of Salem society (see Vol. I, ap. pp. 16, 74), Isaac Baldwin and his nephew, Frederick Leavenworth, of whom an account has already been given (pages 239, 240). Of these men, and of many in the long list of their successors, brief biographies are here presented. They are arranged in four groups:
I. Physicians whose chief work was done in Waterbury, and who died here, or who are still in practice here, whether old or young.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
II. Those who filled an important place in Waterbury and remained here per- haps for years, but whose chief professional work was accomplished in other places.
III. Physicians who were born in Waterbury or lived here in their childhood, but whose entire professional life was spent elsewhere.
IV. Those who lived here a longer or shorter time, but gave up the practice of their profession before they came here to reside.
The arrangement is chronological; in the first and second groups the order depends upon the year of beginning practice in Water- bury; in the third group upon the date of birth .*
The physicians practicing in Waterbury in September, 1895, numbered forty-three. Of these, twenty-two were members of the Connecticut Medical society, which was organized early in the cen- tury and incorporated in 1834. There is also a local society, the Waterbury Medical association, which was established in January, 1857, and reorganized, after some years of lethargy, in 1878. The membership consists of regularly educated physicians of Water- bury and its vicinity. Monthly meetings are held at the houses of the members, and accounts of the progress of medical science and the results of individual research are presented and discussed. Of those who took part in its organization, no one now remains.
Of the entire number of physicians who have at some time lived and practiced in Waterbury, there are about seventy of whom no account is given in this chapter. Their period of residence here was in many cases brief, and it was found impossible to obtain data even for a simple chronological list.
PHYSICIANS IN THE DANIEL PORTER LINE.
DR. DANIEL PORTER, 2nd, the first of the name in Waterbury, and one of the original settlers of the town, was the eldest son of Daniel the "bonesetter " of Farmington, surgeon-general for the colony, t and was born February 2, 1652-3. He was for a considerable time the only professional man in the Waterbury settlement, there being at the first no business for lawyers and no means of support for ministers. Besides practicing medicine and surgery - arts which he had learned from his father-he was also a land surveyor, and filled other offices for which something more than the usual amount of education was required. Beyond this, little is known of him. He had four sons and two daughters and died January 18, 1726-7, at the age of seventy-five, having lived in Waterbury a half
* For Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, whose reputation as a physician was surpassed by his fame as a poet, see Volume I. For Dr. James Brown see pp. 345-347.
+ Dr. Daniel Porter of Farmington, was licensed to practice physic and chirurgery by the General Court in 1654. His salary was, for his "encouragement in attending the service of the country," increased in 1671 from six to twelve pounds a year, and he was "advised to instruct some meet person in his art."
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PHYSICIANS, DENTISTS, DRUGGISTS.
century from the beginning of the settlement. He left property to the amount of about $6000, and gave much to his children during his life. His medical library consisted of "a bone-set book " appraised - at two shillings.
DR. DANIEL PORTER, 3d, the second of the name in Waterbury, was the eldest son of the preceding and belonged to the first gen- eration of those of Waterbury birth. He was born March 5, 1699, and married Hannah, daughter of John Hopkins and sister of Stephen and Timothy Hopkins. He owned a lot lying between East Main and Mill streets and Mad river, and lived in a house which he built on the site now occupied by the store of Spencer & Pierpont. His father owned the property before him, and it re- mained in the possession of his descendants until purchased by I. A. Spencer, the Scovill Manufacturing company and others within the last two or three decades. The lot was known in the family in recent times as "the old meadow," and it is doubtful if any other piece of property of equal extent has remained in one family from the first generation of settlers down so nearly to the present time. This third Dr. Daniel Porter had three sons and five daughters. He died November 14, 1772, at the age of seventy-three.
DR. DANIEL PORTER, 4th, was the second son of the preceding, and was born March 17, 1731. He was a surgeon in the Colonial army during the French and Indian wars and died at Crown Point in 1759, at the age of twenty-eight. Little is known of him, except that his ability and skill were sufficient to justify his appointment and that he had the courage to accept it.
The fourth Dr. Daniel Porter had two brothers, Preserved and Timothy, who took up the medical profession in Waterbury and divided it between them, one becoming a surgeon and the other an ordinary physician.
DR. PRESERVED PORTER (born November 23, 1729), was known throughout Waterbury and its vicinity as a famous bone-setter and surgeon. In 1785 he became a member of the county Medical society. He married Sarah Gould of New Milford, and later, Lydia Welton. He died October 23, 1803. He had a son, DR. JESSE PORTER, who was a man of eccentric character, but of considerable ability and of wide reputation as a surgeon. He was born October 31, 1777, and is remembered by some of the present generation. He lived until 1833 on the west corner of East Main and Mill streets, and then built the stone house still standing at the junction of East Main and Cole streets.
DR. TIMOTHY PORTER the other brother, born June 19, 1735, was he principal practicing physician in Waterbury and its vicinity
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834
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
during his life, and was highly esteemed by the community. His regular charge for a medical visit, as appears from his account book (some leaves of which have been preserved), was two shillings ster- ling. He had a high appreciation of the value of education and took much pains in educating his four sons and three daughters. He died January 24, 1792.
His family was somewhat remarkable. Daniel, the eldest, was a land surveyor (" proprietors' measurer "), a selectman and a lawyer of much ability, although he never sought admission to the bar, and practiced only in justice courts. He became a large landholder. The second daughter, Olive (Mrs. Moses Hall; see page 223), was the mother of Samuel, Nelson and Hopkins Hall, and of Mrs. John P. Elton. Another daughter, Anna, was the wife of R. F. Welton (page 338) and the mother of George W. and Joseph C. Welton and of Mrs. Ard Welton. The third son, Chauncey, removed to Pitts- ford, N. Y., and became a successful business man. He was an ancestor of Chauncey P. Goss. The fourth son, Timothy Hopkins, was a lawyer. He removed to Cattaraugus county, N. Y., and was elected a member of congress from that district.
JOSEPH PORTER alone of Dr. Timothy Porter's family became a physician. He was born Sep- tember 8, 1772. He practiced in Waterbury and was famil- iarly known to the inhabi- tants of fifty or sixty years ago as "Dr. Joe." He was a man of excellent judgment and benevolent disposition, and was noted for the mild- ness and cautiousness of his medical treatment. He mar- ried his cousin Levinia, a daughter of Dr. Preserved Porter, and died without children at the age of seventy- four.
DR. DANIEL PORTER, 5th, the fourth and last of the name in Waterbury, was a son of Daniel, the surveyor, and a grandson of Dr. Timo- thy Porter, and was born in 1805. He was doubtless the
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PHYSICIANS, DENTISTS, DRUGGISTS.
ablest of those who bore the name and title, as he added more of the learning of the schools than the others possessed to an acuteness in diagnosis and a skill in therapeutics inherited from a line of . physicians. He achieved a wide reputation for success in medical practice, but became insane about 1845 in the midst of a brilliant professional career. The rest of his life was passed in an asylum at Brattleboro, Vt. He died April 25, 1863.
DR. EPHRAIM WARNER.
Ephraim Warner was the son of John Warner, a freeman of Farmington in 1669, and one of the original proprietors of Water- bury. He was born in Farmington in 1670,* and came with his parents to "Mattatuck" in his boyhood. He received his first grant of land on January 21, 1689-90 (on the northeast corner of Willow and Grove streets) on condition that he should erect a house and "co-inhabit four years." He built his house and resided here until 1701, having in the meantime (August 16, 1692), married Esther, daughter of Obadiah Richards. In September, 1701, he sold out to Stephen Welton, and removed to Bucks Hill, where he had forty-two and a half acres of land. He returned to the village in 1704 and lived on the west side of Cooke street, but soon afterward removed to Woodbury. In Woodbury his skill as a "practitioner" became manifest, although there is no evidence that he had prac- ticed here before his removal, and in 1714 his former townsmen took action at a town meeting to secure his return to Waterbury. They voted, in April, that "to encourage Dr. Ephraim Warner to come and live with us, the town grant him the use of the school land for three years." They also voted him "ten acres in the sequester," on condition that he remain four years. He accepted this "call " and became the "physician " of the town (Dr. Daniel Porter being the "bone-setter "). He again selected Bucks Hill for his residence, and as the years passed on his sons settled around him and he gave them houses and lands. In 1738, or earlier, he removed again into the village, and occupied the northwest corner of Cook and Grove streets, which he had formerly owned.
After his return to Waterbury Dr. Warner became (as Bronson expresses it) one of the "notabilities " of the town. "His name is often met with on the record. He bought and sold real estate to a large extent, and was engaged in public business." He was select- man, school committee-man and town collector. He was sent as a deputy to the General Court in 1717, 1719, 1720 and 1722, and in this
* There is some uncertainty about the date of his birth; see Bronson's History, p. 196.
836
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
last mentioned year was chosen captain of the train band, being the second who was thus distinguished in the town.
He had seven children, five of whom were born in Waterbury before his removal to Woodbury. He died August 1, 1753, and his estate was settled first by agreement among the heirs, and after- ward, in 1762, by order of probate. It amounted, according to the inventory, to £14 19s, much having been given away to the chil- dren during his lifetime. His son Benjamin was also a physician, and was called "Doctor Ben," to distinguish him from his father.
DR. ABEL BRONSON.
Abel Bronson, son of Lieutenant Josiah Bronson, was born May 30, 1743, in that part of Waterbury which is now Middlebury. He was an early member of the county Medical society. In the begin- ning of the present century he had a hospital where he inoculated for smallpox. (See page 133; also Volume I, page 455). He was an uncle of Silas Bronson, the founder of the Bronson library. Dr. Bronson married Lydia Benham, and afterwards Lydia Hawkins. He died August 2, 1805.
DR. NATHAN LEAVENWORTH.
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