History of Davenport and Scott County Iowa, Volume II, Part 9

Author: Downer, Harry E
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1166

USA > Iowa > Scott County > Davenport > History of Davenport and Scott County Iowa, Volume II > Part 9

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With the passing of the years the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kroeger was blessed with six children, as follows: Henry, a progressive farmer operating the old homestead, mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume; Lewis, of Lyon county, Iowa ; Emma, the wife of Henry Goettsch, of Lyon county; Gustav, also residing in Lyon county ; Minnie, the deceased wife of Henry Bolt, of Davenport; and one who died in infancy. Politically Mr. Kroeger is independent and while still active in the world's work held several township offices. He holds member- ship in the German Pioneers Association and also in the Schleswig-Holstein So-

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

ciety, and he is widely known throughout Davenport township, where his circle of friends is almost coextensive with the circle of his acquaintance. He has never had occasion to regret his determination to seek his fortune in this country, for here he found the opportunities which he sought and by earnest, persistent and unfaltering effort carried himself forward to the goal of success. He has now passed the eighty-first milestone on life's journey and can look back upon a past that has been characterized by honest labor and honorable purposes.

W. F. PECK, M. D.

Those best acquainted with the early history of medicine in Iowa will agree that no one man has done more to advance the standing of the profession in the state than Dr. W. F. Peck. Setting a high mark for individual attainment, mak- ing his own name as a surgeon second to none in the west, he was at the same time far-seeing and active in the furtherance of measures for the collective ad- vancement of his calling. He did the effective organizing work and largely in- fluenced the legislation which gave the university its medical department; he was among the foremost in procuring the medical license law and board of medi- cal examiners; his counsels live in the state board of health, State Medical So- ciety and State Orphans' Home; and Iowa's efficient railroad surgical service, in which work this state was a pioneer, was organized by him.

Washington Freeman Peck was born in Galen, Wayne county, New York, January 22, 1841. His parents, William H. and Alida (Hawes) Peck, both natives of the Empire state, were, the former of English and Scotch, the latter of Dutch descent. His great-grandfather, Nathan Peck, was a soldier of the Revolutionary war and a descendant of Deacon William Peck, a London mer- chant who, with his wife and son Jeremiah, came to this country on the ship Hec- tor in company with Governor Eaton, John Davenport and other stanch Puri- tans, arriving in Boston in the spring of 1637. The next year Deacon William and his associates founded the New Haven colony, and Jeremiah became the first teacher in the New Haven collegiate school.

Dr. Peck, though lacking the advantages of a general education, beyond that to be obtained in the common schools, was a tireless student in the school of life. By keenly observing and diligently applying the lessons there learned he accom- plished results beyond those achieved by most college graduates, and the degree of A. M. later conferred on him was exceptionally well earned.

He was graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in the spring of 1863, with the highest honors of his class, being the first student to matriculate in this the first medical college in the land to successfully combine clinical with didactic teaching. During his three years at medical college he secured, together with lectures from the foremost professional celebrities of the day, three months' service each in the hospitals on Blackwell's and Randall's islands and eighteen months of invaluable experience in the wards of Bellevue. Also, just before graduating, he availed himself of a trip as ship surgeon to Havana and back, and at the close of his Bellevue service entered Lincoln General Hospital, Wash-

of Peck

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

ington, D. C., as a contract surgeon. Here he did good work and made valuable acquaintances until, weakened by an attack of pneumonia, he was compelled to resign from the very arduous duties of the place in May, 1864. While treating a neglected gunshot wound during his service in Washington he had the mis- fortune to infect his right index finger, resulting in permanent anchylosis. 'A' less courageous man might have been disheartened; but he was thankful to es- cape without the threatened loss of his hand, and the crippled finger learned to do excellent work.

Returning to the parental home at Clyde in his native county, he allowed him- self only a few weeks for recuperation, then set his face to the west and arrived at Rock Island, June 9, 1864, in his twenty-fourth year and ready to work. This place he had chosen as his prospective field of labor, but after inspecting both towns he was better pleased with Davenport across the river. Here he fitted up an office on Third street near Brady, making a sleeping room of his "sanctum" and taking board at the old "Burtis." By July 2d, as his journal records, he had taken part in a consultation ; had joined the "Hawkeye Club;" was about to affili- ate with the local Masons, having taken the Master's degree as a student; and was able to write: "My office business up to date has paid my expenses." Thus promptly did he become identified with the community his name was to honor.

Though barely out of his teens when he began hospital work and study in the great city his journal of that period plainly reveals the traits which marked his character through life. Fully realizing that right success means persistent hard work, together with habits conservative of bodily health and strength, he chose "Success" as his motto and, yielding to no indulgence, losing no opportunity and sparing no effort, he bent all his energies to attain it. Working early and late in the wards and at study, that he might find time for clinics and such lectures as he selected to attend; never avoiding but rather courting work; planning, even scheming, for additional tasks ; eager for the additional knowledge and train- ing they would afford ; perfecting his hand on every occasion in minor surgical man- ipulations ; always ready to assist in, or himself to conduct an operation; losing no opportunity to make post mortem examinations and carefully to note their impressive lessons, he reaped much fuller returns from his student years than if, modestly retiring, or allowing himself to be pushed aside, he had done only the work needed to obtain his diploma.

Keenly alive to the stirring news and events of the day, both on the field and in the halls of congress, Dr. Peck's deepest interest was still in medical affairs and medical men. Self-assured but unassuming, he made good use of his almost daily association with the foremost lecturers and surgeons of the land. Such men as J. R. Wood, the Motts and the Flints ; Hamilton, Sayre, Parker and Smith ; Professor Silliman, of Yale, and Drs. Gross and Pancoast, of Philadelphia, took an especial interest in the bright, energetic youth, and he suffered no needless reticence to deprive him of the full advantage of his association with them. He did not neglect social duties, however, exchanged frequent letters with mother, sister and brother ; visited relatives and friends in the city ; heard a sermon when he could; enjoyed a play now and then, and indulged rarely in a friendly game of whist.

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

His student days over and a successful career as a surgeon opening up brightly before him in the west, Dr. Peck returned to his native state at the end of his first year of practice and was united in marriage, September 18, 1865, to Miss Maria Purdy, of Butler, Wayne county, New York, who became his ever effi- cient helper thereafter to the close of his life, and who, with one daughter, Mrs. Henry Vollmer, of Davenport, survives him. Another daughter and an only son died in early youth.

In 1866 Dr. Peck was made secretary of the Scott County Medical Society, became its president a few years later, and in 1876 was elected to the presi- dency of the State Medical Society, thus rapidly advancing to the front rank of his profession. He became an active member of the American Medical Associa- tion, served as its vice president and was honored with the chairmanship of its surgical section, being also chosen a member of the American Surgical Association, an organization whose membership is limited to one hundred.

The story of Dr. Peck's surgical and educational work was well and concisely told in an article prepared for the "Biographical History and Portrait Gallery of Scott County, Iowa," 1895, by the late Dr. W. D. Middleton, his first student, his life-long friend and associate, and his worthy successor as dean of the medical faculty of the State University of Iowa. Dr. Middleton writes :

"To the educational work of the profession Dr. Peck at once addressed him- self with the ardor of an enthusiast, and to him the state of Iowa is indebted for the medical department of its State University an institution which reflects credit on its founder and upon the great state by which it is fostered and supported. In 1868 he conceived the idea of building up a medical college in Iowa which would afford facilities for the first-class education of young men desiring to enter the medical profession, and in order that the institution might be established upon a permanent basis, he determined to make it a department of the State University at Iowa City. He first laid his plans before Judge John F. Dillon, now of New York, then a distinguished citizen of Davenport, and secured his hearty coopera- tion. Then, in June of 1869, a comparatively unknown young man, he presented himself before the trustees of the university and proposed the creation of a medi- cal department. He came before the board unheralded but full of the subject with which he had to deal, enthusiastic in his expectations and eloquent in his appeals for liberal treatment of his profession by the officials of what should be a university in fact as well as in name. Surprising as it may seem he carried the board with him, and the preliminary steps were taken toward the establishment of the medical school. In those days, however, the university was poor, and from the day it was founded the medical department was in financial straits. An or- ganization was not effected, or at least perfected, until 1870, and this was ac- complished in the face of difficulties of the most discouraging and perplexing kind. When the organization was finally completed Dr. Peck was made professor of surgery, and became dean of the faculty and the executive head of the de- partment of medicine. Then came the struggle to secure the needed assistance from the State Legislature, to overcome hostility engendered by professional riv- alry, and to carry on at the same time a work which would compel recognition and approval of the project. At another city in the state a medical college had been established at an earlier date, calling itself a department of the State University

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

and with an ambition to be recognized as such. The charter of the university, however, precluded such recognition of an institution not located at Iowa City, and the plan proposed by Dr. Peck was the only feasible proposition for connect- ing a medical course with the university course. Nevertheless new antagonisms and sectional jealousies were aroused to such an extent that at times the advance- ment of the project seemed almost hopeless. Year after year the struggle con- tinued, and the indomitable will power, the high courage and ceaseless effort of Dr. Peck contributed more than anything else to final success. Supported by a loyal and competent faculty he made the medical department an institution which commanded the respect and admiration of all those who were interested in the general upbuilding of the university, and by and by the opposition to it ceased, appropriations for its maintenance were freely made, and its founders realized the full fruition of their hopes."

In this connection the Hon. John P. Irish, then one of the University board of trustees, now naval officer of customs at the port of San Francisco, who was an active co-worker in the project of the new school, and without whose efficient aid it would probably have failed, writes :

"The real founder of the medical department of the State University of Iowa * was Dr. Peck. The suggestion of the foundation came from myself, * * I made of its (the University's) interests a specialty in the legislature and se- cured for it the first appropriation that it ever received from the state treasury."

In working for this appropriation Mr. Irish had in view, as he says, the es- tablishing of both a legal, and a medical department of the university, rightly rea- soning that through them he would enlist for it the sympathy and support of most of the influential men of the state.

"Something over fifty thousand dollars" was voted and the law department, under Chancellor Hammond, was started in 1868. Later "the first concrete action" was taken toward the establishing of a medical department when Dr. Peck, Mr. Irish and Professor Gustavus Hinrichs met in Mr. Irish's office to dis- cuss the project. The outlook was not an encouraging one. There was no money in sight, a faculty had to be secured who would serve without pay, and the deter- mined opposition of the Keokuk Medical School had to be met. It proved a strong opposition, both in the legislature and throughout the state, and "the early years (of the department) were passed in storm and tempest." But Dr. Peck was a fighter, and he was ably seconded. From the legislature of 1870 Mr. Irish secured a second appropriation of sixty-three thousand dollars, and by the most strenuous effort prevented the passage of a proviso that none of it should be used for the medical department. The victory was won; but, as Mr. Irish de- clares : "There would have been no medical school but for Dr. Peck. It was founded in his professional zeal, his enormous capacity for work, his command of the art of persuasion, his sleepless vigilance, his right intuitions and his spirit of sacrifice."

To quote further from Dr. Middleton's article :

"Soon after he came to Davenport Dr. Peck was made local surgeon of the Rock Island Railroad Company. At that time the company had no organized medical department, nor is it probable that any such department was connected with a western railroad, if indeed any of the railway corporations of the country

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

had progressed to that extent. The work which came to Dr. Peck, however, as local railway surgeon was well done; so well that it commended him to the great and constantly growing corporation, and in 1875 he was designated to act as sur- geon-in-chief of the company and to him was assigned the task of organizing its medical and surgical department. To this task he addressed himself with an energy and tenacity of purpose which precluded the possibility of failure, evincing an executive ability of as high character as his professional attainments, and the result was the organization of a medical department of the Rock Island Railway Company, which is today pronounced by competent judges the best and most ef- ficient organization of its kind in the United States. As chief of this department Dr. Peck had on his surgical staff during the later years of his life, nearly one hundred surgeons located at different points on the lines of the railway company, and his personal attention was given to a vast amount of surgical work. His la- bors in this field gained for him wide distinction, and when he summed up the results of his experience and observation in a paper read before the American Medical Association, while acting as chairman of the surgical section of the as- sociation, his paper was published in all the leading medical journals of America and also in the principal medical journals of Europe, translated in numerous for- eign languages.

"With the extension of his practice, with surgery as his specialty, the character. of the operations successfully performed by Dr. Peck attracted attention and made him famous not only among his professional brethren but among the people at large. As early as 1882 he had successfully performed the operation for the relief of appendicitis. * *

* It is not known that Dr. Peck (whose modesty was a distinguishing characteristic) ever made any claim of originality of method in this operation, but the statement of other eminent physicians is to the effect that the operation was the first of the kind performed in the United States. * In 1886 he went abroad to find that his fame had preceded him, and that physicians, scientists and public officials in the old world were by no means unfa- miliar with his name and achievements. At this time he spent six months in study and travel on the continent, and in England, Scotland and Ireland ; and in 1890 he again went abroad as a delegate to the International Medical Congress held in Ber- lin, and to the British Medical Association, which met at Birmingham."

Of Mercy Hospital, Davenport, and Mercy Hospital, Iowa City, Dr. Peck was the honored founder and trusted adviser. Having secured for both the efficient management of the Sisters of Mercy, he served till his death at the head of their medical boards. Of the former institution which, almost equally with the university medical department, stands as a monument to his professional and philanthropic zeal, the story is an interesting one. Almost at once on coming to Davenport he was impressed by the need of some better provision for the sick and the injured, especially among the friendless poor, and he enlisted the aid of prominent citizens-among them John L. Davies and C. S. Watkins, mem- bers of the county board of supervisors, in a movement to secure the establish- ment of a city hospital. They were successful to the extent that the board au. thorized the purchase of a building located at Eighth and Brown streets to be used for the purpose; but this action was later rescinded. Dr. Peck then sought to induce Father Borlando, head of a Catholic institution at Georgetown, D. C.,

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

to establish a Sisters hospital here. Borlando came, but, after due consideration, decided against the project. Soon after, however, the Sisters of Mercy from De Witt proposed to open an asylum here for the insane paupers, then kept in the poor house. Dr. Peck saw his opportunity and offered his gratuitous services, with those of an associate medical board, for the conducting of a gen- eral hospital, thus securing for the city an institution which has now no superior of its kind in the west. At his suggestion it was located on the grounds pur- chased in 1867 by Father Pelamourgues, of blessed memory, for the Sisters of The Immaculate Conception.

Mr. Watkins, who was one of Dr. Peck's earliest patrons and friends, in Davenport, and who contributes in substance, the above account of the origin of Mercy Hospital, gives also an interesting picture of the man as he knew him. His general conversation and all his energies, writes Mr. Watkins, were in the line of his profession. He took, or seemed to take, little interest in politics, busi- ness or religion. . Without egotism he loved appreciation, but was most concerned to win self-approval. Easy to be imposed on in money matters and giving little thought to personal profit, "I have never in all my experience," says Mr. Watkins, "met with any one so completely and practically a friend of humanity as Dr. Peck." He would pick up deformed children on the streets, advise their parents as to what might be done for them, and care for the little unfortunates, often re- gardless of recompense or expense. The sick and suffering poor, if worthy, al- ways found in him a friend; he would give them his best services freely and seek to lighten their afflictions even when overburdened with troubles of his own. Although by contact with the world he developed a husk, at it were, which was not always so easily opened, he remained, to all who knew him in those earlier days, "the genial, kind-hearted and truly affectionate Dr. Peck."

In 1888, over-taxed by the demands of his large practice and his extensive charitable and educational work , his health began to fail, and by the summer of 1891 he was obliged to retire from active life. Made professor emeritus of surgery on his resignation from the medical department he had founded, it was hoped he might be long spared to give it his counsel; but, his health continuing to fail, he died at his home in Davenport, December 12, 1891.

The writer of this sketch spent some months in Dr. Peck's office when first starting in practice in Davenport, assisting him in caring for the first sufferers of the cholera epidemic of 1873, and enjoyed his friendship thereafter to the close of his life. Having known him thus intimately I do not find the warm words in his praise above quoted to be in any way too strong-he deserved them all. He had his enemies, it is true, and they found in him a good fighter. Determined and courageous but always fair, having engaged in a just cause he spared no one who stood in his way to "success." Though giving little time or thought to gen- eral business matters he yet knew how to bind to him loyal friends who cared for his interests as their own. His power to attract and interest young men especially was phenomenal, and under his inspiring leadership many adopted and followed up the laborious paths which conduct to honor and success in the medi- cal profession. Though always ready with his best services and sympathy for the afflicted he held it right to charge roundly for good work, where there was ability to pay, and he generally made sure of his fees in advance, especially from

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

those belonging to the profligate or dead-beat class. With little use for new remedies as a rule, giving comparatively little medicine of any kind, indeed, prescribing only when the indications were plain, and then, for the most part; single drugs, he inspired a confidence and cheer in his patients which were bet- ter than medicine, and which made his very presence in the sickroom curative. He was sometimes accused by those less careful and less courageous than him- self, of cutting ruthlessly for the sake of cutting. No one, I think, could have. been less deserving of this accusation. His first care was always to consider well both the need for and the probable outcome of an operation. These decided in its favor he went ahead fearlessly and did his best. But he would often de- cide against operations which others less considerate and less skilled in diagnosis were quite ready to undertake. Born to, and loving his profession, he strongly opposed any lowering of its ethical standards, and gave the hand of fellowship only to those he esteemed worthy. Too busy to be a great reader (save from the page of living pathology ever open before him), even the medical books and journals-the best of which he kept always about him-would often accumulate unread on his table. Genial socially, loved and respected by all clases, there was yet a certain reserve, amounting almost to hauteur, about him which prevented his becoming the hail-fellow well-met so common in the medical profession. Of medium height and build, his decided step and voice, sharp but kindly blue eye, and commanding presence proclaimed him the leader in any assembly he attended, and he was seldom absent from an important council of his fellows. His short fifty years were crowded full of achievement. May Iowa be blessed with many more such workers.

CHARLES HICKLEN PRESTON.

JENNINGS PRICE CRAWFORD, M. D.

The life work of Dr. Jennings Price Crawford was of signal service to his fellowmen in the city in which he long made his home. Not only his professional skill and ability but his social characteristics and his genuine personal worth en- deared him to all who knew him. He was kindly and sympathetic in nature and he wisely used the talents with which he was endowed for the benefit of those with whom he came in contact. His history, therefore, cannot fail to prove of interest to many of our readers. He came of an old New England family, the ancestry being traced back to John Crawford, who left his home in the Scottish highlands and settled in the new world during its early colonization. To the same family belonged Colonel William Crawford, who figured in both the colonial and Revo- lutionary wars, his military service covering thirty years.

Dr. Crawford was born near Marion, Iowa, August 27, 1855. He and his twin brother, Dr. A. J. Crawford, now deceased but formerly a distinguished phy- sician of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were the sons of Jennings and Sarah (Price) Craw- ford. In his youthful days Dr. Crawford, of this review, mastered the branches of learning in the public schools of his native county, thus spending a portion of each year in study until he reached the age of seventeen, when he had opportunity

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History of Davenport and Scott County Iowa, Volume II, Part 9

Author: Downer, Harry E Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1166

Author: Downer, Harry E
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1166