USA > Illinois > Madison County > Centennial history of Madison County, Illinois, and its people, 1812 to 1912, Volume I > Part 54
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83
The practice of medicine and surgery may be, and is legally controlled in order to pro- mote the public health and welfare of society, and the primary object of the law is not to favor the doctors but to protect the patients.
To us of this generation it would be a matter of much interest if we could know the names of the old "medicine men" of the tribes of Kickapoo and Cahokia Indians who used to roam the prairies of what is now Madison county. It would also be a matter of much interest if we knew the methods and materials used by our Indian predecessors. But names and methods alike are lost to us, for no record of the "medicine man" was ever made, and we can but conjecture that they in common with all Indian tribes exorcised the evil spirit, which had entered the patient, with their charms and weird incantations ; with tom-toms, drums or other like instru- ments ; with the monotonous swaying of their bodies or with their gesticulations and danc- ing. Or shall we imagine that they used such remedies as ground spiders, scorpion eggs, charred bones and the like, much in use among barbaric nations? This can only be a matter of speculation, as nothing preserving their identity or methods has been handed down.
This same dearth of reliable information confronts us as we attempt to write the his-
378
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
tory of the medical men of one hundred and more years ago, the men who came in with the first white settlers of Madison county. No record of their names or acts has been transmitted to us, no chapter on the early practice of medicine has ever been included in the many histories of this region, that have been written. Nothing has been preserved of record, except as it is laboriously culled out of the archives of civil government, as it related to local, county or state administra- tion. Naturally a great deal of valuable in- formation has been irretrievably lost as it was only in the isolated instances that a physician acquired sufficient prominence to be men- tioned in connection with government affairs. This is today our only source of information, except that in a few instances, the recollec- tions of our oldest citizens have materially aided in throwing additional light upon the subject, which at best, though extremely val- uable, is naturally indistinct and very incom- plete. It must also be remembered that there are but very few persons now living who knew these early pioneers in medicine, and whose acquaintance with them extended be- yond the mere personal contact. The desire to avoid the limelight of publicity, which we find in the medical profession today, seems to have been a tradition handed down to us from the fathers, and is a precious legacy to us, which is still carefully preserved for future generations. However, through all the haze and mist of the past, some facts have survived, some names have been rescued from oblivion, and in this, the latest attempt, to tell the story of the people of Madison county, these facts and names are here recorded, as a grateful tribute to the old pioneers in our profession, who blazed the way for us, whose lines have fallen in more pleasant places and who are now enjoying the fruit of the labors of the men of the nineteenth cen- tury.
THE COUNTY'S FIRST PHYSICIAN
Dr. George Cadwell was the first physician who practiced in Madison county. He was born February 21, 1773, at Wethersfield, Con- necticut, and acquired his medical education in Rutland, Vermont. While still a student, he married, on February 19, 1797, Pamelia Lyon, whose mother was a niece of Ethan Allen, of Ticonderoga fame, and whose father was Matthew Lyon, then a member of con- gress from Vermont and who was afterwards four times elected to congress from Kentucky and once elected delegate to congress from the territory of Arkansas.
Dr. Cadwell practiced his profession at Fair Haven, Vermont, and Eddyville, Ken- tucky, until he located in Madison county in 1802, on the banks of the Mississippi river, opposite Gabaret island, where he purchased two hundred acres of land which, by the de- scription in the deed, is located just north of the Merchant's bridge and immediately west of Granite City. He practiced his profession and identified himself with public affairs of this county, which was established, on Sep- tember 14, 1812, by Governor Ninian Ed- wards and which at that time had the follow- ing boundaries: "Beginning on the Missis- sippi, to run with the second township above Cahokia east until it strikes the dividing line between the Illinois and Indiana territories, thence with said dividing line to the line of Upper Canada, thence with said line to the Mississippi, thence down the Mississippi to the beginning." On the 27th day of Septem- ber, 1812,; Dr. Cadwell was appointed justice of the peace for this newly established county which embraced all of Illinois north of East St. Louis, all of Wisconsin, and that part of Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi river. In August, 1813, he was appointed commis- sioner to list the property in this county for taxation and the tax so extended on this list amounted to $426.84.
379
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
On December 24, 1814, as a Christmas gift from the governor, he was appointed county judge of this county and shortly after re- moved to Edwardsville, purchasing from Thomas Kirkpatrick on July 1, 1815, "lots 27 and 28 in the town of Edwardsville, lying on the west side of Main Street and on the north side of Cross street No. 5," containing the dwelling which was by the proclamation of Governor Edwards, above referred to, made the seat of justice of Madison county.
On the third Thursday of September, 1818, Dr. Cadwell was chosen as a member from this county to the first state senate, which office he held until 1824. occupying a very prominent position, being a member of most of the important committees and chairman of some. In 1821 he removed to Morgan county, where, after 1824, the remainder of his life was spent in the practice of his pro- fession. His field was so vast and his prac- tice so extensive that he was frequently ab- sent for several days at a time, sometimes visiting patients forty miles away. He was a man of medium height and of rather slender build and his family consisted of two sons and eight daughters. He died August I, 1826, aged fifty-two years and was buried on his farm in Morgan county, Illinois.
EDWARDSVILLE'S FIRST DOCTOR
Dr. Joseph Bowers was the first physician to practice his profession in Edwardsville. He came here in 1810 and built a log cabin on the Judge Joseph Gillespie home site in lowertown, to which Dr. John Todd after- ward added a frame addition. Dr. Bowers was active in his profession here for about ten years. Tradition does not record his medical career but rather speaks of him as a man prominent in the affairs of the growing community. He, with Ninian Edwards, John Todd and others, owned a large tract of land in Edwardsville, of which he was one of the trustees in 1819. He seems to have been a
speculator in lots and lands for we find that he was not only the owner of a large number of lots in Upper Edwardsville, but also owned a great deal of real estate in Waterloo and Vandalia. He must have met with finan- cial reverses, for after removing to Carlyle, he made an assignment of all of his holdings to Dr. John Todd of Edwardsville, for the benefit of his creditors, of which a large number with large claims are mentioned in the deed.
Dr. John Todd, the second physician to come to Edwardsville was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and was a brother of Robert Todd whose two daughters became the wives of President Abraham Lincoln and Governor Ninian Edwards. Dr. Todd came to Ed- wardsville in 1817 and at once entered upon the active practice of medicine and tradition hands him down as a man of fine skill and ability. Together with Governor Ninian Ed- wards and Benjamin Stephenson, he, in 1825, platted an addition which is known as "Upper Edwardsville" and "Todd and Others' Addi- tion." In 1823 and 1824 he was also wor- shipful master of Libanus Lodge No. 29, A. F. & A. M., at Edwardsville, one of the earli- est masonic lodges in the state, and which was under the jurisdiction of the original Grand Lodge, which disappeared before 1830, possibly before 1827 or 1828. In May 1827 he was appointed registrar of the United States Land Office, by John Quincy Adams, and moved to Springfield, Illinois. At this time he was the only regular physician in Ed- wardsville and he sold his property to Dr. B. F. Edwards who succeeded him in the practice. In 1846 he built what was consid- ered the most elegant brick house in Spring- field which was but recently torn down, still in a most perfect state of preservation. As Dr. Todd was an uncle of the wife of Presi- dent Lincoln both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were frequent visitors at this home.
Dr. Augustus Langworthy was one of the
380
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
first physicians of our county and came from Vermont to Upper Alton about 1817. On the 21st of September, 1818, he was married to Adah Meacham, daughter of Joseph Meacham, one of the men who laid out the town of Upper Alton, and in the same year was appointed postmaster. This office, al- though named Alton, was in Upper Alton and was on a mail route running from Carlyle, Il- linois, to St. Charles, Missouri, carrying the mail once a week on horseback. He retained this office until 1832 and was succeeded by Rev. B. Maxey, a circuit preacher from Vir- ginia. Dr. Langworthy was an active, ener- getic citizen besides being a practitioner of medicine, for we find his name connected with every important movement for the uplift of that pioneer community.
Dr. Erastus Brown, grandfather of Ansel L. Brown, editor of the Edwardsville Demo- crat, and greatgrandfather of Mary Ground Corbett, wife of Clarence C. Corbett, D. D. S., was one of the early pioneers in medicine who made an impression upon the community that time has been unable to efface. He grad- uated from Yale in 1799, and began the prac- tice of medicine in Bridgewater, New York, where he married a widow, Brittania Easton Starr. In 1815 he came west and located in St. Louis until he came to this county in the autumn of 1818 and settled in Upper Alton following his profession and also owning and operating the first drug store in that part of the county. Although Joseph Meacham laid out the town of Upper Alton in 1817, on a section of government land, he never com- pleted the entry, but sold his certificate to a syndicate composed of Dr. Brown, James W. Whitney, John Allen and Ebenezer Hodges, who completed the transfer, became propri- etors of the town, registered the plat, and sold the lots. In 1819 he, with Bennett Maxey, Isaac Waters, and Zachariah Allen, laid out the town of Salu, adjoining and to the north of Upper Alton, claiming for it
greater natural advantages than could be found in Upper Alton or Alton. Dr. Brown was a brother-in-law of Col. Rufus Easton who, in 1817, laid out the original town of Alton and who, in 1808, was the first post- master of St. Louis, Missouri, and also was a delegate to Congress from 1814 to 1818, from the Missouri Territory. The pioneer mis- sionary, Rev. J. M. Peck, gives a very good description of Dr. Brown's home in 1819 when he says: "The snug, neat, newly-built log-house-no, we will call it a 'cottage'- where I found the doctor, his lady and two or three little ones, in as comfortable quar- ters as any decent folks deserved to have in those frontier times." He speaks of the hos- pitality accorded him by Dr. Brown and his wife, and of the comfort and happiness that were his lot while their guest.
The 44th anniversary of the nation's birth, July 4, 1820, was celebrated at Dr. Brown's house, above described, which stood on the Milton road just where that road joins the main street of the town. On that occasion, with music, feast and merriment, speeches were made and toasts given, and it is worthy of notice that even at this early day, the slav- ery question was the subject of the most of these oratorical efforts.
Dr. Brown was a handsome man, of slim build, over six feet tall, and as straight as an arrow ; his complexion was clear and his 'hair and eyes were jet black. He was a man of positive character and always identified him- self with all the civic movements looking to- ward the upbuilding of the community. He was a fine physician and was highly respected by all who knew him. He continued in prac- tice in Upper Alton up to the time of his death in 1833.
Probably the first physician that located in or near Collinsville sometime in the twenties of the last century was a young man by the name of Dr. Reuben Mack. We find very little history of him. He never married and made
381
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
his home about a mile northwest of the city under the bluff, near the old homestead of Guy Morrison of early days. He rode horse- back long distances to his patients. He was a sportsman and delighted in hunting game which was then plentiful. He possessed a dog that is remembered as a constant com- panion of the Doctor. Dr. Mack died young and was buried on the very top of the bluff, overlooking the great valley below. It is said that the Doctor and the faithful dog were buried in the same grave.
There was a brick wall surrounding the grave which is still to be seen. The grave stone has long since been broken off and washed down into a new ravine. I am greatly indebted to Master William' Combs (son of Joseph Combs who lives near) who has searched this ravine and found this head stone. It is marked as follows: "In memory of Doctor Reuben Mack who was born in Shelburn, Vermont, in 1809, departed this life here in September, 1832, aged 24."
Dr. Benjamin Franklin Edwards was born on a plantation near Bardstown, Montgom- ery county, Maryland, on July 2, 1797, being the twelfth child of the late Benjamin and Margaret Beal Edwards. He graduated in medicine at Jefferson Medical College, Phil- adelphia, and settled in Elkton, Todd Co., Kentucky. In September, 1819, he married Betsy Green of Danville, Kentucky, a sister of the late Rev. Lewis Green, the president of Center College of that place. A few months after this he moved overland to Old Franklin, Missouri, but after a year's resi- dence he was driven by the floods back to Kentucky. In 1827, at the call of his brother, Governor Ninian Edwards, he came to Ed- wardsville, Illinois, to take charge of the land office, living in the old Judge Joseph Gillespie house on North Main street. He was con- sidered a very fine physician, and during his ten years' residence in Edwardsville, his serv- ices were in great demand within a radius of
one hundred miles. On the 19th of April, 1828, the first Baptist church was organized in his home, being the first church established in this section of Illinois.
In 1837 Dr. Edwards removed to Alton, Illinois, where his brother, Cyrus Edwards, then lived. In 1844 he moved to St. Louis, where he soon gained an extensive practice. In 1849 he was seized with the gold fever, and went to California, the family returning to Alton until he came back home in May, 1851: In St. Louis he remained until 1866, when he built and moved to a home in Kirk- wood, Missouri.
Dr. Edwards maintained a successful and lucrative practice of medicine during his long life. He was ever a zealous member of the Baptist church, instrumental in its establish- ment in Alton, St. Louis and Kirkwood. He was also interested in educational and polit- ical affairs, in fact was a public spirited cit- izen. He was a trustee of Monticello Semin- ary and of Shurtleff College, Alton, where his portrait now hangs among the founders of that institution. He was most active in trying to avert the Lovejoy tragedy, admonishing Lovejoy to withhold his violent weekly edi- torials, but to no effect. He was an earnest, enthusiastic, Christian man, honored and be- loved by all who knew him. His personal appearance was striking, being six feet one inch tall, handsome, erect and majestic, with a most pleasing address. Only two of his ten children still survive, Mrs. M. E. Todd, of Columbia, Missouri, and Cyrus L. Edwards, of Grandbury, Texas, (twins) born in Alton, in 1837.
Dr. Edwards died in Kirkwood, Missouri, April 30, 1877, and was laid to rest in Belle- fontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.
Dr. Edwards died in Kirkwood, Missouri, Daniel Boone and a man who both as physi- cian and citizen left his impress upon the people not only of this county but of the state at large, was born near Lexington, Kentucky,
382
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
December 18, 1808. After obtaining his and from the dangers surrounding travel in medical education and degree from the Tran- a wild and sparsely settled country. Dr. Moore, after 50 years of active practice died in Morgan county May 29, 1877, aged 79 years. sylvania University, he began his professional life in Edwardsville, Illinois, in 1829, when 21 years old, and located later in Hillsboro, in the same state. After serving during the Black Hawk war as captain of cavalry he per- manently settled in Chicago in 1836, where he served as city physician during the severe cholera epidemic of 1849 to 1851 rendering most valuable service to the public. He also served as alderman three terms and in 1855 was elected mayor of Chicago. After a most turbulent term in the mayoralty he again re- sumed his practice and was considered one of the best physicians of the city. He was an ardent supporter of the Baptist church and was also one of the founders of the Chicago University. Early in life he married a daugh- ter of Judge Smith of the Illinois supreme court, and raised a large family. He died in Chicago in 1882 aged 74 years.
Dr. Edmund Moore, a pioneer physician and surgeon of Morgan county, did not live in this county but certainly deserves mention in these pages, as he was frequently called to Edwardsville and vicinity in a professional capacity, from his home many miles to the north. Dr. Moore was born of Scotch-Irish parentage in Elphin, Roscommon county, Ire- land, May 26, 1798. When but an infant he came to the United States with his parents, who located in Kentucky. Here Edmund Moore was reared and educated, here he read medicine under Dr. Bemis of Bardstown, Ken- tucky. In 1827 he was examined and licensed by the state of Illinois, and began the practice of medicine in Morgan county, which was the scene of his activities for half a century. He was a typical "doctor of the old school" attended to the wants of the people over a very wide extent of territory, always on horse- back, carrying his supplies in his saddle-bags. His extensive rides and many trips were made at great personal risks, both from exposure
Dr. Joseph Gates, a descendant of the old Goetz family in Germany, a man of unique and decided character and one of the old pioneers in medicine, was born in Salem, Washington county, New York, July 16, 1783. He studied the Thomsonian system of medicine under his preceptor, Dr. J. Van- velsor in New York, and there on Aug. 30, 1807, married Miss Polly Vanvelsor, a daugh- ter of his preceptor. In 1818 he came west and entered a lot of land in the military tract in northern Illinois. In 1830 he sold out and came to Marine in this county where he re- mained one year when he entered a farm be- tween Troy and Collinsville where he lived during the rest of his life. His wife died on this home farm and in 1833 he married Mrs. Cynthia Moore, nee Ballard. Dr. Gates be- lieved in the thorough use of the "old roots and herbs," especially of Lobelia. He is well remembered to this day, and many are the stories related of his practice. He built up a great reputation for his treatment of milk sickness, which at that time prevailed all through central Illinois, and was called all over the country to treat these cases and he was very successful. Dr. Gates practiced up to the time of the Civil war, and died October II, 1865, aged eighty-two years. His young- est child, Mr. George W. C. Gates, at the age of seventy-four years, is still living in Troy, Illinois.
Dr. William S. Emerson was born in Ken- nebunk, Maine, in 1801. He received his medical education in Bowdoin College, from which institution he graduated. In 1831 he came to Alton, being the first physician to locate there, and practiced his profession with rare ability and great success. So deeply did his professional attainments impress them-
383
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
selves upon the community that his work is highly spoken of to this day. He also in- terested himself in the civic affairs of the community and was a member of the Board of Trustees in 1834 to 1836. In his personal conduct he exhibited such kind and gentle- manly qualities that he gained the good will and respect of everyone and became exceed- ingly popular. Besides being a splendid physician he was a born naturalist, a great student and lover of conchology. He had a full and complete collection of shells, all duly classified and catalogued, which was con- stantly increased by exchange with foreign and more or less remote American collectors. This collection was somewhat injured by fre- quent removals after his death, but was fin- ally deposited at Monticello Seminary and forms an interesting exhibit in the cabinet of that institution. Dr. Emerson died in Alton, in September, 1837, aged thirty-five years.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin Long was one of those early pioneers in medicine who devoted his whole life to the service of his profes- sion and to the amelioration of the conditions of his fellow-man. He was what the word implies, a physician, worthy in morals and ison county. He was born August 1, 1805, in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and received his early education in the village academy. He began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Henry Lyman of Warner, New Hamp- shire, and after a season of teaching school to provide means for his medical education, he attended lectures in the Medical College of Berkshire, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Dartmouth Medical College, from which he graduated in December, 1830. After assist- ing his brother, Dr. Moses Long, in his ex- tensive practice in Warner, New Hampshire, he took a post-graduate course in Philadel- phia. In 1831, Dr. Long came to Upper Alton to visit his brothers who had located there, in- tending to continue his journey and settle in St. Martin's Parish, Louisiana. But he be-
came interested in a very sick child, in the Huntington family on Wood river, whose life had been despaired of by local physicians, and who was restored to health by his ministra- tions. This changed his plans and he located in Alton where he conducted an extensive practice for many years. In 1839 he with others organized the Illinois Mutual Fire In- surance Company, of which he was president for twenty-five years. In 1849, the year that cholera was at its worst in Illinois, his prac- tice was so extensive and he was so con- stantly in the saddle that his health was se- riously broken and his eyesight so affected that he eventually gave up professional work, but never his interest in medicine and sur- gery.
Dr. Long was married in 1835 to Miss Lucy Martin, daughter of Dr. Wm. Martin, of Bradford, New Hampshire, and she died in 1846, leaving three sons and two daughters of whom only the youngest, George Franklin Long of Springfield, Illinois, is still living. In 1850 he removed from Upper Alton to a farm on the Grafton road and devoted the greater part of his time to fruit growing, until his death in 1888.
FIRST PHYSICIAN IN EASTERN MADISON
Dr. Caspar Koepfli, born in Sursee, Can- ton Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1775, was a graduate of the best schools of Europe, prac- ticed in Switzerland and was a military sur- geon before emigrating to this country. His father and grandfather were also doctors. On the 15th of October, 1831, at the head of a Swiss colony, the doctor arrived in Mad- ison county, settling in Looking Glass Prairie not far from the present site of the city of Highland, and thus became the first doctor in the eastern part of the county. He, with several others, in September 1836, laid out the town of Highland, consisting of forty- five squares of twelve lots each. Dr. Koepfli was the first to recommend Swiss emigrants
384
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
to come to this country by way of New Or- leans. He had himself come all the way from New York to Highland overland, and found the journey both very difficult and ex- pensive. The ocean rate to New Orleans was about the same as to New York and the trip up the Mississippi was much cheaper and more comfortable. After that all emigrants to Highland came by way of New Orleans. Dr. Koepfli was connected with every move- ment for civic betterment in the village and this interest remained unabated until his death. Although he was fifty-seven years old when he came to this country, he lived long enough to see all his plans realized and could look with extreme satisfaction over a long and busy life. At the advanced age of eighty years, on the first day of January, 1855, Dr. Koepfli found a resting place in this settle- ment of his creation and was followed to his grave by a large concourse of sincere friends.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.