USA > Illinois > St Clair County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of St. Clair County, Volume II > Part 35
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BELLEVILLE LAWYERS A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO .- The following named lawyers were prac-
ticing their profession at Belleville in 1880: Gustavus Koerner,1 William H. Snyder, Na- thaniel Niles,1 Theodore J. Kraft, Theodore E. Englemann, Jehu Baker, Edward Abend, John B. Hay,1 Thomas Quick, Charles F. Noetling, Robert A. Halbert, Gustavus A. Koerner, Alonzo S. Wilderman, William Winkelman, James M. Hay, James M. Dill, Charles W. Thomas, Charles P. Knispel, Marshal W. Weir, Frank E. Scheel, Louis P. Krafft, James M. Hamill, R. K. Feeny, Edward L. Thomas, William C. Kueffner,1 H. R. Challenor, George W. Brock- haus, Frederick B. Phillips, John N. Perrin, L. T. Boutcher, Don Turner, William J. Under- wood, Franklin A. McConaughy, Robert D. W. Holder, J. A. Willoughby, Henry M. Needles,≥ John Hay, John N. Huggins and Frank Perrin.
EAST ST. LOUIS LAWYERS IN 1880 .- Following are the names of lawyers who were practicing their profession at East St. Louis a quarter of a century ago: J. B. Bowman, Spencer M. Kase, Joseph B. Messick, William G. Kase, Luke H. Hite, Jesse M. Freels, George F. O'Melveny, George W. Brackett, Mortimer Mil- lard, James J. Rafter, Charles T. Ware, Wil- liam H. Bennett, Edward R. Davis, George W. Locke, George D. Green, Frank B. Bowman, Alexander Flannigen, Benjamin H. Canby, Wil- liam P. Launtz, J. F. Greathouse, James H. Manners, Archibald Lyons. Lebanon lawyers were: Henry H. Horner, John Eckert, M. W. Schaeffer, M. M. Lindley, Louis Zerweck.
At that time, A. Lyons was a legal practi- tioner at Marissa.
EARLY PHYSICIANS.2
The history of the medical profession of St. Clair County is so intimately bound up in all of the records of her birth and development as to constitute a microcosm of the whole. Grand medical men came with the earliest pio- neers and shared in every danger as well as in every triumph. Therefore, in here present- ing a brief biography of Dr. Antoine Francois Saugrain, we give a picture, true and vivid, of the deadly perils incurred by our forefathers in the conquest of the heart of this continent.
Antoine Francois Saugrain was born in Paris, France, February 17, 1763. He came
(1) See Encyclopedia part of this work.
(2) "Historical Review of the City of Belleville," 1870.
(1) See sketches in Vol. I.
(2) From data supplied by Dr. Washington West, of Belleville.
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
from a long line of "librarians, booksellers and printers," who, as far back as the times of Charles IX. and Henry of Navarre, had served the royal family of France. Of his early life little is known; but it is evident that he was given a thorough general scientific education, and that he studied "chemistry, mineralogy and physics." He had ample opportunity to util- ize his scientific knowledge in satisfying the daily wants of men in the wilderness. Wher- ever he went, he established furnaces and chemical laboratories and set up electric bat- teries. When he had time he made barome- ters and thermometers for which he found ready sale.
Soon after he completed his studies, his fam- ily, who were royalists, fled across the Rhine, and for a time were lost to him. Later he joined a party of Frenchmen coming to Amer- ica, and after his arrival he engaged in miner- alogical investigations in Mexico, evidently in Spanish service and under the encouragement of the viceroy, Don Galvez. After Galvez's death, Saugrain returned to France; but, fired with love for life in the wilds, he could no longer endure "the tamed and domestic barn- yard fowl existence" of cities, and in 1787 he came again to America, this time in company with M. Piquet. His companion was a French philosopher, imbued with the doctrines of Rous- seau and believing in the "primitive innocence and goodness of the children of the forest." On the journey, these two men busied themselves with scientific observations. M. Piquet soon had his optimistic theories of "primitive good- ness" exploded. Some of those "children of the forest," in whose benevolence he had so strong- ly believed, betrayed his confidence by killing and scalping him.
In June, 1788, while in Philadelphia, Sau- grain met and dined with Franklin. Later, he is heard of in the service of the Scioto Com- pany. He led a party of French emigrants- nearly all of them artisans from Paris and Lyons, absolutely ignorant of the life of the wilderness-to make a settlement at Gallipolis, Ohio. For a time everything went smoothly enough, but soon adversity set in and they were face to face with want. Saugrain set up his laboratory and went to work. The products of his scientific skill were regarded by many of the inhabitants as belonging to the realm of black art. However, he had much influence with the people and did them great good. He
niarried at Gallipolis, and soon left for Lex- ington. In 1800, in response to the invitation of the French Governor of St. Louis, Saugrain went there to live, making the journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. In 1809, the following notice appeared in the issue of the "Missouri Gazette" of May 26:
"Dr. Saugrain gives notice of the first vac- cine matter brought to St. Louis. Indigent persons vaccinated gratuitously."
He lived in St. Louis until his death in 1820, His practice was evidently lucrative, for he left to his wife and six children a large landed estate. Until the end of his life, this first scientist in the Mississippi Valley prosecuted his electrical and chemical work. He is said to have anticipated European inventors in the use of phosphorus in the making of friction matches.
Dr. Saugrain was a true scientist, and, above all, he was in the rarest sense a true philan- thropist. His genius and nobility had devel- oped in an atmosphere of refined culture. His home in Paris had been a center of books and authors. There and in the French universities he laid broad foundations, not only for med- ical lore, but for knowledge of chemistry, bot- any and mineralogy. He was, too, so far as he could have been in his day, a master of practical electricity. All of his gifts he laid on the altar of his adopted country.
When Lewis and Clark made their historic journey across the Western Continent (in 1804-06) it was Saugrain who, at St. Louis, made their thermometers and barometers. It was Saugrain who vaccinated their entire com- pany, and furnished them other tubes of virus, sealed and safe, with which other lives were later saved by vaccination. When brave young Shannon, his knee shattered in the far-away mountains by the arrows of vengeful Sioux, had suffered for months from pain and poison, it was Saugrain who, without chloroform, am- putated the man's leg and saved the man's life. The fires of the expedition were kin- dled with matches made by that tireless won- der-working genius. Not only did the matches save the men from destruction by cold and hun- ger, but, as a means by which cruel and super- stitious savages were overawed, they actually prevented the massacre of the whole expedition.
In his retorts and crucibles first, then in his written reports to European capitals, Dr. Saugrain demonstrated the great mineral
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wealth of this continent. Our government was not slow in availing itself of the services of this superb Frenchman, and from 1805-when President Jefferson appointed him to the of- fice-he was for several years a United States Army Surgeon. After his retirement from the army, he more than ever endeared himself to the people of St. Louis and vicinity, who sincerely mourned him when he passed away. During his eventful years as physician there, Dr. Saugrain, in common with other able med- ical men of the pioneer period, came almost daily over the river to Cahokia, and he may be fairly claimed as one of St. Clair County's early practitioners of the leading art. His pro- fessional account book would have done fairly well as a directory of the rival cities of St. Louis and Cahokia.
Probably Dr. Estes was the first physician to hang out his shingle at Belleville. He built him a house just south of the public square in 1815. According to Governor Reynolds, he had a strong, but illy-balanced mind. As cap- tain of a band of vigilants, organized in 1815, to rid the country of horsethieves and other criminals, he is credited with having dealt out justice very promptly and effectively. In course of time he left the county, and his fur- ther history is unobtainable.
Dr. Schogg, who was contemporaneous with Dr. Estes at Belleville, was a man of strife and of blood. It is said that he was a prin- cipal in at least two shooting scrapes, and lit- tle more is known of him.
A physician named Woodworth came to Belle- ville about 1820, and went away after some years of more or less successful professional endeavor.
Dr. William W. Roman, who finished his work and died about half a century ago, was a medical giant, whose name and fame are writ- ten large upon the history of Belleville. He was not only dictator in the medical world, but reigned supreme in his social and political environments. From "that noble Roman," as he has been called, keen students learned many valuable lessons. Dr. Perryman was one of his students. In a sense, Dr. Jeffries was his successor.
Dr. Lyle was probably the first resident physician at Cahokia. He came at an early day and was considered a good medical man, but was unpopular on account of his exceeding ill-nature.
William Gale Goforth, M. D., was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, about 1790. He came of Eng- lish parents. His first residence in the great new Central West was at Cahokia in 1815. From there he removed to Belleville about 1820. He found at Cahokia 'a preponderating French element, and such an element was conspicuous at the time in St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley; so our versatile friend immediately began the study of that language and soon mas- tered it, at least colloquially. This acquisi- tion brought him local fame and many patients. He had a vivacious disposition and was re- markable as a dancer, nature having favored him with a pair of acrobatic legs. He was also a musical genius, playing well upon the flute. Though Dr. Goforth was rated as a fair physi- cian and had considerable practice, his convivial habits shortened his days and dimmed his reputation. He was twice married. His first wife was Miss Eulallie Hay, a daughter of John Hay, head of one of the best families in the county. Mr. Hay could tolerate the unequal yoking of his lovely daughter with our dissi- pated doctor only two years. Then, in spite of the pleading and the eloquence of the great- est Missouri Senator, the Hon. Thomas H. Ben- ton, whom the physician employed to resist the proceedings, a divorce was granted Mrs. Go- forth. She lived many years in Belleville, and was held in highest esteem. Dr. Goforth's sec- ond wife was a Miss Patsy Nelson. They were married in 1825 and had four children. "After the Doctor's death," was the quaint comment of one who knew him, "his widow reunited with the Mormons in Salt Lake City."
Dr. Goforth enjoyed martial music, and, re- splendent in a flowing red sash, mounted on a fiery charger, he headed Fourth of July proces- sions. Among the boys, his familiar name was "Old Pills." One of his persistent boasts was that there did not exist a horse that he could not ride. That boast cost him his life. One day, in the spring of 1847, a man named Clark came to Belleville, with a ferocious brute of a bay horse, named "Blink Eye." Clark said that no one could ride the animal, but immediately a shout for "Old Pills" arose, and soon Dr. Go- forth came upon the scene, much the worse for liquor, mounted the steed and dashed down North High Street to the old Irish pond, and there was thrown violently to the ground, his neck being broken by the fall. Certainly a tragic and premature ending of a life full of
& C Hamilton
MARGARET HAMILTON
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
possibilities and contradictions. Goforth did much to prove that he was a man of more than average intellect. Men of his name were prom- inent at Cincinnati in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries. It has been asserted that he joined all the religious denominations, the Baptist last. He was as remarkable in appearance as in his character. His features were striking; he had large, bulging, pop eyes, and a nose so im- mense and angular as to make him a subject of remark throughout the State. "When we learned the alphabet, in the days of my child- hood," wrote a Belleville man, "it was taught us in this way-
"'X, Y, Z, and so forth,
And Old Doctor Goforth-with a long nose!'
"He actually scared Mrs. James Mitchell, a strange patient just from the East, into hys- terics, and she would never allow him in her home again."
Dr. William Heath, who came to Belleville from Lynchburg, Va., was a physical giant, a remarkable man in several respects. As a homely man, he sadly distanced Dr. Goforth, and took and held the first prize for ugliness against all comers. Richard Chandler had given Uncle John H. Dennis a pocket-knife, saying: "Dennis, when you meet a man uglier than you are, give him this knife." Not long afterward, Dennis and Dr. Heath met, and with much pomp and ceremony Dennis handed the knife to the medic. The incident became wide- ly known and made the Doctor very angry. Dr. Heath had a limited practice, but made the few who employed him supply all his needs. He is said to have charged the McClin- teck family $120, a large sum in those days, for services during one season's sickness. He was a Methodist minister also, and preached as occasion presented itself. It is not strange that he came to be known as "a man of long prayers and long bills."
Another remarkable pioneer physician was Dr. Smith, who came to St. Clair County in 1818. He was an eclectic. His popularity and success were immense, his territory embracing St. Clair, Monroe and Madison Counties. He had a fine family and owned the farm, near Mascoutah, which eventually passed to the ownership of the Rayhills. His wife was a daughter of Judge Brown.
Dr. Francis J. Crabb, a native of Virginia, came to Illinois in the spring of 1818, in company with his rather-in-law, Pastor Ed- ward Mitchell. There came at the same time a great caravan, mainly made up of Mr. Mitchell's sons and daughters, sons-in-law and many slaves. There were, in all, sixty-six persons. Dr. Crabb's wife was Elizabeth Mitchell. He lived here during the remainder of his life. His first wife died and he married Mary Ogle, a native of Delaware, a sister of Samuel Ogle and an aunt of David Ogle. She is credited with having introduced the tomato into use hereabouts. Dr. Crabb died at Carlyle, Ill., in 1840.
Dr. Hancock, another Virginian of high char- acter, a polished scholar and a physician of the old school, had an extensive practice. He mar- ried Elizabeth Mitchell, Samuel Mitchell's daughter.
Dr. Armstead O. Butler, a physician of large reputation and wide practice, was born in Meck- lenburg County, Va., and studied medicine in Philadelphia, Pa., and located at Cahokia. His circle of practice embraced a radius of forty miles, throughout which he was recognized as a skilled and erudite practitioner. The memory of few men was treasured up by the old pio- neers of this part of the county more sacred- ly than that of the loved family physician, Dr. Butler. His wife was Jane Tournot, of the old family of that name known to Cahokia for perhaps a century. He died in 1862 and his widow married Dr. A. X. Illinski.
Dr. Joseph Green, a "Pennsylvania Dutch- man," a prosperous physician and a Methodist, was highly respected as a healer and as citi- zen. He married the widow of Alphonso C. Stuart, who was killed in a duel with Timothy Bennett. While a resident of Belleville, he rep- resented St. Clair County in the State Legis- lature (Tenth General Assembly, 1826-28). His daughter married Dr. Gray and is living in California. Dr. Green and Lewis and Jacob Myers were the first persons in Belleville who could speak the German laguage, and it is said that he was quite proficient in the use of the French. He interested himself in silk-culture, procured silk-worms and erected a cocoonery. His wife made the silk that he produced into thread on an ordinary spinning wheel and wove the thread into cloth. He died in 1842.
Dr. John B. Gray came from Lexington, Ky., and was a partner of Dr. Goforth's. He had
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
cholera in 1849. An old enemy, hearing that he could not live, came, as he said, "to see the old dog die." Hearing of this, Dr. Gray was so incensed that he vowed he "wouldn't die to please him," and eventually recovered. He was a good physician and his judgment in the prac- tical affairs of life was excellent. He moved to Maryville, Cal., where he was shot and killed in 1867. His widow was a daughter of Dr. Green, is living in Los Angeles, and two of his sons are prominent in business in Cali- fornia.
Dr. John Claypole was born in Vincennes, Ind., about 1800, and was educated and married there. He moved to the Bluffs, near Caseyville, where he practiced his profession nearly eight years, until he was elected Sheriff of St. Clair County and took up his residence in Belleville. After serving his term as Sheriff he located on a farm four miles from Fort Madison, Iowa. There he resumed his professional work and was in general practice until the Iowa State penitentiary was established. He was its first Warden and held the position eight years, and until his death. His funeral is said to have been the largest ever held at Fort Madison. He had five children and adopted and carefully reared seven others. Silas Smith, of Lebanon, was one of the latter. Dr. Claypole was a Whig.
Dr. Adolphus Reuss, one of the old residents and leading citizens in the vicinity of Shiloh, descended from a wealthy family of Amster- dam, Holland, and was born at Frankfort, Ger- many, November 28, 1804. He early showed a disposition for literary pursuits, and after preliminary studies entered the University of Gottingen, where he was graduated as Medical Doctor in 1825. He continued his medical stud- ies at Paris and Berlin and began the practice of his profession at Frankfort. Longing to live in a free country, under free institutions, he came to America in 1832. After traveling in Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois, he concluded that St. Clair County offered him better oppor- tunities as a place of residence than any other locality that he had seen, and he bought 200 acres of land in Sections 3 and 4, Town 1 North, Range 7 West, on which he lived out his allotted days. When he acquired this land it was nearly all covered with timber, only ten acres of it having been brought under cul- tivation.
The German residents of the county were then few compared with the great body of emi- grants from the Fatherland that came at a later day. While he improved his land, he was ac- tive in the practice of his profession. He won a large patronage and came to be regarded as one of the ablest physicians in the county. The nature of his practice in a rural neigh- borhood entailed arduous labor, but a robust constitution enabled him to withstand much hardship and exposure. He took an intelligent interest in political movements of his time, acting with the Democratic party till the slavery question came uppermost. Then his warm Free-Soil sympathies made him a Repub- lican. His views on all subjects were liberal and independent. In religion, he was a free thinker; but he respected the beliefs of others and never forced his own views upon any one. In his youth he had been a thorough student of languages. He was a man of marked lit- erary attainments and culture. He accumu- lated a large library of books in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German and English, with all of which he was conversant. His first wife, Margaretha C. E. Jucho, whom he married in Frankfort, died March 8, 1841. He was married to his second wife, Carolina Raith, a native of Gottingen,, Germany. She was a daughter of Frederick Raith, who came to America in 1833 and settled at Turkey Hill. She died Au- gust 5, 1870; Dr. Reuss died May 7, 1878. They had nine children.
Dr. William Shepherd, a scholarly gentleman and a fine physician, who had a face that sug- gested that of the great Napoleon, came from the Old Dominion in 1833. He was a born aris- tocrat, magnetic, winsome, good-a rare man. He was appointed Surgeon in the United States Army in 1838, and stationed at Fort Snelling. Thence he went to Texas, where, in 1840, he became Secretary of State. He was sent as a Delegate to Washington in 1856. Two years later he was killed in a duel at Holly Springs, Miss. Though he was a radical Southerner, he laid down his life in defense of some Northern man, a visitor at Holly Springs. Dr. Shepherd, during the few years of his profes- sional life in Belleville, made many warm friends, and his departure from the town marked what was regarded as a public loss.
Dr. Peter Randall-"the best physician Belle- ville ever had in those days." This is the
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
honest opinion of a citizen who has lived in the State about ninety years, a man competent to judge. Dr. Randall's father and two broth- ers were ministers of the gospel. He came from Georgia to Edwardsville, and, about 1833, from Edwardsville to Belleville. He was a specially gifted man, a physician by intuition. He was a sober, Christian practitioner, such as would be justly prized in any community. From Belleville he removed to Alton, on his way to the Pacific Coast. He died in Califor- nia during his second visit to that State. His wife was a Miss White, of Philadelphia, Pa.
Dr. William S. VanCleve was an eclectic, He has been described as "a most eccentric man, a good druggist, a specialist in cancer; a man having an exalted opinion of his own merit; a keen observer, a sharp debater, a shrewd, resourceful man, who lived in a nar- row world. He came of a good family, lived to an advanced age and died poor. He had no enemies and courted few friends." He was the first physician at Centerville, and lived there from 1845 to 1880, when he moved to Belle- ville.
Dr. Smith came from Memphis, Tenn., about 1839. He was Belleville's first surgeon. His courtly manners and elegant dress induced a large following. During his stay, he infused new life into local Masonry. In his varied at- tainments he was a superior man.
Clark Nettleton, M. D., was born of Eng- lish parentage, near New Haven, Conn., in 1800. He grew up on a farm and obtained his literary education in New Haven. He taught school in Maryland a few years, studying med- icine in leisure hours, and eventually was graduated from a medical college in Baltimore. He married Anna Hurd, of New Haven, in 1825, and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and there began the practice of his profession. Soon becoming dis- couraged by the smallness of the then village and, as it appeared to him, the smaller pros- pect of its ever amounting to anything, he went to Mt. Vernon, Ohio. There he lived about three years, going in 1828 to Franklin, La., where he found a congenial and appre- ciative people, among whom he established a large practice. After eight years' arduous la- bor in that malarious region, his health failed and he returned to the North. While living temporarily in St. Louis, Dr. Nettleton became acquainted with Hon. Thomas H. Benton, by
whose advice he crossed the Mississippi and located in Belleville early in 1839. Not long afterward he bought of Hon. Adam W. Snyder the fine "Square Mound farm" of 400 acres, in the American Bottom five miles south of Ca- hokia. Moving there, he combined agriculture with medicine and surgery, prospering till the overflow of 1844, when the Mississippi became an appalling flood, in which his crops, fences, buildings and much of his live-stock were swept away. With the remnant of his prop- erty that he succeeded in saving, he fled from the Bottom, stopping not until he reached Man- chester, in Morgan County, where he resumed the practice of his profession. In 1849, hav- ing sold his Illinois real estate, he removed to Racine, Wis., where he was in successful prac- tice until his death, which occurred in 1884. He was a member of the "regular" school of practitioners, a careful and conscientious physi- cian and a skillful surgeon, who kept up with the advance of his profession. He was a sur- geon in the United States Army in 1825, sta- tioned at Harper's Ferry, Va. During his resi- dence in Louisiana, he bravely met the cholera epidemic in 1832, from which many physi- cians fled. He had the courtly manners of the old school gentleman and was a devoted stu- dent of science and literature, giving much at- tention to geology and botany.
Dr. Edward P. Price was a surgeon of some repute, and during the Mexican War was at- tached to the Second Illinois Regiment, com- manded by Colonel Bissell. He did not remain long in the county. In Louisiana, where he died, he had much political power. His wife was a sister of Vital Jarrot, and the widow of William Morrison.
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