USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 41
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Vol. 1-27
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Joseph Greenberry Wolfe, M. D., a well known practitioner on the west side, and especially prominent in the treatment of children's JOSEPH G. diseases, is a native of Danville, Illinois, or was WOLFE. born near that city, on the 6th of October, 1859. He is a son of the Rev. George Bruce and Hannah Elizabeth (Garner) Wolfe, his father being a Methodist minister and his maternal grandfather a clergyman of the same denomination. These family circumstances, however, had little influence upon the career of Dr. Wolfe, as his predilections for the medical profession were too strongly implanted. Financial considerations made it im- possible for him to at once prosecute his studies, and for ten years he was engaged in the drug business-an experience which he found of much value to him in his subsequent practice.
Dr. Wolfe is a graduate of Rush Medical College, Chicago, class of 1890, and since that time has been engaged successfully in general practice. He has made an especially thorough study of pediatrics and holds the chair of that department of medicine in the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery, being also physician to the Frances E. Willard National Temperance Hospital, on South Lincoln street.
The Doctor was married June 18, 1885, to Miss Mary Eliza Bell, of Petersburg, Illinois, and they have one daughter, Stella Irene Wolfe, born August 23, 1890. The family home is at 95 Laflin street, Dr. Wolfe having a wide personal and professional acquaint- ance in that section of the city. The extent and continuous expansion of his practice necessitates the maintenance of an office in the central business district, and is located at No. 72 East Madison street.
George Francis Shears, M. D., is recognized not only as one of the most eminent figures in homeopathy in the west, but as a surgeon whose theory and practice have placed him in the
GEORGE F. SHEARS. front ranks of whatever school, throughout the country. He is an Illinois man, born in Aurora, on the 16th of September, 1856. The son of Joseph and Mary Rey- nolds (Cassidy) Shears, his family on the paternal side was English, and on the mother's was of English ancestors who settled in Ire- land. At a later day some of the paternal forefathers also became residents of the Emerald Isle, among those of special note being John and Henry Shears, who were prominent champions of their country's independence.
Mestrefe M. d.
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ATTP LENOX AND AIEMFOUNDATIONS
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ACColton
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The literary education of Dr. Shears was obtained in the public and high schools of Aurora, at the Normal School and under private instructors. Two years after graduating from the Normal School he was matriculated at the Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, from which he received his professional degree in 1880. Subse- quently he pursued post-graduate work in Berlin and Vienna, and in their educational institutions and great hospitals obtained the benefit of the instruction of master minds and the clinical training which could not have been enjoyed from years of private practice.
Dr. Shears was an interne in the Hahnemann Hospital in 1880-1, and after three years of growing private practice his high standing was recognized by his appointment to the superintendency of that institution. He retained that position until 1893, having been lec- turer on surgery at the college in 1882. He has held the full pro- fessorship of that chair since 1889, and been president of the college since 1900. The doctor's standing in homeopathy is also indicated. by the facts that he is ex-president of the Clinical Society, Chicago Homeopathic Society and the Illinois State Homeopathic Medical Society; is a senior member of the American Institute of Home- opathy, and an honorary member of the British Homeopathic Medi- cal Society and the New York State Society. He is very widely known as a writer on surgical topics, having furnished medical lit- erature with many monographs, and being assistant editor of Clinique.
Although Dr. Shears has been unable to devote much time to matters outside of his profession, he has been deeply interested in social reforms, and is now a trustee of Abraham Lincoln Center He is independent both in politics and religion. In 1884 the doctor was married to Miss Jessie E. Hunter, and their home has long been at 2911 Prairie avenue.
Alfred Cleveland Cotton, A. M., M. D., is one of the most highly honored of Chicago practitioners and citizens, and his authority on
ALFRED C. diseases of children extends throughout the coun-
COTTON. try. By his character for learning and practical skill in the specialty which he adopted at the outset of his career, he has not only well upheld the historic name of his family, but has woven his fine personality into the hearts and households of thousands of residents of this city. Perhaps more than
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any other physician of the west has he raised the importance of pedi- atrics as a department of medicine, that chair having been especially created for him by Rush Medical College.
Dr. Cotton is a native of Illinois, born in Griggsville, Pike county, on the 18th of May, 1847, being a son of Porter and Elvira (Cleve- land) Cotton. Rev. John Cotton, American progenitor of the fam- ily, was born in Derby, England, on the 15th of December, 1585, was a Cambridge Fellow and a Puritan clergyman prior to his removal to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1633. Before landing at the Hub his wife gave birth to a son, appropriately named Seaborn; the daughter of Seaborn was Sarah, who became the wife of Increase Mather and the mother of the famous Cotton Mather. The branch of the family to which Dr. Cotton is directly related sprouted in New Hampshire, and Melvin Cotton, the grandfather, is recorded as a Revolutionary patriot of marked ardor and bravery. His son, Porter, a teacher of high literary and professional attainments, married a Vermont lady (the Elvira Cleveland mentioned), and afterward migrated to the south, serving with distinction on the faculty of Washington Col- lege, at Natchez, Mississippi, but, finding opposition to his anti-slav- ery views so bitter as to force his return to the Green Mountain state. In 1840 he located at Griggsville, Illinois, and, scholar though he was, assumed the practical work of the frontier community as a grain dealer, mill owner and general merchant. There he reared his family of six children, lived for forty years and died a venerable man, hon- ored and beloved.
Dr. Cotton was the youngest child of this family, and, as will be anticipated, received a thorough education in the classics, sciences and his profession. Rev. W. H. Whipple, a Congregational clergyman, prepared him for the college, but his studies were interrupted in 1863 by his enlistment, when sixteen years of age, as a drummer in Com- pany F, One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment, Illinois Volun- teer Infantry. Half of the sixteen months of his service was spent in southern prisons, and the wounds which he received rendered his health critical for some time after being mustered out of the Union ranks.
As soon as his health would permit the youth entered the State Normal University at Bloomington, Illinois, from which, after a brilliant course, he graduated in 1869. For the succeeding seven
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years he served as a principal of grammar and high schools and as superintendent of city schools, attaining in this field special promi- nence as a teacher of Latin and the natural sciences and an organizer of graded schools. In 1873 he served as deputy county superintend- ent of the Iroquois county schools.
Several years prior to this time Dr. Cotton had commenced his medical studies with Dr. J. R. Stoner, of Griggsville, and in 1876 he permanently abandoned the field of pedagogy. In the autumn of that year he entered Rush Medical College, graduating in 1878 as valedictorian of his class, with the degree M. D .; in 1887 was hon- ored with that of A. M. by Illinois College. Dr. Cotton was at once invited to accept a lectureship as a member of the spring faculty of Rush Medical College. He accepted the invitation, but located for practice at Turner, quite an important railroad town of DuPage coun- ty, where, from 1878 to 1881, he served both as county coroner and village health officer, and was appointed assistant surgeon of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. In 1880 he became lecturer on materia medica and therapeutics at Rush Medical College, and opened an office in Chicago, in May, 1882, establishing himself on the west side and concentrating all his professional labors and abili- ties on the field in this city. He had previously served as assistant to the newly established department on diseases of children connected with his alma mater, and in 1883-84 pursued post-graduate courses in this specialty at the chief medical and clinical centers of the United States. In 1888 he was made adjunct professor of materia medica and therapeutics in Rush College, and in 1892, on the decease of Pro- fessor Knox, was appointed to succeed him in the chair of clinical pediatrics. Since 1882 he has been connected with the children's department of the Central Free Dispensary, either as attending or consulting physician, and for many years he has served the Presby- terian Hospital in a like capacity, as well as holding the position of obstetrician to that institution and lecturer to the Illinois Training School for Nurses. He has also been for years on the medical staff of Cook County Hospital, and in 1891-93 and in 1895-97 was city physician of Chicago. By virtue of this latter position he was a member of the Chicago board of health, medical superintendent of the police department and the house of correction, and was in charge of the Chicago Isolation Hospital and the infectious disease ward of
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the Cook County Hospital. The doctor served for a number of years as examining surgeon on the United States Pension Board, and for years was elected surgeon for the Grand Army of the Republic and the Veteran Union League.
Dr. Cotton is a leading member of the Chicago Medical and Path- ological societies, Illinois State Medical Society, American Pediatric Society, American Medical Examiners' Association, and the Ameri- can Medical Association. In 1894, at the national meeting of the last-named body, he was elected temporary chairman of the section on diseases of children, and at the Baltimore congress of the follow- ing year was chosen to the chairmanship. He has been president of the Chicago Pedriatric Society, Chicago Medical Examiners' Asso- ciation, Chicago Physicians' Club, Chicago Alumni Chapter of Phi Rho Sigma and of its grand chapter. For more than twenty years he has been medical referee for Chicago and vicinity with the Pru- dential Life Insurance Company, of Newark, New Jersey. In addi- tion, he is surgeon to the artillery battalion of the Illinois National Guard, and has served as commander of American Post, No. 708, Grand Army of the Republic.
As an author Dr. Cotton's reputation has been broadly extended, the following being his best-known text books: "Diseases of Chil- dren," "Physiology and Hygiene of the Developing Period and Care of the Infant." His frequent contributions to pediatric literature have received international recognition, having served as a delegate to the International Medical Congress held in Moscow in 1897, and to the Madrid congress of 1903. He is also one of the few Ameri- cans who have been honored with membership in the Societe Fran- caise d'Hygiene of Paris, France. In Masonry he is a member of Garfield Lodge, Chicago; Doric, West Chicago; K. T., Bethel Com- mandery No. 36, Elgin, Illinois.
On May 2, 1893, Dr. Cotton was united in marriage with Miss Nettie U. McDonald, and the children of this union are Mildred Cleveland and John Rowell.
For many years Dr. Oscar A. King has been recognized as one of the most eminent specialists in nervous and mental diseases in the
OSCAR A. west. As a deep student, an original investigator
KING. and a successful practitioner, he stands in the front rank of both eastern and western neurologists.
Bear Ating
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Born on a farm near Peru, Indiana, on the 22nd of February, 1851, he is the fourth son of Timothy Lewis and Mary M. ( Wright ) King, his ancestors being pure English and pioneers of New England. The Wainwrights, the family of his paternal grandmother, resident at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, were loyal colonists prior to the Revolution and remained loyal to the mother country through- out the struggle. Dr. King's paternal grandfather was born in Eng- land, coming with his uncle to Massachusetts at the age of fourteen. He was married at Great Barrington to Miss Sarah Wainwright. in 1807, at which place the father of Dr. King was born on March 9, 1814.
Both of his maternal grandparents were natives of Connecticut and his mother was born in New York January 15, 1818. In 1835 his parents were married in Ohio, removing to Peru, Indiana, four years later and making that state the family home until the death of the mother in 1893, at the age of seventy-five years.
The family consisted of six sons and five daughters, of whom Oscar A. was the seventh child. Until he was fifteen years of age his life was spent upon his father's farm, at eighteen graduating from the Peru high school as valedictorian of his class. For a few years thereafter he taught and pursued collegiate studies in private. In 1873 he began the study of medicine under Professor Henry Palmer of Janesville, Wisconsin, a prominent military surgeon of the Civil war, having the rank of brevet brigadier general and afterward becoming surgeon general of Wisconsin, and continued as a pri- vate student under the noted Professor Louis A. Sayre, of New York, graduating from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1878. After being associated in practice for a short time with Dr. Palmer in Janesville, he was appointed second assistant phy- sician in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane at Madison, but early in 1880 he was granted a leave of absence and spent that and the following year attending lectures and clinics in the Uni- versity of Vienna and the hospitals of that city. He studied at the clinics of Kaposi, Braun, Fuchs and Billroth, especially devoting him- self to neurology and psychiatry under Professors Benedict, Weiss, Leydersdorf and Meynert.
Upon his return to this country Dr. King resumed his hospital
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work at the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane, having been promoted to be first assistant physician, but shortly afterward re- signed to accept the chair of mental and nervous diseases at the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago, to which he was elected in the fall of 1882. In 1890 he was elected a director of the college and also to the chair of clinical medicine; was chosen secretary of the col- lege; in 1896 assumed his new teaching title (by which he is still known) as professor of neurology, psychiatry and clinical medicine; in 1899 was chosen chairman of the committee on university rela- tions and was one of the strongest factors on the faculty which fi- nally brought about its incorporation into the University of Illinois and its general development into one of the great medical colleges of the country. This year (1908) completes Dr. King's twenty- sixth year as professor of nervous and mental diseases in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, of which, for the past eight years, he has been vice president, and for the past five, vice dean; so that, altogether, there are few who can better claim to be considered one of the founders of this institution upon its present broad basis than the subject of this review.
Dr. King was the real founder of the College of Dentistry of the University of Illinois, his fully developed plans and organization, being accepted by the president and board of trustees of the univer- sity. He is still retained both as chairman of the committee on or- ganization and of the dental committee, which bodies guide the work of the college. In 1895 the Doctor was appointed pathologist and consulting alienist to the Wisconsin State Board of Control, having charge of the state charitable and penal institutions, and later was chosen a member of the advisory medical board of Cook county in- stitutions at Dunning. He is chief of the department of neurology of the West Side Free Dispensary, and a member of the Chicago Medical Society, Wisconsin State Medical Society, Chicago Neurological So- ciety and the American Medical Association.
Dr. King's identification with the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, Illinois College of Dentistry and other important institutions, with his active and consultatory practice, make him a very busy and influential member of his profession. But his remarkable executive
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capacity and broad ability have also been evinced in the founding of one of the most complete and attractive sanitariums in the country. In 1883 he founded the Oakwood Springs Sanitarium at Lake Ge- neva, Wisconsin, for the treatment of nervous and mental diseases, which was constructed at a cost of $106,000, and in 1896 established a sanitarium for medical cases, the Lakeside Sanitarium. For years Dr. King was president and chief of the medical staff of each of these fine institutions. In 1901 the sanitariums were consolidate 1 and together became known as the Lake Geneva Sanitariums. After twenty-four years of active control, Dr. King still retains the domi- nant interest in them, and continues as the chief of staff and guiding spirit. Some seventy-three acres of beautiful woodlands around the picturesque Wisconsin lake formed the basis of the setting, which has given to this retreat a national reputation, and established him among the pioneers of the medical profession who have had the fore- sight to place nervous patients among restful and beautiful surround- ings, away from all confusion and turmoil and under the direct ob- servation and care of expert physicians and nurses.
The sanitarium is also a monument to the King family, as two of Dr. King's brothers, R. G. and Albert E. King, during the first ten years of its existence, added a small fortune to the other re- sources of Oakwood. The following paragraph also adds another reason why Dr. King's affections, as well as his pride, go forth with peculiar strength to Lake Geneva sanitariums: "On the 9th of Au- gust, 1887, Dr. King brought his bride, Miss Minerva Guernsey, of Janesville, Wisconsin, to Oakwood. Hundreds of suffering patients, hundreds of grief-stricken friends and scores of loyal nurses and servants, now and always, will carry in their hearts the dearest mem- ories and loving devotion to her who never withheld her sympathy and practical succor to anyone following a hard path through a pain- burdened world. Mrs. King planned and carried into effect the numerous indoor and outdoor entertainments given for the diversion and amusements of patients during these years. She also took gen- eral direction of the classes of patients (in modern languages, nat- ural philosophy, music, history and biography) for whom mental exercises have been employed as most important adjuncts in the treatment of mental diseases."
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Dr. Allan A. Mathews, one of the most progressive and successful physicians of Oak Park, Illinois, is a Scotchman by birth and possesses
ALLAN A.
those sturdy qualities of character and intellect which
MATHEWS. place Scots among America's most desirable and loyal citizens. As a lad he was educated in the public schools of Morrison, a town in western Illinois, afterward gaining practical training as a teacher during four years before com- pleting his general education. As a medical student he was associated with Dr. Samuel Taylor of Morrison, the leading practitioner in Whiteside county, under whose guidance the young student was well prepared for the technical and systematic course of medicine and sur- gery in Rush Medical College, from which institution he was grad- uated with the class of 1879.
For twelve years Dr. Mathews practiced in Dyersville, Iowa, during which period he gained a reputation for thorough knowledge and practical results in the application of his professional skill, hold- ing the position of surgeon for the Illinois Central Railroad and the Chicago & Great Western Railroad, and because of marked success became a consulting physician in his own and surrounding counties.
In 1891 Dr. Mathews traveled in Europe, and for six months was a close student of methods in the hospitals and clinics of London and Edinburgh. Upon his return he located at Oak Park, where during fifteen years' practice he has gained an enviable reputation as a strictly professional practitioner and a citizen of substantial worth.
The Doctor is a member of the American Medical Association, of the Chicago and Illinois State Medical societies, and is attending physician to the Oak Park Hospital. He is identified with the local lodge of Masons, and is as highly respected in social circles as he is appreciated and honored in the field of his profession.
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Banking and finance
BY L. A. GODDARD
The pioneer community of the first half of the last century sel- dom had banking facilities. In the first place there was very little cash currency in circulation, and if there was a surplus the local mer- chant usually had it and had to devise individual means to protect this money. The merchant being the "moneyed" man, in this sense, was also entrusted with the surplus cash of other citizens. He had a safe or other means for its protection, and was usually glad to ac- commodate his fellow citizens in this respect.
The first banker of Chicago was such a merchant. Gurdon S. Hubbard, who had a genius as a trader and began trafficking on the
GURDON S. HUBBARD. frontier when a boy of fourteen, first visited Chi- cago as a representative of the American Fur Com- pany in 1818, when John Kinzie and Antoine Ouil- mette were the only regular residents outside the fort. Beginning with the year 1822 he was a regular and frequent visitor at Fort Dearborn, and it is said that not a person living in the vicinity of the Chicago river was unacquainted with this brave and vigorous fur trader. In 1827 he severed his connection with the American Fur Company and while the Indians remained in their northern homes he continued as one of the principal traders with them. In 1834 he established his business headquarters permanently in Chicago and for many years, besides his prominence in the merchandising and shipping, commission, packing and forwarding trade, enjoyed almost countless honors at the hands of his fellow citizens. Before the es- tablishment of a regular bank Mr. Hubbard was often entrusted with the keeping of various sums either for deposit or for business ex- change. This special business relationship with the early citizens of Chicago has entitled Mr. Hubbard to the honor of being considered the first banker.
The establishment of a branch of the State Bank in Chicago- the first regular banking institution-in 1835-36, brought to this city.
W. H. in the person of the cashier, W. H. Brown, one of
the remarkable men whose work and influence went
BROWN. into the founding and development of Chicago's business and civic affairs. Born in Connecticut about 1795, he fol-
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lowed his father in the profession of law and was licensed to prac- tice while Illinois was a territory. He was a resident of Kaskaskia while that was the capital, became clerk of the United States court for Illinois, moved to the new state capital at Vandalia, where he was editor of the Illinois Intelligencer, the oldest paper in the state. He
OLD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
lived and acted in the period when slavery menaced Illinois, and took part in the memorable contest in the early years of the state when the free-state people successfully opposed the legalizing of slavery in Illinois.
His appointment as cashier of the branch of the State Bank brought Mr. Brown to Chicago in October, 1835. The first State Bank of Illinois, incorporated in 1819, had closed in 1831 in a hope- less condition of bankruptcy. On February 12, 1835, the legislature
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had incorporated another State Bank, which was to have not more than six branches (later limited to nine). Chicago at once moved to secure the location of one of these branches, and the official direc- tory was first announced December 5, 1835. John H. Kinzie was a strong name for the president, and other directors were G. S. Hub- bard, Peter Pruyne, E. K. Hubbard, R. J. Hamilton, Walter Kim- ball, H. B. Clarke, G. W. Dole, E. D. Taylor. About ten days later the bank opened for business. At that time a four-story brick block stood at the corner of LaSalle and South Water streets, owned by the firm of Garrett, Brown & Bro. One of the ground-floor rooms was the home of the branch bank. The State Bank issued an im- mense amount of credit currency, and its efforts were directed to- ward maintaining the circulation of a money that depended for its value to a large extent on the speculative enterprises and the state internal improvements of the time. The panic of 1837 made it im- possible for state bonds, bank notes or any kind of "scrip currency" to be maintained at a fair approximation to parity, and the State Bank was soon at the end of its usefulness. The legislature put the bank in liquidation by an act of 1843, and from that time until the passage of the general banking law in 1851 there existed no chartered bank, with full powers, in Chicago.
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