USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Vol II > Part 32
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This, however, was before the temperance reformation, and when New England rum and imported dry goods were sold over the same counter. It was during this period that he determined upon total ab- stinence for himself, and he was a warm advocate of the cause through- out his life.
At the age of twenty Dr. Hawkes began the study of medicine under Drs. Smith and Clark, at Ashfield. His instructors did not agree upon all professional points, from which the young student inferred that " the greatest number and variety of views he could get, the greater would be his resources for instruction when the time came to gather material for a practical life." He therefore went under the instruction of Dr. Wins- low, of Colerain, a popular operative surgeon. In 1823 he attended a course of lectures at the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, then in its second year. His comments upon the faculty, severe in some points, show him to have been a thorough and observant pupil. The next year he studied with Dr. Washburn, of Greenfield, who had an extensive prac- tice and was often sought in consultation. The same year he studied in Boston, whose medical school was then the best in America, and made careful observations in the Massachusetts General Hospital. He next studied under Dr. Haynes, of Rowe, a capable physician, but unversed in surgery, which Dr. Hawkes, out of his experience in Boston, took upon himself. In 1825 he took his third course of lectures at the Berkshire
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Medical College, and received his medical degree from Williams Col- lege, as the law required.
Immediately after graduation, Dr. Hawkes entered upon practice at Rowe. in association with Dr. Haynes, whose daughter he married in 1826. His wife died three years later, leaving an infant daughter, and lie was so much affected by her loss that he left Rowe and removed to North Adams, his father-in-law accompanying him. There, through the moving away of other practitioners, or their engaging in other occu- pations, he soon came in charge of almost all the medical practice of the neighborhood, which became so extensive that he took a partner in the person of Dr. Long. Dr. Hawkes had almost the entire obstetrical prac- tice, and his cases numbered from one hundred and twenty to one hun- dred and fifty in a year. While conservative, he was also progressive, and, while he welcomed and adopted well established discoveries in med- ical science, he profoundly detested new schools of medicine, and held tenaciously to allopathic principles.
While busily engaged with his professional duties, he was also active in other fields. He dealt largely in real estate, and, while some of his operations were disastrous, in a majority of instances he was success- ful. While he gained by the purchase and sale of land, and from his practice, he always kept in view the present and future welfare of the town, and gave liberally to public improvements and private charities. Foremost in every movement that would redound to the credit and bene- fit of the town, he established its first newspaper, providing the press and types out of his personal funds. He was a Puritan of the Puritans, and identified himself with the Congregationalists. Through his con- tributions and effort their first church (a very creditable structure for its day) was built upon land given by him, and for a score of years he paid one-half of the pastor's salary. It was mainly through his influence
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that Mr. Drury, of Florida, made the bequest which gave to the town Drury Academy, an institution which has long had an incalculably bene- ficial influence. Dr. Hawkes was among the earliest and most zealous friends of the Hoosac Tunnel, and removed the first shovelful of earth which marked the beginning of that stupenduous undertaking.
In 1863 Dr. Hawkes removed to Troy and engaged in a commercial undertaking which proved so disastrous that it would have crushed one of less vigor and determination, but he returned to North Adams and so far recouped his fortunes as to leave to his heirs a handsome competency. During the Civil war, when occurred the great battles in the Wilderness. he eagerly responded to the call for volunteer surgeons, giving his services gratuitously, and defraying his own expenses.
Dr. Hawkes married. November 4, 1830, Sophia E. Abbey, born in Natchez, Mississippi. August 21. 1812. She died March 4, 1876. Dr. Hawkes held her in the most tender and touching devotion, delighting in honoring her memory, dwelling with pathetic tenderness upon her Chris- tian graces and the great loss he had sustained in her death, and often repeating the exquisite lines in Dr. King's elegy to his wife :
"Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed Never to be disquicted ! My last good night! Thou wilt not wake Till I thy fate shall overtake : Till age, or grief, or sickness must Marry my body to the dust It so much loves. and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy tomb."
Dr. Hawkes died May 17. 1879, in his seventy-eighth year. His character was thus epitomized by an appreciative friend: "He was a man of culture, close observer of nature, and a philosopher of that school whose teachings are founded upon the Christian religion. Frequently
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called to mourn the loss of near relatives, he exhibited that patient sub- mission to the will of God which is the most striking characteristic of the true Christian."
CLARKSON T. COLLINS, M.D.
Dr. Clarkson T. Collins, of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was born in Smyrna, Chenango county, New York, January 8, 1821, and died at the Grand Central Hotel in New York city, April 10, 1881. His parents, Job S. and Ruth Collins, were well known and esteemed mem- bers of the Society of Friends. They removed to Utica, New York, in 1835, and resided there until the father's death in 1870. His mother died at the home of her daughter in 1875, aged seventy-nine years.
Job S. Collins was descended from Henry Collins, who came from England in 1635 and settled in Lynn, Massachusetts. Some members of the family went to Virginia, but the branch from which Clarkson T. Collins is descended joined the Society of Friends and settled in Rhode Island about 1666. Mr. Collins' grandfather emigrated to central New York about 1800, and there purchased a large tract of land. Mrs. Job S. Collins was a great-granddaughter of Colonel William Hall, who left the British army, came to America, and settled near Newport, Rhode Island, several years before the war of the revolution. His son removed to central New York about the year 18co, having purchased a tract of land in that section.
Dr. Collins began his medical studies at the age of eighteen with Professor Charles B. Coventry, of Utica, New York. He soon went to New York city, where he studied under Drs. Valentine Mott and David L. Rogers. He attended the city hospital for three years, as well as the lectures, and was graduated from the medical department of the Uni- versity of New York in 1843 and settled in that city. Dr. Rogers re-
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tired from the profession about this time, and enabled Dr. Collins to re- tain a portion of his practice. Shortly after his graduation he was ap- pointed one of the physicians to the Eastern Dispensary, and district physician to the New York Lying-in Asylum. In 1845 he established the " New York Medical and Surgical Reporter " (afterward discon- tinued), when medical papers and magazines were not so common as at the present day.
Having made a special study of gynecology, he established in 1848 an infirmary for the treatment of female diseases, but was compelled the following year, by repeated hemorrhages of the lungs, to relinquish for a time his arduous professional duties. Accompanied by his wife he spent four months on the island of Madeira, and then made a tour through Spain, France and England, returning to New York with the intention of resuming his medical practice. His lung trouble continuing, he de- termined to try the effect of a clear, cold, mountain atmosphere. He spent the winter of 1850-51 among the Berkshire Hills. This climate agreed with him so well that he determined to remove from New York and settle in Great Barrington, where he continued to reside in his villa, known as " Indiola Place," until the time of his death.
Dr. Collins was an early advocate for the establishment of the American Medical Association, and was sent as a delegate from New York to the meeting in Boston in 1849. He also advocated the forma- tion of the New York Academy of Medicine, and was among its earliest members in 1847. He was made chairman of the committee on ether by the Academy, when the profession was divided in sentiment as to its use. That committee consisted of thirteen members, among whom were Drs. Valentine Mott, Parker, Post, and other eminent mncn.
Dr. Collins was a member of the American Medical Association, the New York State Medical Society, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and
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the Berkshire District Medical Society. Of the last named society he was twice president. He was also one of the censors and state council- lors, and corresponding member of the Massachusetts Board of Health, and of the Boston Gynecological Society. He devoted much time to the study of his profession, and contributed largely to its literature. Among his contributions are the following: "Use of Electricity in Amenor- rhoea." London Lancet, 1844; "Opening Abscess in Lungs," New York Journal of Medicine. 1844: and address before the Manhattan Medical Association, as its president, New York Annalist. 1847, and Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1847; an address before the Berkshire District Medical Society on " Chronic Diseases of Women," Boston Medical Journal. 1853: an address before the same society as its president, in 1861, Berkshire Medical Journal (now discontinued). He also prepared in 1849 a brief biographical sketch of his brother, Chalkley Collins, M.D., and in 1850 a "History of the Island of Madeira," both of which were published in the Friends' Review of Philadelphia. He wrote an article, which was widely circulated in 1863, claiming exemption from military duty for members of the Society of Friends. This article was first published in the New York Times in 1863, and was then republished in pamphlet form by the Society of Friends and three hundred thousand copies were circulated, and was of great influence. In 1861 he delivered an address about Cuba, having spent the previous winter on that island.
In 1853, at Great Barrington, he founded an institution still known as the "Collins House," for the treatment of the chronic diseases of women, and received many patients from all parts of the country. He continued this institution for sixteen years. During his residence in Berkshire county, he established a large practice and won a wide repu- tation for medical and surgical skill. He was liberal and public spirited, and made many improvements in the town in which he resided.
Francis G. Robinson
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Dr. Collins had one sister. Electa Jane, who married Abel F. Col- lins, of North Stonington, Connecticut, and who now resides in Great Barrington at " Indiola Place." He had one brother. Chalkley, who was born January 10. 1826, and graduated in medicine from the University of New York in 1849, and began practice in that city. He was a man of ability and gave promise of success in his profession. When the city was visited by the cholera a few months later, he devoted himself to the care of the many stricken by that disease, and was very successful in his method of treatment. He was attacked by the same disease, and stic- cumbed to it very suddenly. August 18, 1849.
Dr. Clarkson T. Collins was married. in 1844, to Lydia C., daughter of Charles G. Coffin, of Nantucket. In 1864 his two children, Glenville, aged sixteen, and Annie, aged six, died quite suddenly. This sad blow was followed in a few months by the death of his wife, who was born in 1824, married in 1844, and died in 1864.
Dr. Collins was a man of commanding presence and vigorous per- sonality, which never failed to impress those with whom he was brought in contact, while his kind heart and genial disposition greatly endeared him to those who knew him best. He combined with a practical judg- ment and broad and progressive ideas an indomitable energy and untir- ing perseverance that won for him an enviable place in the ranks of his profession, and enabled him to exert an influence that will long be felt in the community in which he lived.
FRANCIS ARNOLD ROBINSON.
Among the younger physicians of Pittsfield, whose natural and acquired professional endowments give promise of a successful profes- sional career, the gentleman whose name forms the caption for this article may be appropriately numbered.
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He was born March 29, 1869, in Lee Centre, New York, son of the late Dr. Reuben H. and Lucy Elizabeth (Enearl) Robinson, the for- mer a native of Perryville, the latter of Lee Centre, New York, and respectively of Scotch and Dutch descent. The late Dr. Reuben H. Robinson completed his general education at Cazenovia Seminary (New York). In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company G, Second New York Volunteer Cavalry, and served throughout the war, receiv- ing his discharge in July, 1865. After being mustered out of the sery- ice he attended the medical department of Michigan University, Ann Arbor, and subsequently was graduated also from the medical depart- ment of the University of New York. His very successful practice in Lee Centre covered a quarter of a century. He served as health of- ficer and town physician and was a valued and valuable citizen. He died in 1894; his widow resides in Rome, New York.
Their son, Francis Arnold Robinson, was graduated from Syracuse University in 1890, and the following year attended the medical depart- ment of that institution, having begun the study of medicine under his father's preceptorship several years previously. He entered Baltimore Medical College in 1892 and was graduated therefrom in 1894. Im- mediately thereafter he established himself for the practice of his pro- fession in Becket, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, where he remained for three years, removing thence to Hinsdale, where he pursued the practice for six years. In 1902 he came to Pittsfield, where he was engaged in general practice with offices in the Wollison block. In Janu- ary, 1906, Dr. Robinson removed to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he has offices at 125 N. Main street. He is a member of the Massa- chusetts Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is a member of Globe Lodge, F. & A. M., Hinsdale, having served in all of the chairs of his lodge.
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He married in September, 1892. Emma Elizabeth, daughter of Milton and Martha (Griffith) Flint, of Ava, New York. Dr. and Mrs. Robinson are members of St. Stephen's P. E. church, Pittsfield.
JONATHAN E. FIELD.
Jonathan E. Field, fourth son of Rev. David Dudley Field, D.D., was baptized with the name of the great New England divine, Jonathan Edwards. Born at Haddam. Connecticut, July 11, 1813, he was six years old when the family removed to Stockbridge, where he was fitted for college. He entered Williams College in 1828, and graduated in 1832 with the second honor of his class.
He studied law in the office of his brother, David Dudley Field, in New York, and afterward, seized with the ambition of young men of those days to strike out into new paths and make a career in some new part of the country, lie removed at the age of twenty to Michigan, which was then very far west, and the next year ( 1834) was admitted to the bar at Monroe, and commenced practice at Ann Arbor, then quite a new set- tlement, but is now one of the most beautiful towns in the west, the seat of the University of Michigan. In 1836 he was elected clerk of courts. He was one of the secretaries of the convention which framed the con- stitution of the state preparatory to its admission into the Union. But his ambitious career was checked by that which was the scourge of all the new settlements, chills and fever, from which he suffered so much that after five years he was obliged to abandon his western home. He re- turned to New England and settled in Stockbridge, where for nearly thirty years he continued the practice of his profession, holding a very honorable place at the Berkshire bar. In the town he was invaluable as a citizen for his enterprise in projecting improvements for the gen-
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eral good. It was to his public spirit and energy that the village is in- debted for the introduction of a plentiful supply of pure water from the springs on the side of one of the neighboring hills, which conduced not only to the comfort but to the health of the town. Until then the people had been dependent upon wells, and there had been almost every year a number of cases of a fever, which was sometimes called in the neighbor- ing towns the Stockbridge fever, but scarcely had this abundant supply of pure water been introduced when it entirely disappeared.
In 1854 he was elected a member of the state senate for Berkshire county. The same year he was appointed by Governor Washburn one of a commission to prepare and report a plan for the revision and con- solidation of the statutes of Massachusetts, his associates in that com- mission being Chief Justice Williams and Judge Aiken. Originally a Democrat in politics, when the war broke out he forgot everything in his devotion to the Union; and in 1863 he was elected by the Republicans to the state senate, and was chosen its president-a position in which by his dignity, his impartiality and his courteous manners, he rendered himself so popular with the men of all parties that he was three times elected to . that office-or as long as he continued in the senate-an honor never be- fore conferred on a member of that body. Such was the personal regard for him that, on one occasion in the beautiful summer time, the members of the senate came to Stockbridge to pay him a visit, and were received with true New England hospitality. Nor did this continuance of honors excite surprise, for never had the senate, or indeed any public body, a more admirable presiding officer or one who commanded a more thor- ough and universal respect ; so that, when he died, April 23, 1868, there was an universal feeling of regret among those with whom he had been associated. The "Springfield Republican," in announcing his death, gave a brief sketch of his public career and, alluding to the singular dis-
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tinction which had been conferred upon him, of being three times elected president of the senate, added: "The same general esteem he enjoyed among the brethren of his profession, and in the community. Active and public spirited as a citizen, he will be greatly missed in the affairs of the town and county, as well as of the state, while, as a kind friend and courteous gentleman, he will be truly mourned by all who knew him."
Mr. Field was married to Mary Ann Stuart of Stockbridge, May 18, 1835. They had five children: Emilia Brewer, born June 19. 1836; Jonathan Edwards, junior, born September 15, 1838; Mary Stuart, born July 14, 1841; Stephen Dudley, born January 31, 1846; Sara Adele. born October 8, 18449, died .August 6, 1850. Mrs. Field died October 14, 1849, aged thirty-four; and Mr. Field was married to Mrs. Huldah Fellowes Pomeroy, widow of Theodore S. Pomeroy, October 17, 1850. The eldest daughter, Emilia, was married October 4. 1856, to William Ashburner, of Stockbridge. a chemist and engineer who was educated at tlie Ecole des Mines in Paris, and has been for the last twenty years in California, where he has a high reputation as a mining engineer and holds the position of professor of mines in the State University. They had one son, Burnet Ashburner, who was born at Stockbridge, March 22, 1858, and died March 24, 1862. The eldest son, Jonathan, was mar- ried to Henrietta Goodrich, of Stockbridge, October 31. 1859, and has two children: Sara Adele, born February 23, 1862, and Mary Stuart, born May 2, 1873. Sara Adele was married in the spring of 1881 to Samuel Benedict Christy, assistant professor in the University of Cali- fornia. Mary Stuart Field was married October 3, 1872, to Chester Averill, of Stockbridge. They have three children: Chester, born August 11, 1873; Julia Pomeroy, born July 2, 1875; Alice Byington, born February 21, 1878. Stephen D. Field, an electrical engineer, at the age of sixteen went to California, and there remained seventeen years.
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Having always a fondness for whatever had to do with electricity, he became connected with an electrical construction company and invented a new system of district telegraphs which was introduced with great suc- cess in the city of San Francisco. He was the first to apply dynamo- electric machines to the generation of electricity for the working of tele- graph lines. Removing to the east in 1879, he introduced the same into the building of the Western Union, the largest telegraphic company in the world, thereby displacing sixty tons of batteries. He is the inventor of numerous devices for the application of electricity, the most important of which are two: I. A quadruplex, which differs entirely from that formerly in use, both in principle and construction, and which possesses superior advantages as being more simple, and therefore less likely to get out of order and more easy to operate. Further, the instrument is elas- tic, and can be extended so that the quadruplex can be made into a sextu- plex, and even, with an enlarged conducting medium, into an octoplex, were such a multiplex of any practical utility. 2. An electric motor which antedates that of Edison in America and of Siemens in Germany. The patent office at Washington, after careful investigation of all conflicting claims, awarded him the patent, as having been the first to apply dynamo- electric mechanism to the propulsion of cars. His place of business is in New York city, while his family resides in Yonkers-on-the-Hudson. He was married in San Francisco, September 30, 1871, to Celestine But- ters. They have had three children : Burnet Ashburner, born July 6, 1873, died May 27, 1880: David Dudley, born April 12, 1875 ; and Sarah Virginia, born February 3. 1879.
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SANFORD BLACKINTON.
Sanford Blackinton, of North Adams, lived a life remarkable in many respects. His career covered three-quarters of a century of busi- ness life. The cotemporary of Lemuel Pomeroy and Daniel Stearns, of Pittsfield, and Russell Brown, of Adams, he was the last representative of the earliest generation of men who made Berkshire a great manufac- turing county.
In the absence of precise information as to the coming of his family to America, or of its origin, it has been presumed by investigators to have been of the Blackistons, a family of note among the gentry of the county of Durham, England. Sanford Blackinton's great-grandfather and grandfather were both born and died in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and were farmers by occupation. His father, Otis Blackinton, removed in 1801 from Attleboro to a farm of one hundred acres near the site of the present village of Blackinton, in North Adams. He was a teacher as well as farmer. He married Ruth Richardson, and they became the parents of nine children.
Sanford Blackinton, second of the ten children of Otis and Ruth Blackinton, was born at Attleboro, December 10, 1797. He began his education under the instruction of his father, whom he accompanied to a school taught by him, two miles from the farm, and to which they journeyed on horseback. Later, young Blackinton attended a school in North Adams. When about sixteen years old he was apprenticed to Artemas. Crittenden, in a woolen mill on the site of the more recent Blackinton mills. After four years thus employed he entered the em- ploy of Hedrick Willey, in Williamstown, his engagement being ended by reason of Willey's failure, and on which account the young workman also lost his wages, amounting to seventy-five dollars. For two years
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following he worked in the same establishment, which several times changed hands, and subsequently worked in various places for short periods until 1821, when, at the age of twenty-four years, he formed a partnership with Rufus Wells and Joseph L. White, and built a mill near the old Willey mill, near what is now the village of Blackinton. Each partner contributed one hundred dollars as his share of the capital, and the firm of Wells, Blackinton & White operated their little mill with its one set of machinery, the establishment being popularly known as " The Boys' Factory," on account of the youth of the builders and own- ers. It proved, however, to be a stepping-stone to fortune for Mr. Blackinton. The firm remained unchanged until 1838 and built up a prosperous business. Meantime it bought the old mill near by, which was also styled " The Boys' Factory," although the partners were now well advanced in manhood. During this period the building enlarge- ments and machinery improvements were considered remarkable, but were recognized as displaying what could be accomplished by the vigor of youth and sound business ability. In 1838 Mr. White retired, the remaining partners paying him for his interest on the basis of $30,000 as the value of the entire property. For several years the business was conducted by Wells & Blackinton, and after the death of Mr. Wells, Mr. Blackinton became by purchase the sole owner.
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