USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Shelburne > History and tradition of Shelburne, Massachusetts > Part 39
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Dr. Constant Field was a native of Charlemont and the son of Rev. Joseph Field. He was graduated from Williams College in 1825 and started his medi- cal studies in Washington, D. C., while teaching in a ladies' school. He was graduated from the Berk- shire Medical College in 1829. He practiced briefly in Adams, then in Rowe, and in Shelburne for a few months. He returned to his father's house, where he soon died on September 30, 1833.
Dr. Charles MI. Duncan was a practitioner at the Center for a full half century. He was the son of a physician, Dr. Abel Duncan, who died during a spotted-fever epidemic in Dummerston, Vermont, and the grandfather of Dr. Charles L. Upton, who prac- ticed for thirty years at the Falls. After being grad- uated from the Brattleboro, Vermont, High School he taught school and then was graduated from Bow- doin Medical School in 1833. He settled in Shel- burne in 1834 and was greatly admired by his neigh- bors. He not only served on the school committee, but was town clerk from 1841 to 1863 and from 1864 to 1866; he was also town treasurer for the same period.
The golden wedding of Dr. and Mrs. Duncan - the former Miss Lucinda Esterbrook of Brattleboro - was a real occasion at the Center. The neighbors turned out in numbers on the occasion of the death of the doctor in 1884, and of his wife in 1894. The death of the doctor's horse at the age of thirty-one in 1896 was a sorrowful reminder.
Dr. William H. Cleveland resided for a time on the east side of Main Street with no house between his and the Academy. Dr. and Mrs. Cleveland had the misfortune to lose a son here in 1835. They had more ties formed with Shelburne in 1851, when they presented the Congregational Church with an elegant gallery clock.
Dr. Lawson Long was a native of Shelburne, being the eleventh child of Stephen and Nancy Long; the ninth child had also been named Lawson, but he died at the age of seven weeks. Dr. Lawson Long was one of the first to be graduated from Dartmouth Med- ical School, in 1823, to settle in this town. He was here from 1836 to 1845.
Dr. Long was unfortunate enough to become in- volved in the religious debate which occurred in the Baptist Church following the lectures given by a former Baptist minister who was now convinced that the sins of the world were going to be brought to a violent fiery end on April 23, 1843, according to the tenets of "Millerism." Dr. Long had always been an ardent and really stern Baptist, and he accepted an invitation to lead this new and sizable group in Shel- burne Falls. Whether he really was convinced of the value of these new ideas, and whether he actually did make all of his house calls dressed in his white robe on that appointed day of doom, we cannot tell
for sure now. The Academy teachers who were in- volved left town shortly thereafter, but Dr. Long remained for two more years. He practiced in Hol- yoke for an additional twenty years, and enjoyed fourteen more years of retirement, being buried in 1882.
We now are nearing the decades when practically all of the established practices of the United States, and more particularly of New England, were being challenged, and the ferments and emotions spread over the entire country. This area naturally was involved in all of this turmoil, but Shelburne Falls - and indeed the Connecticut Valley residents in Massachu- setts - had the unique experience of watching the development of the political capabilities of that rara avis, a physician who became a powerful politician at the national level.
These United States, by virtue of their military decisions gained by the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, felt that they were permanently secure from overseas attack. The military energies were being directed to the securing of the borders with Mexico in the Southwest and with the English in the Oregon Territory area, while driving the Indians in the West into safety. The New England residents were concentrating on improving their living stand- ards in a pretty but climatically difficult area which had no mineral or coal underground resources, small farms with poor soil on hilly terrain, a progressively inadequate water supply for larger mills, and with no more good land grants available. A succession of weather catastrophies followed by hunger, of waves of epidemics, money shortages in spite of long hours of labor ending in the crash of 1837, all led to intensive searches for new methods, some of which were extreme.
Organized religion was also being attacked by those who claimed that these catastrophies were being placed on the areas in payment for the sins which the exist- ing religions were inadequately combatting. So even while Rev. Moses Miller of Heath was establishing his remarkable record of sending out missionaries and physicians for the relief of distant peoples, and over one hundred missionaries were sent from this country to Hawaii, right in this area modified religion ( and even anti-religion) was developing. The Dorrellites of Leyden, the Millerites, the Free Love Perfection- ists of Putney, the Christians, and other movements, kept religious debates going.
The attacks on disease were increased in the area not only by the co-operation of forty-four physicians of Franklin County in the formation of the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, and with the coming formation of the American Medical Association to push adequate medical education on the national level, accompanied by the development of ether and chloro- form to alleviate suffering during operations, but also by numerous unique "medical" movements such as the vegetarians, Grahamites, Thomsonians, homeo-
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paths, manipulationists, hydrotherapists with magic spring waters, etc.
To all this turmoil are to be added the political discussions about slavery, the emotional abandonment of home towns, the intensive search for quick riches in the gold, silver, and other mineral fields, and the keen disappointments which so often followed.
Into this county at this time came Stephen J. W. Tabor with his talents in so many fields and his driving energies. He was born in Corinth, Vermont, into the Tabor clan, which proved to be divided into either the very capable or the very adventurous, but he seems to have been endowed with ample supplies of both. His parents were dead by the time he was eight years of age, so that self-reliance was early added to his natural abilities. After his academic term at Bradford Academy, he supplemented his living as a teacher by contributions to the press and by trans- lations from the French for a Boston publisher. He was so successful in these new activities that he joined the editorial staff of the New York Beacon, and later the New York Sun when it was established.
His health became poor; so in 1837 he moved to Ashfield to recover. There he met the very contro- versial but energetic Dr. Knowlton, with whom he commenced the study of medicine. He also took a year of instruction at the Berkshire Medical College in 1838. He was an inbred Jeffersonian Democrat, and took an active part in the Van Buren campaign as chief editor of the Hampshire Republican (then a Democratic paper), and became a political speaker throughout Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin coun- ties. He then returned to New York City and received his medical diploma from the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He immediately started in the practice of medicine in Shelburne Falls in the spring of 1843.
Three weeks later, on May 2, he was married to Dr. Knowlton's daughter, Melvina. His family life could not have been more discouraging. Their first- born son died almost immediately on New Year's Day, 1844; his wife died at the age of nineteen years in 1845. In spite of a public meeting which was held in Shelburne Falls and a unanimous set of sympa- thetic resolutions, Dr. Tabor had no heart for medi- cal practice for awhile. He became editor and pub- lisher of the Northampton Democrat on January 1, 1846, which brought from the Greenfield Gazette & Courier the remark that, "The Northampton Demo- crat has starved out every man that has published it." His two-year-old daughter died in 1847. In 1847 he was the Democratic candidate for Congress, and although he proved to be a strong candidate, his party was not strong enough to carry the election. He returned to Shelburne and the practice of medicine, which he followed without any remarkable incident except for his strong opinions about the interesting death of Senator Griswold in Buckland. He was never publicly involved in the religious troubles of
Dr. Lawson Long or of his father-in-law, Dr. Knowl- ton, although he disagreed strongly with both of them.
On January 1, 1849, he became a justice of the peace and entered into these civil activities. He became a member of the board of Franklin Academy. He married Miss Mary Ann Sherman of Conway in the Baptist Church in 1849, the officiating pastor being Rev. E. H. Gray (who was later to be chaplain to the United States Senate). Later in 1849 he be- came very active in the principles of "Free Democracy" of the Free Soil Party, and on October 10, 1849, he was unanimously nominated as their candidate for the U. S. Senate, but lost again, without loss of his enthusiasm for this party.
He entered into many community activities: chair- man of the Committee on Domestic Manufactures; one of seven members of Circulating Library and one of the first Trustees of Arms Library; public speaker at many meetings; a helper in starting the Shelburne Falls Banner in 1852; a member of the committee to open the Shelburne Falls House; and a very active member of the Odd Fellows.
In 1853 he paid for his Free Soil convictions by receiving only two votes for U. S. Senator at the Democratic County convention, in spite of having been a bulwark of the county Democratic Party since 1844. He wrote extensively on tobacco and temperance in various journals after the death of his next child. In April of 1854 he accepted a place on the committee of five to straighten out the Shelburne Falls postmaster difficulty. In the winter he decided to leave and sold his house in March 1855 to Dr. Chenery Puffer of Colrain.
And so ended both his training period in politics and his medical career. Never again would he prac- tice medicine. His period of political power and influence was about to begin, and his knowledge of the miseries and needs of people had increased from his medical contacts with them while his power of expression in both the spoken and written word had reached its peak.
Stopping briefly with relatives in Albany, New York, he moved to Independence, Iowa, where he became editor, and part-proprietor of The Civilian, and part-proprietor of a land-sales organization. The same year he was elected county judge and served several terms. His Free Soil convictions made him a strong Republican and he was a kindly and sympa- thetic judge. This position he finally declined, and became county treasurer and later the recorder. In 1863 The Guardian introduced him as a candidate for Governor of Iowa against his wishes, as he pre- ferred to be associated with President Lincoln as the Fourth Auditor of the U. S. Treasury. He held this latter position for fifteen years, finally resigning in 1878 because of ill-health. His letter of resignation, in his own handwriting, is in the Archives Building in Washington, as are many letters of commendation about his government activities from Senators, Gover- nors, and the Secretary of the Treasury.
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The interesting things about Dr. Tabor's life do not cease with his death. In the Library of Congress there is not one single copy of any of his writings, although they exist elsewhere. However, there is a catalog of his personal library at the time of the auction which requires one hundred sixty-six solid pages merely to list, with a valuation of over $10,000 for the 6,000 volumes. It took five whole days to sell them at the famous auction rooms in New York City, and the names of all purchasers and the indi- vidual sales returns are listed. No department of liter- ature was neglected. There were rows of lexicons in Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch; a bulky Japanese dictionary printed in Yeddo on rice paper, presented to the Judge by a Japanese nobleman ; a Bible printed in 1611, and one in 1634, and one in 1690; "nowheres such an information on tea, coffee and tobacco"; a book on traveling in the Arctic in 1609; and drama from all authors.
An attempt had been made to secure to the State of Iowa his private library intact, which failed be- cause of legal restrictions, but the summary presented is revealing - "The Tabor library is not rich in fine bindings. Its collector sought the contents, not the covers; the kernels, not the shells; and he has left a noble assemblage of wisdom, wit, and entertainment."
Dr. Horace Smith, a native of Heath, was gradu- ated from the Castleton, Vermont, Medical School at the age of twenty in 1828. He practiced in several places and settled in Shelburne Falls for a short while in 1845. He returned to this area in 1859, when he settled in Colrain. He died in Goshen, Indiana, in 1877.
Dr. Milo Wilson was a native of Shelburne. After his education at the Academy he was an itinerant merchant through the South for three years. On being graduated from the Berkshire Medical College in 1838 he immediately settled in Ashfield. He moved to Shelburne in 1845 and practiced here until his death in 1875. He took a deep interest in town affairs and formed strong opinions. He served his town well on the school committee, as representative to the Constitutional Convention in 1854, and in the Legislature.
His son, Charles Milo Wilson, started studying medicine with his father and then was graduated from Bellevue Medical College in New York in 1875. He returned to Shelburne Falls, taking over his father's practice upon the latter's death in September. In 1877 he went to Belding, Michigan, then to Kan- sas, and returned here again in August 1891, living in the Dr. Severance house next south of the Baptist Church. He died in 1931.
Dr. Chenery Puffer moved to Shelburne Falls in 1855, taking over the home and practice of Dr. Tabor.
His kindly bearing and his fine intellectual abilities were greatly appreciated until his death in 1877. He was the installing officer at the formation of Alethian Lodge, and in 1862 he was elected to the Legislature in Boston. His wife was the former Lucy T. Alden, a daughter of the Rev. John Alden of Ashfield and a direct descendant of the John Alden of Mayflower fame. At the time of Lucy's death in 1892 she was the next to the last survivor of fourteen children. Three of their children - Henry, Samuel, and Charles - set outstanding records at the Academy and became noted citizens.
The two Drs. Severance, who were brothers born in Leyden, were an important part of Shelburne's life and progress. Dr. William S. Severance was educated at the Goodell Academy in Bernardston and at Wilbraham Academy. Following several years of teaching he was graduated from the Cincinnati Medi- cal School in 1853. He practiced briefly in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and then came to town, staying until 1864, when he went to Greenfield, where he practiced until his death in 1918. He was a member of all of the Masonic orders and had been an officer in many; with his brother, also an ardent Masonic officer, he went on a memorable fraternal trip to the West Coast.
At the age of twenty-one Dr. Charles E. Severance interrupted his studies at Yale because of eye troubles and became a traveler in the West and South; from the latter area he made a rapid escape when some two hundred people wished to teach him political values with the aid of tar and feathers. He was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1858 and spent the next year in London and Paris. After three years of practice in New York City, interrupted by three months as a surgeon for the 73rd New York Volunteers during the Civil War, he came to Shelburne.
That same year he was married to Miss Mary E. Wilson, daughter of Dr. Milo Wilson. She died suddenly ten years later, leaving him a son and a daughter. In 1875 he was married to Miss Evelyn Sawyer of Brattleboro.
In 1879 Dr. Severance bought a spring of water and developed it until the reservoir held 7,000 gal- lons for the convenience of his neighbors, and in 1882 he was very active in developing a new telegraph sys- tem. An attack of diphtheria forced him into nearly a full year of inactivity, and he returned to New York City to practice, moving again to Newark. In 1888 he moved to Brattleboro, his wife's former home, and lived there until his death in June 1907.
Dr. John W. Bement was a medical student in Buckland in 1836, and then was a student at the Berkshire Medical College. He seems to have prac- ticed in Shelburne Falls from at least 1860 to 1866.
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In 1860 he was one of two vice-presidents of the Democrats' Douglas Club. He died in 1874.
Dr. Ashmun H. Taylor was born in Charlemont in 1815 and received his medical degree in 1842. In 1850 he was practicing in Heath, where he was also the town treasurer, and in 1852 he served as Repre- sentative in the General Court. In 1858 they were living in East Charlemont, where their only child died, and soon after his wife also died there in late 1864, he moved to Shelburne Falls. His home and his drugstore were on the site of Baker's Pharmacy. Mr. Edwin Baker purchased the drugs and stock in May 1867.
On October 15, 1866, Dr. Taylor was married to Miss Mary E. Nash. In 1874 Dr. Taylor was seriously ill with typhoid fever and he did not really return to full practice. In 1879 Mrs. Taylor started teaching in the grammar school on the Buckland side. The school closed in respect when Doctor Taylor died on April 13, 1880. Mrs. Taylor is well remem- bered by many as a resident here at the time of her death on December 3, 1932.
Dr. Francis J. Canedy lived in Shelburne Falls for fifty-four years and many of his former patients remember him well. He was a native of Heath, studied in Greenfield with Dr. William S. Severance, and was graduated from the medical school at the University of Michigan in 1870. He practiced in Jacksonville, Vermont, for two years and then re- placed Dr. Severance in Greenfield. When the latter returned, Dr. Canedy came to town as partner to Dr. Puffer, in 1872. In 1873 he became noted as the first professional person to appear in a buggy - and also because he was very sick with the measles during the epidemic.
He early became known for his devotion to his medical practice and for his custom of obtaining additional training; it was in preparation for a two- months' absence for this purpose that he secured Dr. Drew in 1884. He developed such a reputation for professional skill, personal integrity, and blunt honesty that he commanded the respect of all. He was for decades the medical examiner, president of the county medical society from 1879 to 1881, vice-president of the Massachusetts Medical Society 1907-1908, and president of the Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society.
He had a persistent interest in the development of the town, and many of the buildings on Bridge Street are due to his planning. At the time of his death in 1926 he had served as president of the Massaemet Yarn Mills in Colrain and the Shelburne Falls Savings Bank, and as vice-president of the Shel- burne Falls & Colrain Street Railway Company.
His son, Dr. Charles F. Canedy, is remembered as an outstanding surgeon who died in Greenfield the year before his father; his daughter, Mrs. Ruth Had- ley, is well known to the townspeople.
Dr. Elihu R. Morgan settled in Shelburne Falls during the first week of May 1871. He was a native of Northfield and was one of eighteen children grow- ing up on a farm which was just being developed. He practiced in California for awhile, and returned to this county in 1869. He was well liked as a physi- cian, but the last few years of his life found him increasingly disabled by what was probably a brain tumor. In March 1877, he became associated as a partner with Dr. Theodore Foote, who had come to town in October 1876, but this partnership was dis- solved in 1878. Dr. Morgan moved to a farm in Northfield where he died in 1880.
Dr. Andrew E. Willis was born in Plymouth, Vermont, educated in Woodstock, Vermont, and grad- uated from the Scudder Medical School of Chicago, Illinois, in 1856. He practiced medicine and dentistry for a year in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then spent three years with a United States surveying party in the West. He returned to Vermont, and then prac- ticed in Hinsdale, New Hampshire; Hartford, Ver- mont; Sunderland, Massachusetts; and came to town in 1878. He was a very active practitioner until he suffered a serious illness in 1889, and gave up his medical career.
In this area Dr. Willis is probably better remem- bered for his avocations. He was an active member of Alethian Lodge of Odd Fellows and of the En- campment, of which he was the District Deputy. He took up modeling of wood, plaster, and bronze and made many excellent violins and busts which were placed on exhibition. The bronze bust of the cente- narian Jarvis B. Bardwell, former president, is still in the foyer of the Shelburne Falls National Bank.
Dr. Willis died in 1913 and is buried in the ceme- tery in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, beside his daugh- ter Maud, who died in 1871 at the age of six years.
Dr. Herbert H. Flagg was one of the three physi- cian sons of Rev. Horatio Flagg of Colrain. Imme- diately after graduation from Jefferson Medical Col- lege he filled in for Dr. Cyrus Temple of Charle- mont, but when Dr. Bowen moved in there Dr. Flagg became the seventh resident physician then in Shel- burne Falls in 1882. In 1885 he started doing eye, ear, nose and throat surgery and by 1890 he had a very large practice in this field coming to his office in his home at the corner of Grove and Main Streets. In that year he was ill with pneumonia and was forced to convalesce for a year, developing a large sheep farm in Ashfield during that period. He then moved to Northampton where he died in 1901 of the same ailment which carried off his physician brothers. It is an unusual thing for three physicians from the same family to die of the same disease, and it would seem to be of sufficient uniqueness to warrant a passing reference, even though his brothers never practiced in Shelburne.
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Dr. Walter A. Smith, whom many doubtless re- member, actually had only a short period of practice in this town. Before and after his graduation from the School of Medicine of Vermont University in 1882 he practiced from Church Street. He then went to Cummington for six years, and after special surgi- cal training in London, England, he settled in Spring- field, Massachusetts, where he was an extremely cap- able surgeon. He returned to Shelburne Falls upon his retirement and died here March 29, 1929.
Dr. Francis H. Drew was graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1882, practiced briefly in Greenfield and in Conway, and was brought to this town by Dr. F. J. Canedy in 1884. He practiced here until 1886, with brief absences. Dr. Drew was a surprising person in many ways, but is remembered for his great interest in music. Soon after his arrival here he had musicales in his rooms, he being very expert on the piano. He was prone to purchase a new piano of each new model. He was in great de- mand for public recitals, developed and accompanied an excellent quartet, and was an organist of great ability.
His removal to Wakefield was only the first of many moves. He retired to Berlin, Germany, in 1912 and lived there during the entire period of the war.
Dr. Martha A. Anderson seems to be our only native daughter who both lived and practiced in town. She was born in Shelburne on June 7, 1843, to Joseph and Thankful Anderson. Her father had been forced by ill-health to retire from the lifework of a Uni- tarian clergyman to that of a farmer. After being prepared for college at Powers Institute in Bernards- ton, she attended Mount Holyoke Seminary, in the class of 1867, but was graduated in 1868 after a year's absence because of ill-health.
She then taught school for five years in Kalamazoo, Michigan, leaving there because of her determination to do missionary work. She sailed on September 19. 1874, under the auspices of the American Board of Foreign Missions, to teach at Ahmednajar, India. She was obliged to leave in December 1876, because of ill-health, and by visiting Bombay, Calcutta, and returning over the Pacific, she secured memories of a round-the-world trip. She convalesced at the Shel- burne homestead and then entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston in 1884, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1887. A gradu- ate year at the Woman's College in Philadelphia was interrupted by the illness of her mother and she remained in Shelburne Center after that. Her medical practice was restricted to her immediate locality and to the schools.
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