History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 107

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 107

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367

WOBURN.

ployed him on one case in their charge.1 Other non- resident physicians named in the tax-lists previous to 1800 are David Fiske, of Lexington, 1781-1782 ; William Bowers, of Billerica, 1787-1794; John Hale, of Hollis, N. H., 1784; Amos Putnam, of Danvers, 1784. These may have had a connection more or less intimate with the town and its people, as the old records show. Fiske's father, likewise a physician, had been a resident. Other names, perhaps, might be added to the list, and some well known to Wo- burn residents we defer till later on. This is not the first attempt to write a history of Woburn's early physicians. The father of the present writer, Doctor Benjamin Cutter, began the task many years ago, and collected a number of names. More than forty years ago, or about 1843, he began a list of the early physicians of Woburn, which list is still extant. His list includes the names of Lilley, Brewster, Prince, Boscoitz (Bruscowitz), Hay, Flagg, Blodgett, Poole and Plympton, the eldest, covering a period from 1720 to 1783, and he appears to have depended upon the First Parish records for his principal source of in- formation. He was then interested in collecting some material for a brief history of the First, now the First Congregational Church, and for the history of the town, which had then passed its second centennial. This material was much of it incorporated into a printed church catalogue issued at that time (1844). To Doctor Cutter, also, we owe the recovery of the following lengthy statement regarding the skillful performance of a remarkable cure by the earliest known physician of Woburn residence of which we have any knowledge. In 1847 he copied the follow- ing extract-his copy being extant-regarding the performance of GOODWIFE BROOKS in a medical way upon the head of a poor Indian child, who had been scalped aud badly injured in a foray of hostile In- dians.

Extract from Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians in New Eng- land, chap. 4, 27. From Muss. Hist. Coll., vol. I, p. 163. "These Maquas, as I said before, are given to rapine and spoil; aud had, for several years, heeo in hostility with our neighbour indians; as the Massa- chusetts, Pawtuckets, Pennakooks, Keanebecks, Pokomtakukes (living at Deerfield), Quabogs, all the Nipumek Indians and Nashaway or Weshakim Indians. Aod in truth, they were, in time of war, ao great a terror to all the Indians before named, though ours were far more in number than they, that the appearance of four or five Maquas in the woods would frighten them from their habitations and cornfields, and reduce [induce ?] many of them to get together in forta; by which means they were brought to such straits and poverty, that had it not been for relief they had from the English, in compensation for lahour, doubtless many of them had suffered famine. For they were driven from their planting fields through fear, and from their fishing and hunt- jug places ; yea they durst not go into the woods to seek roots and outs to sustain their lives. But this good effect the war had upon some of them, namely, to turn them from idleness ; for now necessity forced them to labour with the English in hoeing, reaping, picking hops, cut- ting wood, making hay, and making stone fences and like necessary eui- ployments, whereby they got victuals and clothes.

" These Maquas had great advantages over our poor Indian neighbours, for they are inured to war and hostility ; ours, not inured to it. Besides, the maover of the Maquas in their attempt gives them much advantage

and puts ours to terrour. The Maquas' manner is, in the spring of the year, to march forth in several ways, under a captain and not above fifty iu a troop. And when they come near the place that they design to spoil, they take up soute secret place in the woods for their general rendezvous. Leaving some of their company, they divide themselves into small companies, three or four or five in a party; and then go and seek for prey. These small parties repair near to the Indian habitations and lie in auibushments by the pathsides, in some secure places ; and when they see passengers come, they fire upon them with guns ; and such as they kill or wound they seize on and pillage, and strip their bodies ; and then with their knives take off the skin and hair of the scalp of their head, as large as a satin or leather cap; and so leaving them for dead, they pursue the rest and take such as they can prisoners, and serve them iu the same kind ; excepting at sometime, if they take a pretty youth or girl that they fancy, they save them alive; and thus they do, as often as they meet any Indians. They always preserve the acalps of the head carefully, drying the inside with hot ashes; and so carry them home as trophies of their valour, for which they are re- warded.

"Aud now I am speaking of their cruel and murtherous practices, I shall here mention a true and rare story of the recovery of an Indian maid, from whose head the Maquas had stripped the scalp io the mao- ner before mentioned, and broken her skull, and left her for dead ; and afterward she was found, recovered, and is alive at this day. The story is thus.2

" lu the year 1670, a party of Maquas, being looking after their prey, met with some Indians in the woods, belonging to Naamkeek, or Wam- esit, upon the north side of Merrimak river, not far from some English honses; where, falling upoo these Indians, that were travelling in a path, they killed some and took others whom they also killed, and among the rest, a young maid of about fourteen years old was taken, and the scalp of her head taken off and her skull broken, and left for dead with others. Some of the Indians escaping came to their fellows ; and with a party of men, they went forth to bring off the dead bodies, where they found this maid with life in her. So they brought her home, and got Lt. Thomas Henchman, a good man, and one that hath inspec- tion over them, by my order, to use means for her recovery ; 3 and tho' he had but little hope thereof, yet he took the best care he could about it ; and as soon as conveniently he could, seut the girl to an ancient and skillful woman living at Woburn, ahout ten miles distant, called GOODWIFE BROOKS, to get her to use her hest endeavours to recover the maid ; which, hy the blessing of God, she did, though she were ahont two yeare or more in curing her. I was at Goodwife Brooks' house in May, 1673, when she was in cure; and she showed me a piece or two of the akull that she had taken out. And in May last, 1674, the second day, I being among the Indians at Pawtuckett, to keep court, with Mr. Elliott, 4 and Mr. Richard Daniel, 5 and others, with me, I saw the maid alive and in health, and looked upon her head, which was whole, except a little spot as big as a six-pence might cover, and the maid fat and Insty ; but there was no hair come again upon the head where the scalp was flayed off. This cure, as some skillful in chirurgery appre- heod, is extraordinary and wonderful ; and hence the glory and praise is to be ascribed to God, that worketh wonders without number."

This GOODWIFE BROOKS was Susanna, wife of Henry Brooks, of Woburn [see Brooks family in N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg. (April, 1875), vol. xxix., p. 153]. She died September 15, 1681. Her husband married again, and died April 12, 1683. She had been first the wife and widow of Ezekiel Richardson, one of the first settlers of Woburn-Vinton's R. Mem .- and for proof of this see that work, p. 37; and for other facts concerning her, see ib. pp. 32-37. The Lieuten-

2 The Maquas were the well-known Mohawk Indians. See further treatment of the subject of thia extract in its relation to our local Io. dians, in Woburn Journal, Jan. 5, 1883.

3 Lieut. Thomas Heochman was connected with the Richardson family of Wohuru, through a daughter's marriage-Viaton's R. Mem. 41-43. Of the family in which this marriage connection was formed Goodwife Brooks was the mother-see mention beyond under her name. Hench- man was an ahle officer of repute.

4 The well-known apostle to the Indians.

6 Gentleman, of Billerica.

1 Cf. Woburn Records, v. 220.

368

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ant Henchman named in the text was connected in- directly with her family by marriage, Bridget Hench- man, his daughter, having married Lieutenant James Richardson, a son of the above Goodwife Susanna, so famous in her day for her extraordinary medical or surgical skill.

PHYSICIANS .- Of physicians resident in the place, named in the records, are the following before 1850. DOCTOR PETERS, 1719-1720.

DOCTOR REUBEN LILLEY, 1722-1723, son of Reuben and Martha, born February 24, 1696-97. Died October 17, 1723, in Woburn, at the age of twenty-six.

DOCTOR ISAAC HILL, 1723. " Doctor " on grave- stone in Woburn first burying-ground. Died Janu- ary 9, 1723, aged twenty-nine. Supposed to have been the Isaac, son of Isaac Hill, born December 1, 1693, mentioned in Savage's Geneal. Dict. He does not appear to be long a Woburn resident. The sug- gestion is offered that he may have belonged to Stone- ham, originally and then a part of Charlestown, and that dying before a burying-ground had been estab- lished in Stoneham, his interment, as that in another case, was effected at Woburn. This would account for the want of mention of him in Woburn records.

DOCTOR JONATHAN HAYWOOD or HAYWARD, 1736-1749. "Doctor " per inscription on gravestone in Woburn first burying-ground. Died August 13, 1749, aged 45. Taxed in Woburn, 1736-1748. He graduated at Harvard College, 1726; married Ruth Burbeen, of Woburn, 1735. Was a selectman, 1741. See Sewall's Woburn, pp. 590, 595. A son of the same name graduated at Harvard College, 1756, and died a pauper in Woburn, 1812, aged seventy-three.

The following relic of this family has been pre- served, having reference to Prince Walker, a negro slave and centenarian of Woburn origin, an account of whom is given elsewhere :

" WOBURN, July 10, 1751. " For value received, I have this day sold to Mr. Timothy Walker, a Negro boy, named Prince, which I have owned for some time past.

" RUTH HAYWARD."

-See Diaries of Rev. Timothy Walker, ed. and annotated by Joseph B. Walker, Concord, N. H., 1989, p. 25, note.

DOCTOR LOT BREWSTER, 1750-1764. He died in Woburn, January 13, 1765. A parcel of curious papers is preserved in the Wyman Coll. (box 11), in the Woburn Public Library, relating to the settlement of his own and his wife's estate. Dying as above stated, the inventory of his estate is dated February 25, 1765. It mentions, among other articles, two vol- umes of practical physic, books, a leather bag, a wine- glass, glass bottles, gallipots, two cases of apothecary drawers, a book-case, small desk, chest with a drawer, a pair of tooth-drawers, two lancets, scales and weights, a pestle and mortar of lignum-vitæ. The whole inventory amounts only to £20 14s. 6d. His widow Lucy, died, according to her inventory, June 12, 1765. Her property consisted principally of debts and woman's clothing, with a little jewelry.

Her goods were sold at vendue at house of the widow Phebe Richardson, in Woburn, proprietress of a tavern which stood on the site of the late Daniel Richardson's house, and known by the name of the Ark Tavern. This house had been kept previously by Noah Richardson, husband of Phebe, whose ances- tors, being Walkers, had previously kept the house be- fore her time and that of her husband. Her ances- tor, Captain Samuel Walker, who died in 1684, was the first person licensed in the town of Woburn to keep a tavern in the place. The widow Lucy Brew- ster appears to have died at Mrs. Richardson's house, and Mrs. Richardson brings in a bill against the es- tate for nursing in her last illness, and for furnishing refreshment (punch, etc.) for the funeral.

The following memoranda, from one of the docu- ments above cited, is interesting to show the state in which the affairs of this poor doctor's family were left.

March 4, 1765, the judge of probate gave all Dr. Lot Brewster's estate to his widow forever.

The widow before her death disposed of, and spent and lost, the value of £8 3s. 4d., and £12 11s. 2d. re- mained and was added to the inventory of her estate.

Some of the articles she sold and lost were the books, the leather bag (" took off" they said), bottles, the two cases apothecaries'-drawers, the book-case, a " bow-fat," one pair tooth-drawers and a lancet, a silver spoon, which did not belong to the estate; a cow, a saddle, etc. All these, says the memorandum, were sold and lost after the judge gave it (her hus- band's estate) to her. There is also a son, William Brewster, of these parties mentioned. 1

Where this Doctor Lot Brewster came from before his settlement in Woburn does not appear. There was a Lot Brewster, born March 25, 1724, son of Wil- liam, of Duxbury, mentioned in Winsor's History of Duxbury, p. 237, who may be the same. He was possibly an apothecary. He does not appear to be a college graduate. What his first success may have been, his end would seem to show that doctors in his time did not flourish in such a country place as Wo - burn then was, and that the profession did not then, outside of urban districts, furnish a very abundant support.

DOCTOR ROBERT FISKE, 1752-62, son of Robert Fiske, a physician of Lexington. In 1760 he was iu the French War. In 1764 he returned to Lexington, where the entry is found : "Doctor Fiske and family came last from Woburn." See Hudson's "Lexington." Doctor David Fiske, of Lexington, his son, was taxed in Woburn, 1781-82. This son was an inmate of Benjamin Edgell's family, arriving February 11, 1771. See mention under Doctor Samuel Blodgett, of Wo- burn.

DOCTOR JOHN PRINCE, 1754-60. A town order (Neutral French) dated May 31, 1756, in favor of Dr.

1 A William Brewster was a soldier from Woburn in the Revolution- ary War .- See Sewall's Woburn, 568.

369

WOBURN.

Jolin Priuce, " for doctoring the French in this town " (autograph, Johu Prince), is about the only memorial of him extant in this place. ( Wym. Coll., Wob. Pub. Liby., 8-41.) Cf. Sewall's Wob., 561, 562. Another specimen of his autograph is extant as witness to a deed, October 21, 1755 (Wym. Coll., 11-80). His signature is a well-written one.

DOCTOR WRIGHT, 1755.

DOCTOR GEORGE PHILIP BRUSCOWITZ, 1756-57, one of the Neutral French, then resident in Woburn (Sewall's " Woburn," 558-563). His name is written variously, but his own signature extant on a town order (Neutral French) dated February 21, 1757, writes and spells it as we have given it. On this order he styles himself " Med: Doctor in Woburn." ( Wym. Coll.,Wob. Pub. Liby., 8-59.)

DOCTOR EDMUND RICHARDSON, 1761, son of Noah and Phebe (Walker) Richardson. "Doctor " per grave-stone in Woburn first burying-ground. Died May 30, 1761, in his twenty-ninth year. Aside from his family we have no further information concern- ing this person. The statement on his grave-stone is the only warrant for calling him a physician. Per- haps he was a pupil of the Doctor Lot Brewster, whom we have already noticed.

DOCTOR JOHN HAY, 1761-80. A better known name than any we have yet mentioned, from his fame as the medical preceptor of the celebrated Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. (See Ellis' Life, pp. 31-39.) The period of the Count's pupilage was from 1770 to 1772, when the Count was quite a young man. Doctor John Hay and Sarah, his wife, were admitted members of the Woburn First Church July 8, 1765. His father was a well-known physician of Reading, and having begun his practice at Woburn, the young- er Doctor Hay, after the death of his father, returned to Reading, where his death occurred, 1815, aged seventy-seven. During the Revolution he served in the American forces as one of Woburn's quota, and a town order on account of military service of John Hay, dated March 20, 1777, is preserved in the Wo- burn Public Library ; also a bill against his former Woburn neighbor, Benjamin Edgell, dated Septem- her 27, 1783. For some particulars regarding his life see Eaton's Hist. Reading, pp. 91-92 and 398, in which is presented a silhouette likeness of the doctor and a cut from an original portrait of his father. After 1780, when his residence in Woburn appeared to end, he still appears to hold property in Woburn, for his name is mentioned in the tax-lists, as a Read- ing resident, from 1781 to 1786. At Woburn he re- sided in the house at present Central Square, known by the name of the Black House, which stood on the present Kimball place, 732 Main Street. This house, which was old when torn down, was a noted land- mark and has a curious history.

Doctor John Hay was chosen to the office of a dea- con of the First Church, November 17, 1777, but ap- pears never to have held the office. His name is in

the list of male members of that church on December 1, 1777. In a later hand appears the words against his name of " out of town." In 1793 the list speaks of him as of Reading and as "absent."

DOCTOR JOHN FLAGG, 1765-67. A native of the town, a graduate of Harvard College (1761), and after his removal from Woburn a well-known physician of Lynn, where he died 1793. Lewis and Newhall's History of Lynn, gives him an excellent record, p. 358, etc. He settled in Lynn in 1769, and previously, on June 21, 1769, he married, in Woburn, Susanna Fowle.1 His father, Rev. Ebenezer Flagg, a native of Woburn, a graduate of Harvard College, 1725, was minister of Chester, N. H.

DOCTOR SAMUEL BLODGETT, 1769-89. Not imme- diately, if remotely, descended from the Blogget (or Blodgett) family of this town, so far as yet discov- ered. Doctor Samuel Blodgett, from the church in Sunderland, was received to membership by the First Church in Woburn, January 5, 1772, and Doctor Samuel Blodgett and Jane Gillam, both of Woburn, were married, in Woburn, October 2, 1772. On the testimony of such an authority as the late George Rumford Baldwin the information has come down to us that the house opposite to his mansion, known iu recent years by the name of the Wheeler House, was built by Doctor Samuel Blodgett toward the close of the last century, but left unfinished, and sold by him to Colonel Baldwin, father of George R. Baldwin, who finished it so far as to admit of having there a great centennial jubilee in 1800.2

1 In an account-hook of James Fowle, Esq., and Jr., a father and son, 1764, etc., is the following memorandum on the fly-leaf: "Augt. ye 30th, 1769, Susannah moved to Lynn." The inscription on the monu- ment at Lynn to Dr. John Flagg, is given in full in Lewis & Co.'s Hist. of Essex Co., vol. i., p. 301. (1)

2 So much has been said about this house in its supposed connection with the proposed return of Connt Rumford to this country, it having been stated that the house was built by Col. Baldwin for his occupancy, that it is well to give a few facts concerning it. In. 1820 it is described as being on the east side of Main Street, that part of the street now called by the name of Elm Street, the occupant being Archelaus Taylor. In 1832 the occupant was Col. Charles Carter. The section of Main Street now immediately in front of this house was not then extant. The entrance from present Elni Street from a large central gateway was lined on either side with rows of trees, chiefly lindens, imported by Col. Baldwin from England. The fence in front was ornamented and took a circular sweep inward at the entrance. In the rear of the house was a short branch of the Middlesex Canal, which sometimes furnished a temporary resting-place for a canal-boat. " The whole picture," says the Rev. Leander Thompson in one of his interesting articles, "like that of the Baldwin mansion and grounds, was one of a quiet, well-kept and dignified English country seat, very attractive and restful." About 1811-1814, the Rev. Thomas Waterman, a pastor of the Baptist Church, taught a superior school iu this house. His death occurred in the latter year in a sudden manner. A friend of the present writer, Mr. John Brooks Russen, a uative of Arlington, went to school in this house in 1815, to the celebrated Hall J. Kelley, the author of one or more text booka, who became noted later in his attempts to colonize Oregon.

& It is in the Old Burying Ground of Lynn, and from it are taken these words : " As a physician, his skill was eminent, and his practice exten- sive and successful. To Death, whose triumpli he had so often delayed and repelled, but could not entirely prevent, he at last himself suh- mitted on the 27th of May, 1793, in the 50th year of his age."

370

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Benjamin Edgell, of Woburn, enters the following items of information in his accounts :

" Doct. Blodgett came June 20, 1769. David Fiske came Feb. 11, 1771-153 weeks, till July 20, 1772. Doct. Blodgett left on July 20, 1772." The two, therefore, were apparently inmates of Edgell's family. The 153 weeks may refer to Blodgett's stay, or to that of both of them, David Fiske, afterwards a doc- tor at Lexington, evidently standing to Blodgett in the light of a pupil and assistant. The time of Blod- gett's arrival and departure from Edgell's is, however, definitely stated-1769-1772.

Again Edgell writes, "Amos Blodgett, Jr., began his year with me, June 12, 1777; Amos Blodgett en- gaged in the Army, Aug. 18, 1777." Now since it is known that Captain Benjamin Edgell, the recorder of these items, came to Woburn from the place of his former residence, at Lexington, about 1768, and as Fiske and Amos Blodgett were known to belong to Lexington, the supposition is expressed that our Doctor Samuel Blodgett was from Lexington origi- nally also, and that he was a member of the numer- ous Blodgett family of Lexington, who descended from the old family of Blodgett, of Woburn. We therefore infer he is probably the Samuel Blodgett, born in Lexington April 30, 1727, eldest son of Sam- nel Blodgett, concerning whom Hudson, in his Hist. Lexington, makes no further statement. We also infer he was a former acquaintance or friend, or maybe a relative, of Benjamin Edgell's at Lexington, and that Edgell was the means of his introduction to Woburn. He may have lived for a short time at Sunderland, a small Massachusetts town on the Con- nectient River, as his dismissal from the church there would indicate, and he appears to have been a single man when he came to Woburn. Several sketches of Sunderland that we have read make no reference to the name of Blodgett as one of the names of the early settled families in that town, so we infer that he did not originate there. Like many another young physician even in our day, he probably tried one or more places before he settled down perma- nently anywhere. He appears to have been a man of energy and spirit, and in the Revolution very pa- triotic. He was in 1773 one of a committee of nine of the town " relative to the public affairs of govern- ment" (Sewall's Woburn, 359), and also one of the committee of correspondence. Later he was on a committee to draw up instructions for the "commit- tee of inspection " (Sewall's Woburn, 382). He

Kelley married a daughter of the distinguished Baptist preacher, Rev. Dr. Baldwin. "The house," Mr. Russell said, "stood on a small canal built up to the house." The school under Kelley's management, how- ever, was a failure. " He had," says Mr. Russell, "but half a dozen scholars, and paid it so little attention that I left after a couple of weeks and went to Westford, Mass." Mr. Russell further says, "I recollect Woburn ouly as a terribly dull farming town, partaking largely of the depression that was pretty general after the war of 1812."

The house we have been describing was owned by Mrs. F. C. Wheeler in 1886, when the foregoing facts were gathered.

was also a delegate to a constitutional convention at Cambridge in September, 1779 (Ibid., 383). He was also an assessor (Ibid., 368). See other references in Sewall, pp. 435, 568. The latest reference to him in Sewall's History is January 4, 1790. In a list of male church members in the First Church records, under date of December 1, 1777, the name of Samuel Blodgett appears, but he is spoken of as "out of town," "returned," "ont of town " again. In a eimi- lar list in the same records, under date of 1793, he is spoken of as " absent," but it does not say where.

The fact that Dr. Blodgett was from Lexington is still further confirmed by accounts of the transfer of his real estate.1

There is a letter extant from Doctor Samuel Blod- gett, dated Boston, April 1, 1785, and addressed to Mr. Zebadiah Wyman, Woburn. It is as follows :

" BOSTON, April 1st, 1785

"SIa,-If you will be so kind aa to get an order from the Selectmed on the Town Treasurer, for the £4 10. 0, which the Town Granted me somne time past, and send it to me by the first opportunity, you will oblige your friend, SAM'L BLOUGET.

" Ma. Z. WYMAN."

Doctor Blodgett is named in Esquire Thompson's financial accounts as late as Angust, 1790. He is also mentioned in the same accounts in June, 1789, and in Feb., 1786. He probably left town, therefore, about 1790.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 107

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034