History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 108

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 108

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The list of Woburn's soldiers during the Revolution includes the names of two physicians : Samuel Blod- gett, and John Hay.

Physicians and clergymen were not ashamed in the earlier part of the war to shoulder their arms and parade in the ranks as private soldiers. In the diary of Rev. John Marrett, minister of the Second Parish in Woburn, is this characteristic entry : June 26, 1775, having attended the funeral of George Reed, Jr., who died of a fever occasioned by a surfeit or heat he got in Charlestown fight, the 17th inst., he says, "also appeared with military company and showed arms.'"

Doctor Blodgett was an active patriot. Rev. Mr. Marrett records, under date of Sunday, April 23, 1775 : "Soldiers travelling down and returning-brought

1 My friend, Hon. Edward F. Johnson, first mayor of Woburn, con- tributes the following items from the Middlesex County records :

May 26, 1777, Joseph Simonds, of Lexington, conveys to Samuel Blodgett, of Woburo, physician, for £160 13s. 4d., two parcels of land, one of 35 ac. and the other of 10 ac., with buildings in Lexington. June 4, 1777, Dr. Blodgett sold his Lexington purchase to John and Jonathan Amory, of Boston .:

Previously, on April 8, 1777, ha had sold for £550, to Jonathan Amory, of Boston, 28 ac. laud and buildings in Woburn, bounded west by county road, north by lands of Joshua Reed and William Scott, east by land of heirs of Eleazer Flagg Poole, deceased, and Isaac Stone, and south by land of Joshua Wyman. Also a pot-ash house standing on west side of said county road, opposite above named buildinga. Jane, his wife, unites in said transfer.

The buildings of this estate in Woburn stood on the present site of the house of Dr. Harlow, on Main Street, aud the pot-ash house on the site of the estate! opposite, now Dr. Hutchine's; on the estate of the latter is a never-failing well, formerly connected with the potash works. -Statement of Miss Susan Edgell.

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their arms with them to meeting, with warlike accou- trements-a dark day. In the forenoon service, just as service was ended, Dr. Blodgett came in for the people to go with their teams to bring provisions from Marblehead out of the way of the men-of-war."

DR. JOHN (EBENEZER ?) PERRY, 1772-1774.

DOCTOR JONATHAN POOLE, 1781-1782. Of Hollis, N. H., 1783. Born Woburn, Sept. 5, 1758, son of Eleazer Flagg Poole. Studied medicine with his father-in law, Doctor or Colonel John Hale, in Hollis, whose daughter Elizabeth he married, Dec. 7, 1780. He was assistant surgeon in First New Hampshire Regiment 1776 to 1780. After trying his practice at Woburn, he settled as a physician in Hollis, where he died July 25, 1797, æt, thirty-eight. See Worcester's History Hollis, p. 214.

DOCTOR SYLVANUS PLYMPTON, 1784-1836. Died in Woburn, Jan. 20, 1836, aged seventy-six. A native of Medfield, Mass., where he was born, 1757 (Tilden's Hist. Medfield, 462). He graduated at Harvard Col- lege, 1780. He married Mrs. Mary Richardson, of Woburn, May 12, 1785. Both joined the First Cong. Church on Oct. 16, 1791, and on Oct. 30, 1791, Luke Richardson, son of Mrs. Plympton by a former mar- riage, Czarina and Mary, daughters of Dr. Sylvanus Plympton and Mary, his wife, were baptized. His wife was the widow of Luke Richardson and the daughter of Josiah and Margery (Carter) Fowle, R. Mem., p. 272. His wife, Mary, died Nov. 1, 1835, aged seventy-four. To the memory of Dr. Plympton and Mary, his wife, a new stone was erected in the. Second Burying-Ground a number of years since. There appears to be some discrepancy in the year of his death as given hy various authorities, and the same may apply to his age, but 1836 is the year given in the town records.

Through the kindness of Mrs. Ellen J. Harrington, of Woburn, a granddaughter of Dr. Plympton, we have been permitted to have the use of several very interesting papers relating to the history of her grand- father.

(1). A manuscript sheet endorsed : "Account of my Expenses while at College," the body of which is as follows:

" A Memorandum. Sylvaone Plympton, Junr., arrived at Dartmonth College, Sunday evening, September 22d, 1776; dined with D.D. Wheel- ock, President ; 23d, examined and accepted by Messieurs Ripley and Smith, Tutors in sd. College MIr. Townsend and my Father departed from College, 26th inst. I received a letter from Mr. Townsend soon after informing me of their Journey, and desiring a favor with regard to something left behind. D.D. Wheelock died April 24, 1779 ; after which I returned to College, and took a dismission with a recommenda- tioo from that Society from Mr. Ripley afores'd, May 31st, 1779. And find my expenses since my admittance into that Society, according to the most just and critical calculation, including books with all other incidental charges, [to]amount to £277 118. 6d. After this I went to Cambridge, and was examined by the President, Professors and Tutors; was approved and admitted, August 20th, 1779. Settled all accompts and took up all obligations at Cambridge, 23d June, 1780, and find my expenses to have been since my first admittance into Dartmouth College to this time, to have been (including books and other incidental charges) one thousand two hundred aod seventy-four pounds, or £1274 78. 1d."

(2). The bond required by the Faculty of Harvard College on his admission as a student, dated August 20, 1779, containing the autographs of four members of his family, viz .: Sylvanus (his father), Jonathan, Augustus and Chloe Plympton. One remarkable circumstance in relation to this document is, that the words "a minor " are obliterated, the student being more than twenty-one years old. This paper is endorsed : " Mr. Plympton's Bond."

(3). A letter endorsed "Mr. Jona. Townsend's Letter and Advice," dated "Dartmouth College, Sept. 25, 1776." The letter is admonitory, written by the minister of Medfield, who, with the father, accom- panied the pupil to the seat of Dartmouth College. This appears to be the letter referred to in the paper mentioned in paragraph 1. The seat of the college is spoken of as at a great distance from the house of his parents; as retired and peaceful; the faculty in- genious, faithful, kind and beneficent, as to appear- ance ; the pupils regular and decent and pleasant and agreeable, the testimony of their teachers being in their favor. There is a tender allusion to his mother, who could not take the leave of him she wished, and at parting wished the minister "to act the part for her." It is a touching commentary on this letter that the faithful pastor who had journeyed so far to see his young friend enter college, that he should have fallen a victim to the small-pox, of which he died in the same year his letter was written.

The document of expenses presented in paragraph 1 is also printed in Chase's Plympton Genealogy, p. 100, which also contains a notice of Dr. Plympton and his descendants, pp. 99, 129, 169, etc.

The commission of justice of the peace of Dr. Plympton, 1816, is preserved in the Woburn Public Library, Wym. Coll.

The daughter, Czarina, of Dr. Plympton, the elder, married Otis Danforth, and died, 1883, in Cambridge. A daughter, Mary, married James Bridge, of Woburn.

Dr. Sylvanns Plympton bad estate scheduled io the list of 1798, as follows : 1 honse, 28 x 23, with 14 windows, the bouse two stories, with a yard In front, about 3 sq. rode of land ; a shed, 30 x 10; a farm, 10 ac., with & barn on it, 30 x 22, the land beiog bounded E. by the road, N. by beira of Josiah Richardson, W. on Horn Pood, S. on heirs of Nathaniel Brooks. [This land was evidently the place now occupied by Mr. Buck, dear the junction of present Buckman aod Main Streets.] He had also in that year 15 ac. in Rag Rock; 3 ac. bought of Jonathan Carter's heire; 15 ac. bought of Capt. Joseph Wyman; and 6 ac. bought of Jonathan Wright, the latter being partly woodland and partly meadow. He had also 34 ac. of salt marsh in Malden. He had 72 ac., valued at $1500, in 1801 .- "Value of the Several Estates io the town of Woburn, taken by the Assessors of said Town in 1801." -- Wym. Coll. MSS., Wob. Pub. Liby., 7 : 143.

Later he occupied the house on site of present residence of Mrs. Lewis Shaw, Main Street. The house being burned in 1836.

Augustus Plympton, a son of Dr. Sylvanus, the elder (born 1796, died 1854, M. D. Harv. 1824, Mem. Mass, Med. Soc.), was a practicing physician in Woburn; selectman, 1836, '38, '39 ; representative, 1837.

Dr. Augustus Plympton died of cholera, June 12, 1854, aged fifty-eight. A lengthy obituary notice, well written and containing an excellent character-

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ization of his different merits, appeared June 17, 1854, in the Woburn Journal. It alludes to his death as sudden. It says, " He was indigenous to our soil, and there are yet many who remember his father, Dr. Sylvanus Plympton, whose skill and devotion to the laborious duties of his profession at a period when its members were comparatively few are often alluded to. The son enjoyed the benefit of the father's exper- ience and practice, and retained many of the peculiarities, both as a man and as a practitioner, of the olden time."

There is also an account of his case in another place in the same issue of the Journal : On the Mon- day previous, about 5 A. M., he was seized with the terrible disease of cholera, which terminated fatally about half-past ten o'clock the same evening. Dr. Ben- jamin Cutter, who was promptly called, pronounced it to be a decided case of Asiatic Cholera. Dr. H. Bigelow, of Boston, was also called, and coincided with Dr. Cutter in his view of the case. Dr. Plymp- ton also pronounced his case to be cholera. There was one other fatal case of the same disease in Woburn during the same week.

Sylvanus Plympton, a son of Dr. Sylvanus, the elder (born 1794, died 1864, graduated Harvard Col- lege 1818, M.D. Harvard 1822, member Massachus- etts Medical Society), was a practicing physician in Cambridge.

Dr. Sylvanus Plympton, of Cambridge, had two daughters who married clergymen, and another mar- ried Prof. W. H. Niles, of the Institute of Tech- nology, Boston. A son, Henry Sylvanus (1838-1863), a graduate of Harvard Medical School, 1860, and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 1861, was an assistant surgeon in the army and navy, 1862-1863, and died at home in Cambridge of disease contracted in the service.

Dr. Angustus Plympton had one son and several daughters, all natives of Woburn, viz .: Hannah A .; Eliza B., deceased 1887, greatly respected for her many useful and amiable qualities ; Augustus; Ellen J., married C. H. Harrington ; Georgiana G., married George Sanderson. The two last-named daughters have descendants.

DOCTOR SILAS BARNARD, 1784. The Woburn Public Library has in its possession a marriage cer- tificate, signed by Joseph Heald, town clerk of Pepperell, Massachusetts, of " Doctor Silas Barnard of Pepperell, and Miss Phebe Russell of Cambridge," dated Feb. 25, 1782. There is also extant in the same library a receipted account of his with Deacon Timothy Winn, 1784, for medicines. He was dead by 1798.1

DOCTOR JOHN PAGE, 1805, This gentleman was

1 The wife of Dr. Barnard was Phobe, daughter of Seth Russell, of Cambridge,-Cf. Cutter's Arlington, 295; Paige's Cambridge, 650. She was born in 1760 and died in 1851. In 1798 she married for a second husband James Fillebrowo, of Cambridge .-- Cutter's Arl., 191 ; Paige's Cumb., 545.

the father-in-law of Colonel John Wade, and acquired his title as an apothecary in Boston, whence he re- moved to Woburn. His history is largely to be found in an immense mass of account-books and letters formerly belonging to him, and given by Na- than Wyman, lately deceased, to the Woburn Public Library. He appears to have been a man of enter- prise, of wealth, and of mark. We can only select a few points from them. He was in business under the firm-name of Langdon & Page from 1775 and on- wards. In 1775 to 1777 he kept a journal while in England. This was at the time of the Revolution. His headquarters were mostly at Boston during his business career, which is represented by a continuous series of account-books from 1783 to 1790, and later there are books of date, 1810-1811, and with them are books of a firm of much earlier date, which per- haps preceded him, 1759-1761. There is an account- book of his brother, Captain Edward Page, 1783-1785. Edward was dead by Sept., 1785. A few entries he made himself in his book are here presented to illus- trate the history of the times :

" Pownalboro', Oct. 30, 1784. This day entered the house of Mr. John Page and Laogdon.

"Nov. 1, 1784. This day John Laogdon turned out part of my goods in the street, etc.

"June 8, 1785. I arrived at Boston, from Wiscasset Point, with Capt. Haskins."

DOCTOR FRANCIS KITTREDGE, 1814-1828. Died 1828. This gentleman is still remembered by the aged among us. He belonged to a family of physi- cians, and had the reputation himself of being a good one. In his later life he was the partner in business of the father of the present writer, and his death oc- curred at a comparatively early age. He does not appear to have received a liberal education, or to have been a person of extensive culture; but he was, nevertheless, a skillful physician and had a good practice. In 1824, he built the house now owned and occupied by Dr. Graves, near the Library on Pleasant Street. This was considered quite an un- dertaking for the times, but his death, soon after- wards, made this expenditure a cause of family em- barrassment, and resulted in an early sale to other parties. The house is substantially the same in form as it was when built. Articles of agreement between Dr. Francis Kittredge and his partner Dr. Benjamin Cutter, were entered upon in 1827, and one item was that "each party and his own family shall receive attendance and medicine of the firm gratis." Dr. Cutter appears to be his pupil and assistant as early as January, 1825.

From his medical receipt-books, still extant, it would appear that Dr. Kittredge originated in Tewks- bury. The inscription on his gravestone in Woburn second burying-ground reads as follows :

"In memory of Doct. Francis Kittredge, who died Feb. 24, 1828, act. 45.

" My flesh shall slumber in the ground,

'Till the last trumpet's joyful sound ;

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Then burst the chains with sweet surprise, And in my Saviour's image rise."

Dr. Francis Kittredge and his wife Sybil were both members of the First Congregational Church in Woburn ; he joining, according to the records, in 1817, and she in 1827.

In preparing the foregoing sketches of physicians the writer has been impressed by the truth of the following observation. Its truth, however, should not deter any one from performing his whole duty to the community where he is called to minister.

How little is soon known of the average physician ! A gravestone in a neglected burying-ground, is, per- haps, in a few years his sole existing memorial ! few anecdotes of his prowess in combating disease, or a few reminiscences of instances of his wit, these, and even less than these, ofttimes remain, after the genera- tion that knew him and respected him have passed off the stage of mortal existence. He may have been skillful in his profession, a scholar, a man of high mind-and self-sacrificing, kind-hearted and true- but all of these traits and characteristics are gradu- ally forgotten with the generation that knew him, as the world moves on and others take the place that he formerly filled. Like the good Doctor Singletary of the Poet Whittier's tale-he is dead, and forgotten, and a very slight impression of his work and sacri- fices remains, but he was a benefactor to the com- munity nevertheless.

DOCTOR BENJAMIN CUTTER, 1825-1864. Died March 9, 1864, aged sixty. Dr. Cutter, soon after his graduation from Harvard College in 1824, estab- lished himself as a student of medicine in Woburn under Dr. Francis Kittredge in the house now occu- pied by Messrs. Thomas and Baldwin Coolidge, in the north village of Woburn, near the place where this sketch is at present penned by his youngest son. Dr. Cutter, on the death of Dr. Kittredge in 1828, suc- ceeded to his practice, which he held without cessa- tion for nearly forty years, till his own death, in 1864. During his whole life Dr. Cutter was an extensive reader of general literature, and a close student of the literature of his profession ; he was fond of his- tory, and especially so of local history and genealogy, and while the duties of his profession were extensive and exhausting, he found time to prepare considerable material on the subject of the history of his native and adopted towns, and upon the genealogy of a num- ber of their families. Most, if not all, of this mate- rial has been published by the son on whom his man- tle of local history has partially fallen-it is to be hoped not unworthily !

There are those living who well remember the time when Dr. Francis Kittredge and Dr. Sylvanus Plymp- ton, the elder, were the two principal medical practi- tioners in the town. The public favor, it is said, was about equally divided between them. Dr. Plympton was, perhaps, the more distinguished of the two in the case of fevers and in those diseases which re-

quired only the offices of a physician, while Dr. Kittredge was the more distinguished in cases re- quiring the services of a skillful surgeon. Dr. Cutter was also distinguished in this latter respect, and it is singular that none of the three were natives of Wo- burn. Plympton, the eldest of the three, was a native of Medfield ; Kittredge, still younger, was a native of Tewksbury, where the family had long been noted as a race of physicians of uucommon skill ; while Cut- ter, much younger than either, was a native of West Cambridge, now Arlington, where he was born June 4, 1803. All three, in common with the custom of the time, used in those days to ride about the country on horse-back while visiting their patients. There is extant still a note-book made by Dr. Cutter while a student of Kittredge's, which is filled with the many receipts in use by the medical profession of this vi- cinity at that period. Some of them may now be accounted "barbarous." The receipt-book is enti- tled, " A recipe collect of various scarce and excel- lent compositions, both orthodox and empirical, 1825," and had we space we should be glad to copy some of them. This book was based on similar books of Drs. Francis Kittredge, the senior and junior, the earliest of them dated 1780. These books are still preserved and belong to the present writer. Among the receipts are some from such honored names as those of Dr. Marshall Spring and General John Brooks; others from Dr. Joseph Fiske, of Lex- ington ; Dr. Danforth, of Billerica; the Rev. Mr. Bowes, of Bedford, and others, including receipts even from some women.1

It is a difficult task for a sor to write satisfactorily about his father. Long sketches of Dr. Cutter have appeared in various places, particularly in the Cutter Family Memorial, pp. 137-142; his funeral address being printed in the appendix to that work, pp. 335- 38; and an appreciative notice appearing at the time of his death in the Woburn Townsman for March 11, 1864. Other notices are cited in the sketch in the family memorial referred to. As we have before stated, he was born in Arlington, June 4, 1803, and graduated at Harvard College in 1824, and took his medical degree from Harvard in 1827, and from Philadelphia again in 1857. His predilection for study becoming early manifest, he was sent from home at the age of eight years to enjoy the best edn- cational advantages he could obtain. He was sent to the academies in Westford and Andover, Mass., and in Pelham and Newmarket, N. H. In 1820 he en- tered Harvard College. His classmate Rev. Artemas B. Muzzey presented some interesting particulars regarding his college life, which are published in the sketch in the Cutter Book. In 1823 and 1824 he taught school in Medford and at Wellfleet, and also in other places. In 1826 he was commissioned sur- .

1 Cf. W. R. Cutter, On the Sources of Early Woburn History, a lecture, April 8, 1887.

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geon's mate, and in 1829 surgeon in the militia, an office which he resigned in 1834. He was one of the School Committee in Woburn from 1845 to 1849, and held various other offices enumerated in the sketch in the Cutter work. He was devoted to his profession and his last illness was of brief duration. "A large community," says his medical brethren, "has been deprived of an experienced, able and conscientious physician, a friend long and thoroughly proved, and a citizen of eminent usefulness-ever seeking earnestly the best good of the public, and exerting through his whole life an exemplary and hallowed influence."

We cannot do better than submit the Townsman notices in full. They touch so many points in the character of Dr. Cutter that we think they are worthy of presentation. There is preserved also the account of the details of his expenses as a college student at Harvard from 1820 to 1824. This production has an historical as well as an antiquarian interest.1

1 The following books contain the results of some of his antiquariao researches :---

(1). A History of the Cutter Family of New England. The compilation of the late Dr. Benjamie Cutter, of Woburo, Mass. Revised and en- larged by William Richard Cutter. Boston, 1871. Pp. xi., 364. A supplement, 1875, continues the number of pages to 432.

(2). History of the Town of Arlington, Massachusetts. Formerly the Second Precioct in Cacibridge, or District of Menotomy, afterward the town of West Cambridge, 1635-1879. With a Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants of the Precinct. By Benjamin and William R. Cutter. Boston, 1880. Pp. viii. 368.

Various articles by W. R. Cutter in antiquarian publications have their origin in the same source. An enumeration of them will not be attempted here.

[ Woburn Townsman, for Friday, March 11, 1864.]

DEATHS. 9th, Dr. Benjamin Cutter, 60 years, 9 mos.

EDITORIAL.& DEATH OF DR. CUTTER .- It is with deep regret we have to announce the death of Dr. Benjamin Cutter, on Wednesday of this week. Few men will be missed so much as he, and they are few whose death might be so truly regarded as a public calamity. He has for some time been in feeble health, but the sickness which was the immediate cause of his death was of short duration. Funeral services will be held In the First Congregational Church, on Monday afternoon next, at two o'clock.

In another column we lay before our readers a biographical sketch of Dr. Cutter, written by one who knew him well, and who but reflects the feelings of many others in this eulogy of his friend.

[Written for the Townsman.] b

DR. BENJAMIN CUTTER.

MR. EDITOR: The death of Dr. Benjamin Cutter has cast a gloom over the community. He has lived so long in our midst, and his life has been one of such singular usefulness, that it naturally arrests at- tention, and makes us pause to aak how the large space made vacant by such a bereavement is to be filled. Dr. Cutter was born in West Cam- bridge, June 4, 1803, and graduated at Harvard College iu 1824. He studied medicine and surgery with the celebrated Dr. Francis Kitt- ridge, in Woburn, and settled here as a practicing physician in 1825. Ho married Mary, the daughter of Amos Whittemore, of West Cam- bridge, who now survives hin.

Dr. Cutter bas lived one of the most active and useful lives. He has devoted himself with untiring zeal to his profession, ever ready at the call of pain and suffering, cool, calm and skillful. Always studying to ascertain the hidden cause of disease, he was fortunate in living one of the most successful of professional lives. Aside from the arduous duties of his profession, he has found time to accumulate a large amount of

The widow of Dr. Cutter died June 6, 1871. His children who lived to maturity were Benjamin L., died 1852; Ephraim; Mary W., married Samuel A. Fowle, and died 1865; William R., librarian of the Woburn Public Library and the writer of this com- munication.

Ephraim Cutter, son of Dr. Benjamin Cutter, was born in Woburn, September 1, 1832. He graduated at Yale College 1852, and received the degree of M.D. from Harvard in 1856, and at Philadelphia in 1857, and LL.D. from Iowa College, 1887. He is known, both in this country and abroad, for his med- ical writings and inventions. From 1856 to 1875 he practiced his profession in Woburn, and later in Cambridge and Boston, and now in New York City. He has been honored with a gold medal abroad.

WILLARD ADAMS was a physician in Woburn in 1842, and was here still earlier. He was connected with Marlborough, N. H. (see History of that town), and, returning to Woburn in later life, died here July 19, 1883.

The Middlesex East District Medical Society was organized at the house of Dr. Benjamin Cutter in Woburn, October 22, 1850, and, besides himself, Drs. Nelson, Plympton, Clough, Drew, Piper and Rickard, from Woburn, were present. All but Dr. Piper are now dead.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 108

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