History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 32

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 32

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" The two companies remained in this camp for two months, enjoying the brightest and pleasantest part of a soldier's life. There was a good deal of night work, hnt not enough to wear the men out. The open-air life in the pine woods was so invigorating that there was very little sickness in the detachment. There was enough of excitement, a sufficient con- sciousness of the proximity of the enemy to give a zest to the routine of duty. The season of the year was a delightful one. As the spring advanced, violets, anemones, honeysuckle and the fragrant jessamine blossomed thickly among the lanes and roads. The woods were full of rabbits, 'possums and 'coons (which the men were successful in trapping), with traces now and then of a prowling fox. The creek was full of fish,-herring, horn-pout, and robin or red-fin (bream),-for which we angled with hooks baited with worms or soaked hard-tack. With this plenitude of game came a disagreeable accompani- ment in the profusion of snakes,-black snakes, four or five feet long ; moccasins as large as a child's arm, and 'copperheads, even more venomous than their namesakes in the North.' The chief duty to be per- formed was the picketing of the line of Batchelder's Creek. The details were quite as much as two com- panies conld perform, and brought each man on duty about every other day.

"Another and favorite duty was the scouting by land and water. When the companies first occupied the In compiling the above record the facts and figures " History of Newton," in which the muster-rolls are given in full; from Cel. Francis J. Parker's "Story of the 32d," and from the "Record of the 44th," by the Regimental Association. picket posts there were no boats of any kind to be | have been drawn in part from Dr. S. F. Smith's found. A vigorous search was instituted along the banks of the creek, and several canoes and flat-boats were found concealed in the dense cane-brakes. These were brought to the Washington Road and repaired, and every few days a scouting company was sent down the creek and up the river on a reconnoisance. The ' Rebs' were rarely seen; and the principal result of these expeditions was the collection of a number of useful articles of camp equipage from the deserted huts CHAPTER X. and houses along the creek." At the last of April Company F took part in the " Green Swamp Expedi- NEWTON-(Continued). tion," but the Newton company was not in it, and missed a lot of terribly hard marching and skirmish- MEDICAL HISTORY. ing in reeking swamps deluged with pouring rains. On May 2d the two companies were relieved by two BY JESSE F. FRISBIE, M.D. of the Forty-sixth Massachusetts, and were marched back to the barracks at New Berne. During May and June the Newton men, with the rest of the regiment, were engaged in doing provost duty in that city.

As the regiment had arrived in a rain-storm, it left in another, on June 5th, Co. B being the left wing, under Capt. Storrow, on the steamboat " George Pea- body." On June 9th the steamer ran along the eastern shore of Cape Cod and just before sunset dropped anchor in Boston Harbor. How glad the Newton boys must have been to see the dome of the State-House once more-that dome that they could see from their own homes. That night the steamer anchored near Fort Independence, waiting for the

other wing of the regiment. The next day the boys on landing were met hy several companies of reserves and home guards, with Gilmore's Band, and escorted to the Common. Then the regiment was furloughed until the fioal mustering ont at Reedville. The New- ton company was the only distinctively local one in the regiment, and shortly after the muster ont the citizens of the town gave them a rousing reception at Newton Corner. The stores were closed, schools dis- missed and the whole town put on a holiday aspect. Mr. Otis Edmands was chief marshal and Hon. J. Wiley EJmands (whose son, Thomas S., was a member of the company) presided. Appropriate speeches of welcome were made and festivities were concluded with a banquet in the old Eliot Hall.

This forty-fourth Regiment was not called a "fighting regiment," as fate had not ordered that it should be plunged into the desperate battles of the Army of the Potomac; but it must be remembered that it was often compelled to endure hardships equal to any inflicted on any of the army, and that it lost in killed and by disease twenty-six men in nine months, thirty-two wounded, sixty-five disabled and twenty-five on the invalid guard, besides three men taken prisoners. It must also he remembered that 173 men went back into the army, seventy-nine of them as commissioned offi- cers, twenty-nine of the number giving their lives to their country.

ARRANGEMENTS were originally made for the prep - aration of this article with Dr. Henry M. Field. Failing health finally compelled him to abandon the task, and the writer accepted the responsibility of preparing this chapter when only a few weeks were left before the manuscript must be in the hands of the printer. Consequently it must of necessity be frag- mentary and imperfect.

Six months would have been none too much time for a thorough search and investigation among old records and of the "oldest inhabitants." Of the nearly 100 written letters and lists of questions sent out, there has been no reply to many. Doubtless in- vestiga ions are being prosecuted and replies will

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come containing much valuable historical material, but too late for insertion in this work.

Appended is a list of the names of physicians who, at some time, have lived in Newton, but of whom there is no tangible record, as want of time and op- portunity preclude the necessary investigation into their past history. What few facts could be obtained in the limited time are given.

EBENEZER STARR, M. D., son of Dr. Josiah Starr, of Weston, Mass., was born in Weston, August 24, 1768, and died in Newton Lower Falls August 24, 1830.

IIe was educated at Harvard College ; studied med- icine with Dr. Spring, of Watertown, and graduated from Harvard Medical College in 1789.

He settled in Newton Lower Falls in the year 1790. He was a prominent man there and had an exten- sive practice. He was honored with a seat in the House of Representatives for three years-1815-16-17. He served on a committee to prepare rules and regu- lations for the schools of Newton. September 19, 1808, Dr. Starr, with others, was appointed on a committee, in town meeting called for the purpose, to draw up a remonstrance against the embargo placed on our commerce and proclaimed in the De- cemher preceding.

He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and was Master of his lodge.

Prior to 1824 Dr. Starr was the principal physician at the Upper Falls. Like many men, the doctor had his peculiarities, and would be very apt to make some remark in the sick-room that would have a tendency to divert the minds of his patients from themselves and give them greater hopes of speedy recovery. Up- on one occasion, when called to see a sick woman, who was very tall in stature-some six feet two or more inches-he found her standing, and proceeded with his usual methods for a diagnosis of the case, until he desired to see her tongue. Then he remarked, " If I had a ladder I would go up and see it."

This remark turned the scale of the patient's slight illness at once into recovery, and a second visit was unnecessary.

Dr. Starr married Miss Lydia Ware, daughter of John H. Ware, January 22, 1794.

At his decease he left three sons and two daugh- ters.

SAMUEL CLARKE, M.D., son of Samuel Clarke, was born in Boston, 1779. He was in the Latin School, Boston, in 1790, and afterwards in a store with an importer of British goods. Subsequently he became a partner in the firm.

In 1810 he went to Hanover, New Hampshire, and studied medicine with Professor Nathan Smith, of Dartmouth College; and there his son, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D., was born. In 1811 he re- turned to Newton to practice medicine. In 1816 he went to Boston and continued to practice there, and conducted a drug-store at the corner of School and

Washington Streets till the year 1829. Then he re- turned to Newton and built a chemical factory. He died of fever in Newton November 30, 1830. He married Rebecca Parker Hull, daughter of General William Hull, of Newton. He left at his decease a widow, five sons and one daughter. His widow died in Boston May 25, 1865.

DR. JOHN KING was a self-taught physician and successor of Dr. John Cotton. His parentage is not known. He died March 20, 1807. He married Miss Sarah Wiswall, daughter of Captain Noah Wiswall. After her death he married Miss Elizabeth Cookson, April, 1799. He was a modest and unassuming man, but able, energetic and one that could be de- pended upon. "For many years he was moderator of town-meetings; selectman ; one of the Committee of Correspondence in 1774, and to prepare instruc- tions for their Representatives ; on various commit- tees during the war and after; was a delegate to the convention (1779) to form a Constitution for Mass. ; was at the battle of Lexington, and one of the sol- diers from Newton to guard Burgoyne's army, in the fall of 1778. He was Representative in 1792, etc."

He was evidently a valuable man for the times, and was freely called upon by his towns-people to do ser- vice in their behalf. However much his professional services were appreciated, his public duties must have occupied a large share of his time.

DR. BOWEN PARKER was born in the town of Pem- broke, now South Hanson, Mass., in the year 1800, and came to Newton to practice medicine in 1824 or '25, and remained here about two years, and then re- moved to South Hanson, where be continued to prac- tice until he died, Nov. 22, 1874. He was a promis- ing young man when in Newton, and interested himself in the progressive work of this vicinity. He was a member of Newton's first temperance society.

SIMEON BURT CARPENTER, M.D., son of Dr. William Bullock Carpenter, was born June 5, 1801, in Freetown, Bristol County, Mass. He died July 24, 1843, in Dedham, Mass., leaving a wife and three daughters.

He was fitted for college by the Rev. Mr. Andros, of Berkley, the author of "The Old Jersey Captive." He graduated from Brown University, Providence, R. I., September, 1827. " He was old in college because his father opposed his going till he was old enough to act for himself." He took the degrees of A.B. and M.D. at Harvard University in 1830. Soon after the death of Dr. Starr, of Newton Lower Falls, he was called to fill his place. He settled there in the year 1830. He married Angeline Louisa, youngest daughter of Artemas Murdock, of Newton, on May 17, 1835.

HIe removed to Dedham and settled there, making it his home till his death.

Dr. Carpenter was a busy and useful man, highly respected and beloved in Newton and Dedham. He was a public-spirited man and interested himself in

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the important questions of the day. He was one of the first to form a temperance society in Newton, which did a good work. He was an anti-slavery man from the time Garrison was mobbed. He lectured in Newton and Dedham on medical and other sub- jects. So able a man was he considered, he was in- vited to edit an anti-slavery paper ; but that he felt obliged to decline, as he could not spare the time from his professional work, and Mr. Edmund Quinsy was selected in his place.

He was interested in education, and served on the School Committee in Newton for some time. He was one of the directors of the Savings Bank in Dedham, and held other offices. Ile died at the age of forty- two, as his widow writes, "just as he began to reap." He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical So- ciety.

STEPHEN HODGMAN SPALDING, son of Joseph Spalding, was born in Chelmsford, Mass., August 4, 1787. He died in South Natick, July, 1866. Ile commenced his medical studies under the tuition of a Dr. Wyman, at that time a practicing physician in Chelmsford. He attended two courses of lectures in Boston, and graduated after studying three years at the IHarvard Medical School.

He commenced practice in Littleton, Mass., re- mained a few years, then removed to Dublin, New Hampshire, where he secured an excellent and lucra- tive practice. After a few years he found that the se- verity of the winters, and the almost impassable state of the roads-being obliged to travel with snow- shoes without any regard to boundary lines or fences -was telling upon his health, and this decided him to accept an invitation to settle in South Natick, Mass., where again he succeeded in building up an extensive practice.

In about 1841 he removed to Newton Upper Falls, and associated himself with his son-in-law, Dr. Sam- uel S. Whitney, who had married his only child, Sarah W. Spalding, in general practice. In 1843 his house and stable were burned. He then settled in Reading, Mass., and continued in practice there for several years. Later in life, after an active practice of thirty years, he retired, and removing back to South Natick, made that his home till he died. In his last years he was a great sufferer from disease. He was a member of the Unitarian Church and Parish of South Natick, and the large number at his funeral attested the re- spect and esteem of his towns-people.

SAMUEL STILLMAN WHITNEY, M.D., son of George Whitney, was born at Natick, Mas -. , January 6, 1815. He died June 30, 1855, leaving a wife and several children, one of whom, Stillman Spalding Whitney, born August 11, 1849, became a physican and died at Allston, Mass., November 7, 1886.

Amherst College. Toward the close of it, however, a long sickness having intervened to prevent his grad- uat ng with his class, he decided not to take a de- gree.

Soon after he entered the office of Dr. S. H. Spald- ing, then practicing in Natick, Mass. The next year he entered the office of Dr. John D. Fisher, of Boston, and continued his medical studies there. The last six months of his studentship he passed in the City In- stitutions at South Boston. He graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1838. Immediately after the death of Dr. Alfred Hosmer, at Newton Upper Falls, he settled in that place, and, from his energy and su- perior ability, rapidly won the esteem and confidence of the community, and a large and widely-extended. practice. Within a year of his settlement there, he married Miss Sarah W. Spalding, only child of his first teacher in the study of medicine.

Dr. Whitney remained at Newton Upper Falls six years, and then removed to Dedham, Mass., in 1844, having been invited to go there by the citizens of the town. He was an early and enthusiastic follower of Laennec, and in the early years of his practice he wrote a paper on " Auscultation and Percussion," which was printed in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. It was considered of so much value, it was reprinted in the British Medical Journal.

He was one of the first operators in this country for strabismus. He successfully attempted staphy- Jorraphy. He performed this operation successfully many times ; once on a gentleman from Canada, who had been operated upon unsuccessfully by the cele - brated Diffenback. He performed a series of opera- tions for the surgical relief of epilepsy.

Before permanently locating in Dedham he went to Europe and spent a year in travel aud study at the leading medical centres, especially following Laennec, Velpeau, Andral and Piorry. On leaving Paris, Piorry presented him with his own long-used plessi- metre as a parting gift, of which he was always very proud, although in general practice he much pre- ferred his own phalangeal bones. His delicacy, quickness and acuteness of ear rendered him very ex- pert in his favorite field of auscultatiou and per- cussion.

Ile was a skillful surgeon, successful in all the larger operations and especially in arts of modern surgery for the cure of congeuital or accidental de- formities.

In the autumn of 1848 he was attacked with diarrhea-a sub-acute enteritis-from which and its effects he never fully recovered. He was sometimes relieved by a sea voyage or a short residence in a warmer climate. In 1853 he began to feel a numb- ness in his lower limbs, which increased till paralysis ensued. A few months later, with a medical attendant, lie sailed for Havana. There, while standing on the capstan of the vessel, he was seized with para-

Dr. Whitney fitted for college at Leicester, Mass., and entered Harvard College at the age of fourteen. After remaining a year at Cambridge, he removed to Amherst, Mass., to complete his collegiate course in | plegia. He returned to New York, was placed on the

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Fall River boat in a helpless condition, and, in the care of a son of Secretary William Seward, was con- veyed to his home and died, peacefully and resigned at the age of forty years.

Many interesting anecdotes are related of Dr. Whitney, illustrating the precocity and wonderful mental powers that he possessed. It is related that before he was fifteen years old he taught school, and in the morning reading in the Bible he would follow the pupils in Hebrew and correct them when in error.

SAMUEL WARREN, M.D., son of Nathan Warren, was born in Weston, Mass., April 23, 1802. His early education was obtained in Framingham, Mass., and at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1819 -22. He entered Yale College in 1822 and re- mained there for two years, then went to the Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1827. He was a deacon in the West Newton Congregational Church. JIe was a biblical student and some of his writings were published in the Bibliotheca Sacra.

Dr. Warren was interested in horticulture, and his botanical studies took a wide range. At one time he was at the head of an academy in West Newton. For several years he practiced medicine in West Newton, where he held valuable real estate.

Dr. Warren was a modest man with a retiring dis- position, without worldly ambition, but was greatly respected and beloved by his neighbors and towns- people. The estimation in which he was held was shown at his funeral, when the entire church was filled by those who wished by their presence to testify their appreciation of him.

He married Miss Ann Catherine Reed, of Charles- town, Massachusetts, August 25, 1829. He died Oc- tober 25, 1867, leaving a widow and one son, Professor S. E. Warren.

ALFRED HOSMER, M.D., son of Jonas Hosmer, was born in Walpole, New Hampshire, November 7, 1802. He died at Newton Upper Falls, November 27, 1837, very suddenly, of disease of the heart, the result of rheumatism in early life. He was a brother of Hiram llosmer, the well-known physician of Watertown. He married Miss Mary Ann Grahame, in December, 1831. At his decease he left a wife, two sons and one daughter, who died early in life. One of his sons, Dr. Alfred Hosmer, a prominent physician, is living in Watertown, Massachusetts.

His early education was obtained in Alstead, New Hampshire. He graduated at the Harvard Medical College in 1828. He located first in Marlboro', Mas- sachusetts. In the autumn of 1829 he went to New- ton Upper Falls, where he practiced till his death.

Dr. Hosmer seldom rode in a carriage, almost in- variably on horseback. His horse was saddled and at the door when he dropped dead. He was a skillful physician and highly estemed, not only by the citi- zens of the town, but throughout a wide region.

EDWARD WARREN, M.D., son of Professor John Warren, M.D., was born in Boston, December, 1804,

and died in Boston, 1878. He was a brother of the celebrated Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston.

He graduated at Harvard College in 1829. He was a member of Massachusetts Medical Society-at one time a councilor ; Boston Society of Natural History, &c. Twice he visited Europe, and traveled quite ex- tensively there.

He wrote the life of Dr. John Collins Warren, which was published in 1859; and the life of Dr. John Warren, which was published in 1874. He commenced practice in Boston after his graduation, but soon removed to Newton, where he resided from 1840 to 1857.

He was eminent as a general practitioner and a skillful surgeon. As a diagnostician he was not ex- celled. The most obscure case seemed to open clearly before his acute investigation. His rapidity in arriv- ing at a correct diagnosis sometimes seemed like intu- ition, when, in fact, it was the result of clear insight and rapid generalizations. He suffered from an im- pediment of speech, which was aggravated by over- fatigue from his practice.

lle was an excellent physician, and called widely in consultation. He was greatly interested in horti- culture and floriculture. Ile was also a devoted churchman, liberal in his gifts to the Episcopal Church at Newton's Lower Falls.

In 1835 he married Caroline Rebecca Ware, daugh- ter of Professor Henry Ware, of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts.

DAVID H. GREGG, M.D., was a prominent physi- cian in Newton, between 1820 and 1840. He took an active part in the temperance work of his day. He delivered an address upon the " Evils of Intemper- ance," before the Newton Temperance Society, July 4, 1828, in which he said, " To promote virtue and to prevent vice-to augment human happiness and to dry up the sources of human wretchedness and want and woe-are the ultimate ends for which this society now assembled has been instituted."

JOEL BROWN, M.D., son of John Brown, was born in Bradford, N. H., October 22, 1812. Ile died in West Newton, Mass., March 19, 1865, leaving a widow, who still survives him. His youth was spent on a farm. He was educated at the academy in Hopkinton, the Kimball Union Academy, located at Meriden, N. H .; and entered Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., from which he graduated in 1841. He taught school successfully in several towns and also in Boston previous to and after his graduation.

President Lord, of Dartmouth College, in a recom- mendation of him, said: "He is a man of unblem- ished character."

While in college he decided to make the practice nf medicine his profession. He entered the Harvard Medical School and afterwards graduated from Dart- mouth Medical College.

While attending lectures at the Harvard Medical School he ascertained there was another Joel Brown,

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and, to save annoyance to either, he interpolated a middle-name-Henry-which he ever afterward used. He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical So- ciety. He first settled in Weymouth, Mass., but removed to West Newton in January, 1848, where he resided till his death.

In February, 1849, he married Miss Sarah R. P. Richmond, of Boston, Mass. One daughter was born to them, who died in her eighth year.

Dr. Brown was a broad and liberal-spirited man- and a reformer. He was an abolitionist of the Gar- rison stamp, save that he believed in voting. He was an earnest peace man on principle, and when, at college, it was attempted to force him to do military duty, he refused, saying they could fine him or pot him in prison, but he would not act the soldier in preparations for war. He was full of humor and witty ; exceedingly dry in his jokes and witticisms, genial, pleasant and loving; true as steel to his friends, and just to all. In religious matters he was a liberal Congregationalist, and highly esteemed in the West Newton Congregational Church, as, in fact, he was by all who knew him. He was one of the founders of " The West Newton Athenaeum " in 1849. Truly, to hundreds of families he was "the beloved physician."

In the Congregationalist, March 24, 1865, the Rev. Dr. Tarbox pays the following tribute to his memory : " Dr. Brown was a most noble example of a Christian physician ; eminently skillful in his profession ; most winning in his manners; always welcome in his visits to the sick-room ; able and willing to give religious instruction and consolation. We speak the mind of the great body of the people in Newton and in the neighboring towns when we say that hardly a man in the town could have been called away whose death would have bronght such a sense of personal loss and bereavement to so many individuals."

In the Newton Cemetery has been erected a monu- ment to his memory by loving friends.

DR. HENRY BIGELOW, the son of Lewis Bigelow, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, May 20. 1817. He was educated in his native town, was fitted in the public schools for Harvard College, which he entered at the age of fifteen years, graduating in the class of

more means of advance, so with his family he moved to Boston in 1844, but remained there less than two years, then moved to Newton early in 1846, where he passed the remainder of his life. lle died Jannary 21, 1866, at the early age of forty-eight years, leaving a widow, two daughters and one son. In that com- paratively short life mach had been accomplished, not only in his profession, in which he held a high position, as the reenrds of the medical society would show (of which he was a member), as well as the tes- timony of all to whom he ministered, in whose hearts he held so high a place as friend as well as physician. To him Newton owes much of its early prosperity. A small town when he settled there, its growth was rapid and vigorous. He had shown his interest in education by taking a position on the School Board in Buxton, and in Newton he soom received a similar position, and held it during his life, being chairman of the School Committee for many years. In religion he was a strong and earnest Unitarian, one of the founders of the Channing Unitarian Society of New- ton, one of the ten whose generosity and devotion enabled the society to build their first church. He remained on the Standing Committee of that church till his death, and was also for many years superin- tendent of the Sunday-school. He never entered the arena of political life in an active way, but his inter- est was quick and strong in all matters of public im- portance,-his hand, his purse and his time ever ready to aid any just cause. In him the poor had a wise and helpful friend. Not only were his profes- sional services often gratuitons, but sympathy and aid were ever generously bestowed. Many were the knotty questions and matters of disagreement which were brought to him for arbitration by those who had perfect confidence in his wisdom and just discrimina- tion. He was influential in securing and laying out one of Newton's most attractive spots, her beautiful cemetery, of which he was one of the trustees, and where nineteen years after his death was raised a most beautiful tribute to his influence-a memorial chapel, testifying the grateful and lasting recollection of one who knew and honored him so truly

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 32

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278