History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 35

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 35

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THOMAS FRANCIS CARROLL, M.D., son of Owen Carroll, was born in Lowell, Mass., July 9, 1864. He was educated in the public schools in Lowell and Boston College, Boston, Mass. He graduated at Harvard Medical College and settled in Roxbury, Mass. He removed to Newton, Mass., in 1889, where he continues to practice medicine. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

MYRON J. DAVIS, M.D., settled in Newton in 1886. Afterwards removed to New York; served in the United States Army during the War of the Rebellion ; was appointed on the staff of the Newton Cottage Hospital as specialist in diseases of the eye.

LINCOLN R. STONE, M.D., graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1854. He joined the Massa+ hu- setts Medical Society in 1854. He has been presi- dent of the Middlesex South District Medical Society. He served in the United States Army in the late War of the Rebellion. He is now in practice in Newton, Mass. He served on the Newton School Board for many years.

FRANCIS G. CURTISS, M.D .- He joined the Massa- chusetts Medical Society in 1887. Is now in practice in Newton Centre, Mass.

JAMES R. DEANE, M.D., graduated at Bowdoin (Me.) Medical College iu 1860. He joined the Mas- sachusetts Medical Society in 1874 ; is now in prac- tice in Newton Highlands, Mass.

ALBERT NOTT, M.D., graduated at the University

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of Vermont Medical Department in 1869. He joined the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1875. He is dean of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Boston, Mass. Is now in practice in West Newton, Mass.

FREDERICK L. THAYER, M.D., graduated at Har- vard Medical College in 1871. He joined the Massa- chusetts Medical Society in 1872. Is in practice in West Newton, Mass. He is a member of the Medi- cal Board and on the medical staff of the Newton Cottage Hospital.

FREDERICK W. WEBBER, M.D., son of A. C. Web- ber, M.D., of Cambridge, graduated at the Harvard Medical College in 1879. He joined the Massachu- setts Medical Society in 1880. Is in practice in New- ton, Mass.

DR. SAMUEL WHEAT, son of Moses Wheat, of Concord, Mass., came from Boston to Newton about 1713. He was born in 1703. He died in 1770. At one time he was selectman. Among his sons was

DR. SAMUEL WHEAT, JR., who had a numerous family, sixteen in number. One of his daughters married Dr. Lazarus Beale.

DR. JOIIN COTTON, son of Rev. John Cotton. He was born in 1729 and died in 1758. He married Mary Clark, July 8, 1750. He graduated at Harvard College in 1747.

DR. JOHN STAPLES CRAFT, son of Moses Craft, married Elizabeth Park, May, 1758.

DR. JOHN DRUCE, supposed to be the son of John Druce, 3d. Graduated at Harvard College in 1738. Married Margaret Trowbridge, daughter of Deacon William Trowbridge, in April, 1749.

DR. HENRY PRATT died in 1745. Married Ruth Learned, Dec., 1709.

DR. SAMUEL WHITEWELL, West Newton, born 1754; died 1791. Afterwards settled in Boston as head of the firm Whitewell, Bond & Co., auctioneers.

DR. JOHN ALLEN, son of John Allen, died 1758. Married Jerusha Cook, of Windham, Ct., in 1745. He left at his decease one son (?) and five daughters, one of whom, Jerusha, married Dr. Samuel Wheat, Jr., in 1766.

DR. LAZARUS BEALE, son of Lazarus Beale, of Hingham, Mass. Married Lydia Wheat in 1749. She was probably a daughter of Dr. Samuel Wheat, Jr.

DR. EDWARD DURANT, son of Edward Durant, Jr., married Mary Park, daughter of Edward Park, Nov., 1762. He went privateering during the Revo- lutionary War and was never heard of afterwards.

DR. ABRAHAM D. DEARBORN was born in Exeter, N. H. (?) Bought the practice of Dr. Samuel S. Whitney and settled at Newton Upper Falls in 1844. He left Newton in 1854 or 1855. He was well edu- cated in his profession, particularly courteous in man- ner and greatly respected.

DR. JAMES H. GRANT was the immediate successor of Dr. Abraham D. Dearborn at Newton Upper Falls in 1854 or 1855. He left Newton after a few years

and went to New Hampshire. He was succeeded by Dr. William H. Hildreth.

DR. J. F. HIGGINS settled in Newton Upper Falls in 1854 or 1855. He practiced medicine five or six years and died there.

DR. WILLIAM READ settled in Newton Upper Falls in 1836. He practiced medicine there about one year and then removed to Boston, where he practiced as a specialist in diseases of the rectum. He died in Bos- ton in 1889.

ALBERT KENDALL, M.D., was born in 1828 and died in 1862. He was admitted a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1855.

LUTHER CLARK, M.D. - Graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1836 and settled in Newton.

HENRY G. DAVIS, M.D .- Graduated at Yale Col- lege Medical Department in 1839; settled in Newton.

W. SARGENT, M.D .- Graduated at Department of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania in 1847; settled in Newton, Mass.

THOMAS D. SMITH, M.D .- Graduated at Bowdoin Medical College, Brunswick, Me., in 1867; settled in Newton, Mass.

JOHN F. BOOTHBY, M.D .- Graduated at Dartmouth Medical College, Hanover, N. H., in 1879. Settled in Newton Centre, Mass .; afterwards removed to Chelsea, Mass.

DR. EZRA NICHOLS settled in Newton Lower Falls. DR. JONES, no record, except name.

DR. NORMAN STEVENS joined the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1851. Died in West Newton, Mass., in 1871.

DR. CYRUS SWEETSER MANN joined the Massachu- setts Medical Society in 1843. Lived in Newton, Mass.

DR. ENOS SUMNER, recorded as a land-owner in Newton in 1778.

CHAPTER XI.

NEWTON-(Continued).

HOMEOPATHY.

BY HOWARD P. BELLOWS, M.D.

THE history of homoeopathy in Newton begins in the year 1849, when Dr. Joseph Birnstill, a native of Germany, removed from Boston to Newton Corner, as it was then called, and introduced the new system of practice. For twelve years he remained not only the pioneer, but the sole representative of this school in Newton. At the end of that time, in the year 1861, Dr. Frederick Niles Palmer, a graduate of the Home- opathic Medical College of Pennsylvania of the year 1853, removed from Gardiner, Me., and settled first in West Newton, and two years later, in 1863, in Newton, where Dr. Birnstill was still practicing. In

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

this same year and month-April, 1863-a third rep- resentative of this school, Dr. Edward P. Scales, a graduate of Dartmouth '55 and of the Cleveland ITomœopathic Hospital College, of the year 1859, came to Newton and joined his colleagues in building up homeopathy in this city. Dr. Scales bad first practiced for two years following his graduation in Norwood, Mass. (now South Dedham), and during the next two years in Winchester, Mass.,-removing from thence to Newton, where he still remains in the full practice of his profession with unabated vigor, being not only the senior representative of the home- opathic school, but also the longest resident physi- cian of any kind in Newton. As such he took a lead- ing part in the establishment of the Newton Cottage Hospital, which will be spoken of later as the most interesting and important event connected with the history of homeopathy in Newton.

Of Dr. Scales' two earliest colleagues Dr. Birnstill died suddenly, of hemorrhage of the lungs, February 16, 1867, aged fifty-six years, having practiced in Newton for eighteen years. Dr. Palmer continued to practice in Newton until the autumn of 1869, eight years in all, when he removed to Boston, introducing as his successor in Newton Dr. T. S. Keith. After seventeen years' residence and practice in Boston Dr. Palmer died, May 10, 1886, aged seventy-two years; a faithful and skilful physician, punctilious in every courtesy, and of such kindly spirit that his genial presence is still missed at every gathering of his col- leagues.

Three years after the coming of Drs. Palmer and Scales, in the year 1866, Dr. W. H. Sanders, a brother of Dr. O. S. Sanders, of Boston, also settled in Newton. After two years of practice here he removed to Wis- consin in 1868, leaving as his successor Dr. J. H. Osborne, from New York, who remained, however, but six months. About this same time Dr. Charles W. Taylor, a graduate of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Cleveland in 1853, settled in Newtonville. Dr. Taylor first practiced in Westfield, Mass., then in Malden, Mass., whence he removed to Newtonville. Never a strong man, the fatigue and exposure of prac- tice induced bronchial consumption, and in hopes of arresting this disease Dr. Taylor, in the fall of 1873, sold his practice to Dr. Morgan J. Rhees, and removed to South Carolina. Receiving no benefit from the change, he returned North and resided in Wilbraham, Mass., until January 13, 1875, when he died, in his fifty-fifth year.

It was shortly after the settlement of Dr. Taylor in Newtonville that Dr. Theodore S. Keith came to New- ton in 1869, and assumed the practice of Dr. Palmer. Dr. Keith began his professional life during the war, being appointed medical cadet in the United States Army May 12, 1862. He served in the hospitals in Alexandria and Washington until Jan. 16, 1863, when he entered the naval service as acting assistant surgeon, and April 6, 1866, was promoted to acting

past-assistant surgeon. He was first ordered to the U. S. steamer " E. B. Hall," doing duty in the South Atlantic Squadron. In 1864 he was ordered to the U. S. steamer " Peterhoff" at New York, and after- wards to the U. S. steamer " Cimarron " for further duty in the South Atlantic Squadron. Later he was ordered to the U. S. steamer " Passaic " and returned to Philadelphia, and then to the U. S. steamer " Monocacy " at Baltimore. He was finally relieved at Washington, D. C., and ordered to duty at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Department, where he remained until he received his honorable discharge, July 2nd, 1868. In the same year, 1868, he graduated from the Harvard Medical School. His practice in Newton extended over a period of nearly nineteen years, from October 18, 1869, to Sept. 13, 1888, when death removed him from the large circle of patients and friends which he had formed around him.

In the year 1873 Dr. Morgan J. Rhees purchased the practice of Dr. Taylor and settled in Newtonville. Dr. Rhees was a graduate of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, of the year 1841, and came to Newtonville from Hollidaysburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1878 he sold his practice to Dr. George S. Woodman and removed to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he still.resides and practices. About the time of Dr. Rhees' settlement in Newtonville, Dr. Levi Pierce came to Newton Centre, but remained little longer than one year, when he removed to Everett, Mass.

Up to this time additions to the number of practi- tioners of the new school were made very slowly, but at the end of this period the success and popularity of the new treatment seems to have created a demand for more physicians, for in the next few years we find their number increasing steadily and their practices increasing in the same ratio. First. in this group came Dr. F. E. Crockett, a graduate of the Philadel- phia University of Medicine and Surgery of the year 1867. Dr. Crockett began the practice of his profes- sion in Norway, Maine, where he remained until the year 1874, when he came to this city and settled him- self at West Newton, where he is still engaged in practice. In the following year Dr. S. A. Sylvester, a graduate of the Boston University School of Medi- cine, of the year 1875, settled himself in Newton Cen- tre and there still remains in practice. The next year, 1876, Newton itself received an accession in the coming of Dr. James Utley, from Taunton, Massachu- setts. Dr. Utley received medical degrees from Bow- doin, in 1874, and from the Hahnemann Medical Col- lege of Philadelphia in 1875. He practiced in Taun- ton two years before his settlement in Newton, but has no reason to desire any further change of residence or field of practice. Ile is at present assisted by his son, Dr. E. R. Utley, a graduate of Amherst and of the Harvard Medical School. During the term of 1888-89 Dr. James Utley was Lecturer on Minor Surgery in the Boston University School of Medicine.

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NEWTON.

The next village in Newton to receive a physician was the Upper Falls, where Dr. Eben Thompson, a graduate of the Pulte Medical College, of Cincinnati, began a practice which he still continues. Newton- ville was selected by the next comer, Dr. George S. Woodman, who left a practice in Lynn, Massachu- setts, in 1878, to purchase that of Dr. M. J. Rhees. Dr. Woodman received degrees from Amherst College in 1846 and 1849, and from Harvard University Med- ical School in 1849. At the beginning of the war, in 1861, he was appointed by Abraham Lincoln surgeon of the Board of Enrollment for the Second District of the State of New York, which office he held until the end of the war. Since 1878 he has continued to re- side in Newtonville and is still in active practice. Towards the close of the same year, 1878, Dr. Howard P. Bellows settled in Auburndale, having previously practiced in Boston. Dr. Bellows received degrees. from Cornell University in 1875 and 1879, and from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1877. With the exception of one year he has been connected with the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine since his graduation, first as Lecturer on Physiology, and, after further preparation abroad, as professor in the same chair; and later, after another course of special study abroad, as Lecturer on Otol- ogy, afterwards Professor of Otology, which chair he still occupies. In the spring of 1890, after eleven and a half years of practice in Auburndale, during the last five of which he was also engaged in special practice in Boston, Dr. Bellows sold his entire general prac- tice to Dr. Mortimer H. Clarke, confining his own practice exclusively to his specialty, diseases of the ear, and changed his residence from Auburndale to West Newton. After Dr. Bellows the next physician of this school to choose a location in Newton was Dr. E. N. Kingsbury, a graduate of the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia, of the year 1880, who came from Spenser, Massachusetts, to Newton Centre in 1884, but removed two years later to Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The following year Dr. W. E. Rich- ards, of Boston, removed his residence to Newtonville while continuing his office in Boston, practicing in both places. Atter about three years he discontinued this arrangement and returned to Boston to reside there as formerly.

Coming to more recent arrivals, we find, within about three years past, eight new physicians of this school settling in the various villages of Newton, several of whom still remain. Dr. Virginia F. Bry- ant, a graduate of the Boston University School of Medicine of the year 1884, settled at Newton High- lands in 1887-having practiced for three years pre- viously in Boston. In the latter part of 1889 she re- moved to Jamaica Plain. In the summer of the same year, 1887, Dr. Clara D. Reed, a graduate of the Bos- ton University School of Medicine of the year 1878, removed from Bellows Falls, Vt., where she had prac- ticed for nine years, and settled at Newton. In the

following year, 1888, Dr. George H. Talbot, a gradu- ate of the Boston University School of Medicine of the year 1882, also removed from Bellows Falls, Vt., after five years of practice there, and settled in Newton- ville. The same year, 1888, Dr. F. L. McIntosh, a graduate of the Hahnemann Medical College of Phil- adelphia of the year 1881, se tled in Newton. From 1881 to 1886 Dr. McIntosh practiced in Claremont, N. H., and thence removed to Melrose, Mass., where he practiced for two years before coming to Newton. He came to assume the practice of Dr. T. S. Keith upon his decease. The third physician to settle in Newton io the year 1888 was Dr. Mortimer H. Clarke, son of the late Dr. Henry B. Clarke, of New Bedford, Mass., who came from the service of the Brooklyn Homeopathic IIospital to associate himself in practice with Dr. Beliows and became his successor eighteen months later. Dr. Clarke received degrees from Harvard University '83 and from the Boston Univer- sity School of Medicine iu the year 1888. In 1889 Dr. C. H. Fessenden, a graduate of the Boston Uni- versity School of Medicine of the year 1886, removed from Manchester, N. H., where he had practiced for three years, to Newton Centre. In the same year Dr. Samuel Lewis Eaton settled at the Newton High- lands. He is a graduate of Yale College '77 and of the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago of the year 1882. For the first year after receiving his med- ical degree he practiced in the office of Dr. C. W. Butler, in Montclair, New Jersey, thence removing to Orange, N. J., where he practiced a little over five years before coming to Newton. The last physician of the new school who has settled in Newton is Dr. Henry P. Perkins, who came in April, 1890, to take up his residence and begin practice in West Newton. Dr. Perkins graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1881 and practiced first in Lowell, later in Canandaigua, N. Y., from whence he removed here.

Besides the foregoing physicians several others have made Newton their place of residence, or field of practice, for longer or shorter periods and then gone elsewhere. In Newton Dr. Harriet A. Loring, agrad- nate of the Boston University School of Medicine of the year 1876, practiced for a year or two and then removed to Boston. In West Newton Dr. Samuel Ayer Kimball, of the Boston University School of Medicine, class of'83, practiced about six months and thence removed to Melrose, Mass., and later to Bos- ton. At Auburndale, during the absences of Dr. Bel- lows, his practice was conducted by Dr. George R. Southwick, of Boston, upon two occasions, once for a full year, and upon another occasion by Dr. S. H. Spaulding, now of Hingham, Mass. Also at Auburn- dale, at the Lasell Seminary, there have been settled two resident physicians-first, Dr. Maude Kent, a graduate of the Boston University School of Medi- cine, of the year 1886, and at the present time Dr. Martha C. Champlin, who graduated from the same medical school in the year 1889.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Aside from the evidence of the growth and spread of homeopathy in Newton as furnished by the in- creasing number of physicians who settle here and the size and quality of their practices the chief interest attaching to the development of the new school in this city, and of the public sentiment with which it is regarded, centres about the Newton Cottage Hos- pital. This institution, which is now in the full ex- ercise of its usefulness, was first projected in 1880. The first meeting was held in January of that year at the house of the Rev. Dr. Shinn, and was attended by the friends of both systems of medical practice. It was then determined to enter upon the work for the good of the community at large, and afford to all who came for treatment the same facility for choosing a physician of either school that they enjoyed at their own homes. Upon these lines the work went forward. Money was subscribed by all who felt interest in the hospital as a hospital, irrespective of the school of treatment which its inmates might prefer to employ. When, in the further development of the plan, it be- came necessary to provide a staff of physicians and surgeons, and a supply of medical and surgical appli- ances, as well as a building and a matron and nurses, the executive committee and trustees created a Medi- cal Board consisting of eight physicians, four from each school of practice, who received a standing ap pointment with power to nominate annually the mem- bers of the medical and surgical staff of the hospital and regulate their terms of service; to recommend purchases and renewals of medical and surgical sup- plies ; to recommend any measures or changes which may increase the usefulness of the hospital so far as relates to the medical and surgical service; and, in short, to act between the executive committee and trustees on the one hand and the medical and surgical staff on the other in whatever manner seems wisest for the best usefulness and success of the hospital.

Upon the first meeting of this Medical Board, April 9, 1886, the most perfect harmony was found to ex- ist between its several members, and it became evident at once that each member present felt that the interests of the hospital itself came before every other interest, and that all questions of school would be administered with perfect fairness and forbearance to secure the common end in view. The president of the board was chosen from one school and the secre- tary from the other, and all committees were chosen in the most equitable manner possible. Questions re- lating to one school alone were referred to a commit- tee from that school only, and all questions interesting both alike were treated without the slightest sugges- tion of any difference in school. Rules and regula- tions for the working service of the hospital were arranged and passed to the Executive Committee for adoption, and these secured the perfect equality of the two schools-providing that two complete medical and surgical staffs should always be in attendance at the same time, one consisting wholly of members of

the Massachusetts Medical Society and the other of members of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Medical Society ; that the patients of the two staffs should be assigned to opposite sides of the wards, when practica- ble, or be otherwise kept distinct; that each patient upon entrance should choose the school by which he wished to be treated, and that when no choice was ex- pressed the matron should assign them in regular alter- nate order to each school. The result of this provision has been perfect harmony from the beginning. In the board there has not from the very first been a sin- gle jar or discordant element, and upon the staffs no trouble has ever arisen between the schools in a single instance. This working harmony in the same hos- pital, and in the same wards, which has heretofore been deemed an impossibility as a matter of theory, has in our Newton Cottage Hospital been shown to be entirely possible as a matter of practical demonstra- tion.

The Medical Board of the hospital, as it has stood unaltered from the first, is as follows :

Otis E. Hunt, M.D., president (R.); H. P. Bellows, M.D., secretary (H) ; Henry M. Field, M.D. (R); Edw. P. Scales, M.D. (H); F. L. Thayer, M.D. (R); F. E. Crockett, M.D. (H) ; R. P. Loring, M.D. (R); S. A. Sylvester, M.D. (H).

The staff upon the homeopathic side, as originally appointed in 1886, and as it served the first year, was as follows :

Physicians-Edw. P. Scales, M.D .; T. S. Keith, M.D .; S. A. Sylvester, M.D .; G.S. Woodman, M.D .; F. E. Crockett, M.D .; W. E. Richards, M.D.

Consulting Physicians-Edw. P. Scales, M.D .; F. E. Crockett, M.D.

Surgeon-James Utley, M.D.

Specialist, Diseases of the Ear-H. P. Bellows, M.D.

For the present year of service there are no changes save that Dr. McIntosh takes the place of Dr. Keith, deceased ; Dr. Talbot takes the place of Dr. Richards, removed from the city ; and Dr. Clarke has received appointment as surgeon.

CHAPTER XII.

NEWTON-(Continued.)

GEOLOGY OF NEWTON. BY J. F. FRISBIE, M.D.

NEWTON is bounded on the north, west and south by the valley of the Charles River, and on the east by another depressed area. Between the north and south boundaries rises a range of hills with the axis running east and west. The outcropping ledges are slate, slate-breccia, conglomerate (pudding-stone) and amygdaloids.

The northern side of the city is underlaid-in

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places overlaid-by slate and slate-breccia, contain- ing specimens finely ripple-marked. On Jewett Street is an outcrop of slate-breccia of unusual in- terest. This breccia is formed of angular fragments of an older slate imbedded in a newer. The ledge was upfolded, and in after-time that huge planing- machine, the glacier, slow-moving but ponderons and irresistible, plowed its way across, smoothing its ir- regularities, leaving long striæ to mark where some sharp, angular fragment of quartz or other hard, firm rock chiseled a line as it moved along. In places these parallel lines have been traced sixty to seventy-five feet. On Homer Street another out- cropping ledge shows the glacial striæ running in the same direction-from north to south.

At Newton Centre and southeastward the conglom- erate (pudding-stone) crops out in hills and bold escarpments, very fine aud picturesque, as seen near Hammond's Pond.

When the upfolding took place-when this region arose from its watery bed-huge fissures and grad- ing, down to the minutest seams, were formed as the crust folded and wrinkled, and into these was forced and ejected the semi-plastic and melted material from deep down below, and dykes and traps cut these older rocks in every direction, of varying width and extent; and some of these narrow cracks were filled, in after-time, by a deposit of mineral held in solution by the hot, boiling water bubbling up from the depth of miles below.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 35

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