History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 157

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 157

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1 See the biography of Mr. Earle in another place. 2 Governor and United States Senator.

3 Governor.

4 Dr. Woodwerd has not been able to read the proof of this chapter, since the portion of the work containing it was printed so late that the proof could not be sent to him in Europe, where he was at the time of printing .- Ens.

5 Lincoln's "History of Worcester, " p. 216.

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these books," and was so enamored of them, that he " entertained many thoughts of becoming physi- cian and surgeon." Dr. Willard was surgeon in Colonel Chandler's regiment, which left Worcester August 10, 1757, " to give aid and assistance to his majestie's troops." He remained with the army for over three years, and his bill 1 against the province of Massachusetts Bay, for attendance on various members of different companies during this time, amounted to £44 68. 3d. He seems to have been a popular man, of good social position, on terms of intimacy with the Chandlers, Putnams and Paines, and always remembered by his former boarder, who, in his frequent journeyings through Worcester, never forgot to take dinner or tea with the " Dr." In 1771 Adams sees "little alteration in Dr. Willard or his wife in 16 years." But evil days came soon after to the popular physician. His best friends sided with the King. In 1774 he was one of the famous fifty-two "protestors " against "the trea- sonable doings" of the patriots in Worcester. With forty-two others he was obliged to sign a recanta- tion, and May 8, 1775, was ordered "to prove his patriotism by either joining the American troops or providing a substitute, on pain of being considered willing to join an unlawful banditti to murder and ravage." A week later he was among those disarmed, and prevented from leaving town on any pretext whatever. Naturally embittered by these measures, his opinions were made known with a courage and boldness that brought upon him the wrath of the "Sons of Liberty," and he was compelled to sign a re- cantation of his " notorious scandals and falsehoods," and to acknowledge " the perverseness of his wicked heart," which led him to abuse and " most scandalonsly asperse " the proceedings of " Continental and Pro- vincial Congresses, the selectmen of the town, and the Committee of Correspondence in general." His busi- ness was ruined, and he retired to Uxbridge, where his son, Dr. Samuel Willard, A.B. (Harvard) 1767, had been in practice since 1770. Still a stout loyal- ist, his name appears, in 1777, at the head of a short list of persons " esteemed as enemies, and dangerous to this and the other U. S. of America." He died in Uxbridge, April 26, 1792.

His son Levi, born in Worcester in 1749, studied medicine; practised in Mendon, and died there De- cember 11, 1809.

1745 .- DR. SAMUEL BRECK, A.B. (Harvard, 1742), son of Rev. Robert Breck, of Marlboro', where he was born May 17, 1723; married Elizabeth Cooley, of Springfield, in 1744 ; was for a short time surgeon in the Provincial army, and from 1745 to 17472 in prac- tice in Worcester. He afterwards went to Windsor, Ct., and later to Sheffield, where he was "much

esteemed." He died in Springfield April 23, 1764. His house here, "on the common southeast from the mer ting-house," was purchased by the town Septem- ber 25, 1747, and was afterwards the residence of Rev. Thaddeus Maccarty.

1756 .- DR. WILLIAM CRAWFORD, son of Robert, was in turn pedagogue, clergyman and physician. In 1757 he served as chaplain to a company sent to the relief of Fort William Henry. In 1758 he taught the village school, and boarded at Dr. Willard's, "473 weeks at 6 shillings a week." 3 In 1759 he was chaplain of Colonel Abijah Ward's regiment, and in 1760 surgeon in the regiment of General Ruggles. No record of either birth or death remains. He was alive in 1770.

1757 .- DR. JOHN GREEN was the son of Rev. Thomas Green, Baptist elder and physician, one of the earliest settlers of Leicester (Greenville), where he was born August 14, 1736.

Instructed in medicine by his father, he came to Worcester and built his house on the eminence now known as Green Hill, which, although relatively nearer town at that time, when many persons lived north of Lincoln Square, and " there were but seven houses on Main Street between that point and the old South church on the common,"' seems yet to have been at a distance that might well make prospective patients hesitate before storming the steeps in the dead of night or in bad weather. Patients came, however ; medical students, also, from Worcester and surrounding towns; Green Lane became a county road, and although, during the latter part of his life, his office was in a little wooden affair on the present site of the Five Cents Savings Bank, the doctor always lived in the Green Hill house, and there he died forty-two years later (October 29, 1799), aged sixty-three years.

An earnest patriot, he was, in 1773, a member (and the only medical member) of the American Political Society, which was formed " on account of the grievous burdens of the times," and did so much to bring about that change of public sentiment which expelled the adherents of the crown. He took a prominent part in all the Revolutionary proceedings, and, in 1777 was sent as Representative to the General Court. In 1778 and 1779 he was town treasurer, and, in 1780, one of the selectmen, the only physician who ever held that office. His first wife, Mary Osgood, died in 1761. His second wife, daughter of General Timothy Ruggles, of Hardwick, survived him, dying in 1814, at the age of eighty-four. A son, Dr. Elijah Dix Green, born July 4, 1769, A.B. (Brown) 1793, was a physician in Charleston, S. C.

1770 .- DR. ELIJAH DIX, student with Dr. John Green, was both physician and druggist, fitting him- self for the latter business by study with Dr. Wil-

1 Original in Antiquarian Society's Library.

2 Lincoln (p. 213-214) says he was here in 1730. He was then but seven years old.

8 Town records of that year.

4 "Caleb Wall Reminiscences," p. 216.

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liam Greenleaf, of Boston. Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, August 24, 1747, early dependent on his own exertions, and desirous of taking a re- spectable position in society, he hired himself out to that eccentric but thorough scholar, the Rev. Aa- ron Hutchinson, of Grafton, he to receive board and education in return for his services. He practised medicine in Worcester from 1770 to 1795, residing for the last part of the time on the estate next south of the Judge Jennison house on Court Hill, with his of- fice and druggist's establishment in a two-story build- ing near by. The house was pulled down when F. H. Dewey's was erected on its site, but the two mag- nificent elm trees planted at his gate are still stand- ing. His reputation as a physician was good, his practice sufficient, and as his business tact was equal to his professional skill, he accumulated property which was invested in lands in Maine (Dixmont), and later in chemical works, and in the wholesale drug business in Boston. To the latter place he re- moved in 1795, and on one of his expeditions to his Maine property in 1809, was, as was more than sus- pected, foully dealt with. In 1784 he went to Eng- land on business, bringing back a large assortment of medicines, valuable books and philosophical and chemical apparatus. He was the originator of the stock company which purchased land on the west side of Main Street, built the " Centre School-house," and maintained there for some years a higher school, or academy. He was a member of the first board of councillors of tlie County Medical Society. He was the first to plant elms on Main Street, and, by induc- ing others to follow his example, gave the town that mile-long double line of these trees that once shaded the road. From his garden came the Dix pear. To him Dix Street owes its name. With him lived the children of General Warren at the time of the bat- tle of Bunker Hill. The late Dorothea L. Dix, the " American Florence Nightingale," was his grand- daughter. Fire warden in 1790, he was one of the original members of the Worcester Fire Society, and his garden fence was decorated with one of the six ladders belonging to the town. He married (October 1, 1771) Dorothy, sister of Dr. Joseph Lynde, after- wards of Worcester. Two of his sons were physi- cians,-William Dix, A. B. (Harvard) 1792, M. D. (Harvard) 1795, died at Dominica, West Indies, April 4, 1799; and H. Elijah Dix, A.B. (Harvard) 1813, student with Dr. John Warren and later surgeon in the United States Navy, died at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1822.

1771 .- WILLIAM PAINE, M.D., A.B. (Harvard, 1768), eldest son of Hon. Timothy Paine, was born in Worcester June 5, 1750. Graduated at Harvard in 1768, his name standing second in a class of forty, at a time when the names were arranged according to the dignity of families. He studied medicine for four years with the celebrated Dr. Edward A. Holyoke, of Salem, and began practice here in 1772. He opened

the same year in a little wooden building on Lincoln Square, the first drug-store in the county. Early identified with the royal cause, Dr. Paine is supposed to have assisted his uncle, Attorney-General Putnam, in drawing up the bold protest of 1774. He soon after went to England to complete his studies, and in 1775 received the degree of M.D. from the University of Aberdeen. Returning in May of that year, he found, on landing at Salem, that the war had begun, that he had been proclaimed as a refugee, and included in an act of banishment, "to be" (if he returned) " transported back to some place within the posses- sion of forces of the King of Great Britain," and if he should return a second time "to suffer the pains of death without benefit of clergy." It was, of course, impossible to go home, and he returned to England.

In November of the same year (1775) he received the appointment of surgeon in the British Army, and joined the forces in America. He served in Rhode Island and New York until 1782, when he was appointed " Surgeon-General of the King's Forces in America," and ordered to Halifax. Here he re- mained until the reduction of the troops in 1783, when he was dismissed on half-pay with the grant of La Tete Island in Passamaquoddy Bay as a place of residence. He soon removed to St. John, where he entered into practice. He was in 1785 elected to the New Brunswick Assembly, and appointed clerk of that body. The act of banishment having been rescinded in 1787, he returned to his native country, living in Salem until the death of his father, in 1793, when he returned to Worcester, and took possession of the house on Lincoln Street, still standing, and latter- ly known as "The Oaks." Here for forty years he lived, practising medicine to some extent, but, in the latter part of his life, distinguished rather as a man of letters than as a physician. He received the half- pay of a British officer until the War of 1812, when, being called on for service, he resigned his commis- sion, petitioned the Legislature of Massachusetts for naturalization as a citizen of the United States, and, on the granting of the petition, took formal posses- sion of his property, hitherto held by his brother, Judge Paine. He died April 19, 1833, at the age of eighty- three. Dr. Paine became a member of the College of Physicians of London in 1781, and in 1790 was made an honorary member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was a member of the Society of Northern Antiquities of Copenhagen, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Lin- næan, and of the Essex Historical Society. He was one of the founders of the Antiquarian Society, and from 1813-16 its vice-president. He was also one of the incorporators of Worcester Bank, the first bank in the county. He married, September 23, 1773, Lois Orne, daughter of Timothy Orne, of Salem. As a young man of twenty-one, " Dr. Billy Paine " was, by the evidence of John Adams, his whilom schoolmaster, very civil, agreeable and sensible. In

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his later life he was considered "to possess extensive and profound learning and a refined literary taste, and was equally respected as physician and as cit- izen."1

1776 .- DR. JOSEPH LYNDE, in practice here from 1775-83, was born in Charlestown, Mass., February 8, 1749, and came to Worcester with his father, Joseph Lynde, A.B. (Harvard, 1723), after the burn- ing of the former town by the English. He lived on Main Street, on the present site of Bangs Block, was for some time in partnership with his brother-in-law, Dr. Dix, and finally went to Hartford, Conn., where he died January 15, 1829, aged eighty. These Lyndes were related to John Lynde, of Leicester, from whom Lynde Brook derives its name.

1781 .- DR. JOHN GREEN, the second of the name, was a tall, strong man of fine proportions, who seemed eminently qualified to endure the hardships of a practice that extended far into the surrounding country. For the last nine years of his life he was practically the only physician in the place, and his death, after an illness of but a few hours, at the early age of forty-five, made a gap that it seemed for a time impossible to fill. Born in Worcester March 18, 1763, and instructed by his father, the first Dr. Green, he began practice at the age of eighteen, and for twenty-seven years devoted himself exclusively to his profession. Particularly skilled in surgery, his steady hand and keen eye were in demand for many an important operation, " while daily could be seen," says Charles Tappan, "Dr. Green and his half-dozen students mounted on horseback and galloping through the streets as if some one or more were in peril." Of the appearance of the doctor and his "students" something more may be learned from the " Reminis- cences " of the Hon. Levi Lincoln, who, in describ- ing him as one of the original members of the Wor- cester Fire Society, claims that Dr. Green would " often be followed in his queer-looking two-wheeled vehicle by a pack of dogs, or, superb horseman that he was, be seen on the backs of all manner of un- gainly half-broken colts, at full gallop, accompanied by the pack giving mouth as if half a score of hunts- men were at their heels, to the infinite delight of all the urchins in the village." He lived at first in the little wooden office of his father, afterwards in the house next south, built by him and later occupied by his son. His wife was Nancy Barber, grand- daughter of Robert Barber, of Northville. "To his funeral," says the Massachusetts Spy of August 17, 1808 (he died on the 11th of this month), " came the largest concourse of people from this and neighbor- ing towns ever known to be collected here on a simi- lar occasion." " Few have been so loved while liv- ing or so mourned when dead."

1781 .- DR. THADDEUS MACCARTY, A.B. (Yale, 1766), son of Rev. Thaddeus Maccarty, was born in

Worcester, December 19, 1747. His early instructors were John Adams and the Rev. Aaron Hutchinson, of Grafton. His account of the former leads to the conclusion that Adams was a better President than pedagogue. "He used to sit at his desk nearly all the time engaged in writing (sermons, thinks Mac- carty ) and seemed, when not actually writing, ab- sorbed in profound thought and abstracted from everything about him. He kept his school by setting one scholar to teach another."2 Dr. Maccarty studied medicine with the eminent Dr. Frink, of Rutland, for four years, and in 1770 began prac- tice in Dudley, in partnership with Dr. Eben Lillie. In 1773 he went to Fitchburg, being the first and for some years the only practitioner there. None of the five surrounding towns boasted a physician, and he was consequently called upon to do an aston- ishing amount of work. His nearest medical neigh- bor was Dr. Shattuck, of Templeton. In 1775 he was inoculated for the small-pox at a hospital in Great Barrington, by a certain Dr. Latham, who had at that time great reputation in the treatment of the disease by what was known as the method of Dr. Sutton. The method being a secret, a contract was made, by which Dr. Maccarty was empowered to use it in Fitchburg for twenty-one years, Dr. Latham to furnish medicines and to receive one-half the profits, while Dr. Maccarty was neither to sell the medicines nor to try, by analysis or otherwise, to discover their composition. He was also allowed to attend patients anywhere in Worcester County until Dr. Paine (then in England) should return. Escaping, by tact, a warm reception prepared for him on his return to Fitchburg (he was suspected of Toryism) and obtain- ing the necessary license from the Court of Sessions, he opened a small-pox hospital, where over eight hundred patients were inoculated and treated by Dr. Atherton, of Lancaster, and himself. His books show that the moderate fee £1 10s. was all that was de- manded from each person for medical services.

In 1781 his father's failing health called him to Worcester, where he remained eight years, living, after his father's death, in the house on Park Street, east of Portland, formerly belonging to Dr. Samuel Breck. In 1784 he was town physician ; in 1785 he was greatly honored by election to membership in the Massachusetts Medical Society, then in the fourth year of its existence; but his success in Worcester was not great, and, on the death of his wife, in 1789, he went to Keene, N. H., where he was for some time engaged in trade. In the epidemic of 1793-94 he man- aged successfully small-pox hospitals in Charlestown, N.H. and in Keene. In 1796 he became interested in the once famous Perkins "tractors,"-metal points, which, drawn over the skin, were supposed to cure neuralgia, rhenmatism, and all manner of diseases, later shown

2 Manuscript of John W. Stiles prepared for Mr. Lincoln's history. Copy in possession of Mrs. Henry Clarke, a descendant of Dr. Maccarty.

1 Lincoln, p. 216.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

to be as valueless as was the "blue glass" of a few years since, but then eagerly bought at fifty dollars the pair. He died November 21, 1802, aged fifty-five. His wife, to whom he was married in 1775, was Experience, daughter of Thomas Cowdin, of Fitch- burg.

1783 .- DR. SAMUEL PRENTISS, son of Col. Samuel Prentiss, of the Revolutionary Army, was born in Stonington, Conn., in 1759. For a time "military waiter " to bis father, he then studied medicine with Dr. Philip Turner, of Norwich, and when quali- fied, re-entered the army as assistant surgeon and remained until peace was declared. From 1783-86 he was in Worcester, but there were already too many physicians here, and he removed to Northfield, where for more than twenty years he was almost the only operating surgeon in that section. He died in 1819, aged fifty-nine. Lincoln states that he was secretary of a short-lived medical society in 1785. Of this So- ciety, which, if it existed, was the first association of physicians in the county, no trace remains.

1790 .- OLIVER FISKE, M.D. A.B. (Harvard, 1787), was the son of the " well-beloved " Rev. Nathan Fiske, of Brookfield, where he was horn, September 2, 1762. His prompt enlistment in the patriot army in 1780, at the age of eighteen, by stimulating others to follow his example, prevented a draft from the Brookfield company of militia already paraded for that purpose. After the expiration of his term of service he returned home and continued his preparation for Harvard Col- lege, which he entered in 1783. He taught school in Lincoln during the winter vacation of 1786-87, hut procured a substitute and hastened to Worcester when Shays and his men appeared here, arriving in time to make the march to Petersham with General Lincoln. Returning to college, he graduated with his class, aud after studying medicine three years with Dr. Atherton, of Lancaster, began practice in Wor- cester in 1790. He at once took a leading position, and was active in forming the County Medical Society, of which he was secretary from 1794-1802, and libra- rian from 1799-1804. He was the first president of the district society, councillor of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and in 1811 delivered the annual address in Boston, taking for his subject "Certain epidemics which prevail in the county of Worcester," describing the small-pox of 1796 and " spotted fever " of 1810. In 1824 Harvard honored him with the degree of " doctor of medicine." Popular, and as Bradford, in the "N. E. Biog." says of him, "a scien- tific physician, well acquainted with natural Philoso- phy, Chemistry and Physiology," Dr. Fiske, had he devoted himself to his profession, would undoubtedly have made his mark, both as practitioner and medical writer. But his profession soon became secondary to other objects. An ardent Federalist, he exerted no small influence in the party, and terse and epigram- matic articles from his pen, on the questions of the day, are scattered through the current literature of

the time. An orator of no mean ability, he was often called on. Some of these orations and political arti- cles have been printed ; more remain in manuscript. They have been described as useful and practical in matter, and singularly elegant in manner. In 1798 he was town treasurer; from 1800-1803 town clerk, and, in 1803, was appointed special justice of the Court of Common Pleas. From 1813-15 he was a member of the Executive Council, and from 1816-1821 register of deeds. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, corresponding secre- tary of the Linnæan Society of New England, and from 1824-37 of the Worcester Agricultural Society also. He was a member of the Fire Society, and a council- lor of the Antiquarian Society. Increasing deafness caused him to retire from active life about 1822, and the next fifteen years were largely devoted to horti- culture and agriculture. He lived in the old Judge Jennison house on Court Hill, removed when State Street was opened, with an estate reaching from the Dr. Dix place to the Second Church, and extending up the hill as far as Harvard Street. He died in Boston, January 25, 1837, age seventy-four. A son, R. Treat Paine Fiske, A.B. (Harvard, 1818), was a physician in Hingham, where he died in 1866.

Among other physicians bere, previous to 1800, were: Dr. Charles Wheeler, who died June 3, 1761, age thirty-one.

Dr. John Fiske, who died, probably in 1756, and who lived opposite the John Barnard place, on the road to Boston.

Dr. Thomas Nichols, born in Danvers in 1711, who came here from Sutton in 1765, and died December 9, 1794.

Dr. Joseph Walker, student with Dr. John Green, who died July 17, 1781.

Geo. H. Hall, A.B. (Harvard, 1781), MI.B. (Harvard, 1788), who was in practice here for three years, married Sarah, daughter of Gardner Chandler, and in 1791 removed to Brattleboro', Vt., where he died in 1807.

Dr. Samuel Willard, one of the Lancaster Willards, here from 1790-92, and the two Walkers, George and William, sons of Captain John Walker, who com- manded a company of foot in the provincial army. Wm. Walker, born in 1718, was in the army in Nova Scotia in 1755, and in Worcester in 1778, while from Massachusetts Spy of June 5, 1777, we learn that " Last Monday night sennight, George Walker, com- monly called doctor, and one Galloway, two tories, were taken at Bristol and last Saturday were brought back and committed to goal here."

1794 .- WORCESTER MEDICAL SOCIETY .- The char- ter of the Massachusetts Medical Society, granted in 1781, by its limitation of membership to seventy, practically excluded from its benefits the majority of physicians not in the immediate vicinity of Boston.1

I John Frink, of Rutland, was the only incorporator from Worcester County, and in the twenty-two years from 1781 to 1903 but four other Worcester County men were elected to membership, viz., Israel Ather-

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The physicians of the county of Worcester, there- fore, at a meeting held December 18, 1794, voted to form themselves into a fraternity by the title of the Worcester Medical Society, for their "own improve- ment" and to make such knowledge as they might possess as generally useful as possible. By-laws were adopted, and the signers bound themselves to impress upon all their pupils the advantages of a regular medical education, and to recommend attendance upon the medical lectures annually given at the University of Cambridge. The society met semi-an- nually, alternately at Reed's tavern, in Rutland, and at Daniel Heywood's, in Worcester, until 1804, when it was merged in the district organization of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

The list of members includes the majority of those then prominent in the profession, and is as fol- lows : Elijah Dix (Worcester), John Frink (Rutland), Eben H. Phillips (Charlton), John Green ( Worcester), Oliver Fiske (Worcester), Abraham Lowe, John Green, Jr. (Worcester), Spencer Field, Seth Field (Brookfield), Jonathan Shearer, Estes Howe, Robert Cutler (last three county of Hampshire), Silas Allen (Leominster), William Cutler, Abraham Haskell (Ashby), Francis Foxcroft, Eras Babbit, Daniel Fiske, Jona. Learned, Israel Whitin (Winchendon), Daniel Beard, Amasa Scott, Austin Flint (Leicester), William Lamb, Peter Snow (Fitchburg), Tilly Rice, Jr. (Brookfield), John Frink, Jr. (Rutland), Asa Miles, Thomas Babbitt (Brookfield), Amasa Beaman, Richard S. Bridge, Hezekiah Eldridge, Eddy Whitta- ker (Monson), Josiah Howe, William Stone, Matthias Rice, Rev. Jonathan Osgood (Gardner), John Field (Rutland), Nason Spooner (Templeton), Moses Phelps (Hubbardston), Israel Atherton (Lancaster), Nehm. Hinds (Pelham), Israel Trask (Greenwich), Ebenezer Morse (Boylston), Samuel Willard (Uxbridge), Robert Cutler (Amherst), Jonas Prescott (Templeton), Wil- liam Stone (Greenwich), Samuel Guthrie (Brimfield).

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 157

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464