History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 192

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

USA > Maine > Penobscot County > History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 192

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business interests or aid to build up the community in which his life has been spent.

The religious faith of Mr. Lord is that of the Univer- salists, although he is not in membership in their church. He has twice been elected Vice-President of the Maine State Convention of Universalists.

CAPTAIN CHARLES A. BOUTELLE.

This distinguished gentleman, the senior proprietor and editor-in-chief of the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, is a native of the Pine-tree State, born at Damariscotta, February 9, 1839. When he was but nine years old, in 1848, his parents removed to Brunswick, where he was given a good common-school and academic education. His parents wished him to add a collegiate course; but his father was a prominent shipmaster, and the boy had imbibed a taste for "a life on the ocean wave," which took him early to sea on the vessel of the elder Boutelle, under whom he passed early through several grades of the seafaring profession. He had been on the deep already about nine years, although now but twenty-four years of age, when, upon his return from foreign parts, in February, 1862, he found his country at war. His patriotic instincts led him at once to offer his energies to the Government in that arm of the service for which he felt best fitted; and upon the recommendation of leading commercial houses in New York City, backed by Senator Fessenden and Congressman (now Judge) Walton, of Maine, he was appointed by the Secretary of the Navy as Acting Master, his commission dating from April 8, 1862. He was assigned to the war-steamship Paul Jones, of the South Atlantic Squadron, and served upon it during the blockade of Charleston, participating in the attacks upon Fort Sumter, the occupation of Port Royal by the Federal forces, and the clearance of the Carolina and Georgia Sounds along the coast from the rebel cruisers and gunboats with which they were infested. He also bore honorable part in dangerous shore duty, as at the battle of St. John's Bluff, Florida, and at the capture of Jacksonville, where he commanded a battery of marine howitzers, co-operating with the land forces under Colonel Hawley of the Seventh Connecticut and Colonel Good of the Forty- seventh Pennsylvania infantry regiments. He was then transferred to the squadron engaged in the blockade of Wilmington, where he rendered chief aid in the capture of the Nutfield and the Wild Dayrell, two swift blockade- runners. In the spring of 1864, being then sailing- master and ordnance officer of the gunboat Sassacus, he was in the terrible and close engagement of that vessel with the powerful rebel ram Albemarle, which occurred May 5 of that year, an engagement characterized soon after by a correspondent of the Army and Navy Journal as "one of the most unusual and remarkable naval con- flicts of this or any other war, in which the contending forces were so markedly disproportionate, and the result so contrary to preconceived ideas of 'iron-clad' invinci- bilility, that it may justly claim to take an historical posi-

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

tion on the same page that records the brilliant exploits of Decatur and John Paul Jones." The Albemarle was beaten off and badly disabled, and her consort, the gun- boat Bombshell, with four rifled guns, a large quantity of ammunition, and a full complement of officers and men, was captured. Captain Boutelle's services were conspic- uous in this action. Lieutenant-Commander Roe, of the Sassacus, in his official report said :

I take great pleasure in testifying to the fine conduct of Acting Masters A. W. Muldaur and C. A. Boutelle. These officers were as cool and fearless as at a general exercise. I respectfully recommend each for promotion to the grade of Lieutenant, deserved for good be- havior and ability before the enemy in battle.

Mr. Boutelle was accordingly promoted by Secretary Welles, within three weeks afterwards, to the highest grade which a volunteer officer could then obtain in the navy, an honor conferred for this special reason upon few during the Rebellion,-that of Acting Volunteer Lieutenant, "in consideration," the Secretary wrote, "of your gallant conduct in the action with the rebel ram Albemarle on the 5th inst." He was assigned to the command of a light draught gunboat in the Louisiana waters, but was presently transferred, at his own desire, to the fleet of Admiral Farragut, which was about to attack Mobile. He volunteered to lead the movement upon the defenses, and his was the first vessel to force the obstructions below the city. Upon the retreat of the rebel force, he followed it for some distance up the Tom- bigbee, and captured a cotton laden steamer and a crew from the rebel Admiral Buchanan's flag-ship. He subse- quently held for a time the position of an Acting Com- modore, in command of the naval forces in Mississippi Sound, occupying the waters from Lake Pontchartrain to Mobile Bay. After some further service in the South until the close of and after the war, he was finally dis- charged, at his own request, when near the end of four years of distinguished service, and left the navy January 14, 1866. He afterwards commanded a steamer running between New York and Wilmington, and then accepted an engagement with a prominent shipping commission house in New York City. He had a strong bent for journalism, however, and had already written much in various ways for the newspapers. In the spring of 1870 the proprietors of the Whig and Courier, at Bangor, offered him the post of managing editor of that influen- tial journal. He accepted for a trial of three months, and at the termination of that period consented to a permanent engagement. May 15, 1874, the establish- ment was bought by himself and his present partner, Mr. Benjamin A. Burr, he remaining editor and Mr. Burr taking charge of the publishing department. The history of the Whig and Courier under their conduct is well known through all the Penobscot country. Mr. Howard Owen, in the series of articles on American Journalism, in the New York Telegram, said the following in the forty-fourth number, which was devoted to the Bangor Whig and Courier :

The newspaper men of the State concede to Captain Boutelle a position in the foremost rank of the profession. His style of writing is chaste and cultured, as it is pointed and vigorous. Never striking at a fallen foe, he aims ponderous blows at error in all its forms, while truth and the right, as viewed from the solid and unmistakable Republican

platform'on which he has ever stood, never had a more earnest, devoted, and stalwart defender. In the habit of forming his own opinions, his editorials come out fresh and sparkling from the mint of his own un- biased thought, without waiting to draw ready-made from the metro- politan press, as editors of less breadth of thought find it most conve- nient to do. This independence and fearlessness have given to the Whig a commanding position and influence rarely attained by a news- paper published in a city the size of Bangor.

An editorial reference to the article, in the same num- ber of the Telegram, comprised the following handsome compliments :

An apt illustration of the fitness of the polemic temperament for the press is presented to-day in our history of the Bangor Whig and Cou- rier. The present prominence of that paper is due less to the honor- able record of nearly half a century behind it than to the half-dozen years of Charles A. Boutelle's administration. It will be noticed that Captain Boutelle has displayed the instinct for fighting in every profes- sion or vocation to which he turned his hand, in actual war and in politics. In the conflict of ideas wherein he now bears a leading ban- ner, he has always been a noted and stalwart fighter. All his preceding exertions, tending to develop his talent for aggressiveness, for cham- pionship and leadership, qualified him for his present work. When he stepped into the ranks of journalism he was a journalist ready made.

In the canvass of 1880 Captain Boutelle was the choice of his party as a candidate for Representative in Congress; and although he was pitted against almost hopeless odds, he made a very gallant fight, and came out of it with a highly flattering, though not otherwise successful vote.

WILLIAM H. BROWN, M. D.

Dr. William Hammond Brown, ex-Mayor of Bangor, and long a leading practitioner in the city, belongs to one of the oldest families in Eastern Maine. On his mother's side, as his name may hint, he is a Hammond. His maternal grandfather, Captain William Hammond, from whom the Doctor is named, was the original pro- prietor of most of the tract now occupied by Bangor, on the west side of the Kenduskeag, and from him Ham- mond street is named. He was a soldier of the Revolu- tion, his commission being signed by General John Han- cock, and now in the possession of Dr. Hammond. His daughter Sophia was the wife of Mr. George Washington Brown, who came from Concord, Massachusetts, to Bangor about 1805, and engaged in trade as a merchant in the firm of Taylor & Brown, who occupied a modest frame store on the ground now covered by the elegant Wheelwright & Clark Block. To Mr. and Mrs. Brown were born five children, of whom William was the fourth, and the second son. The oldest brother, George W. (named from his father), is a lawyer in St. Louis, where he has been practicing for many years; the youngest brother, Reuben Howe (also family names), lived in Boston for some time, and died there about ten years ago. The oldest sister, Sophia, married Professor D. S. Talcott, late of the Theological Seminary in Bangor, and is now dead; the younger sister, Mary, became Mrs. George W. Pickering, wife of the well-known business man in West Bangor, and is now also deceased. The venerable mother survived until November 4, 1881, when, at the age of ninety-one years, she departed this life at the residence of her son, the subject of this sketch.

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

William Hammond was born on what is now High street, in this city, June 14, 1822. He attended the public schools to some extent; but at a select school at- tached to the S eminary in his early dayshe was fitted for college. He entered Bowdoin in 1838, and was gradu- ated with honor four years thereafter. He began to read medicine at once with Dr. John Mason, one of the most famous of the old practitioners in Bangor. During three courses he attended the lectures in the Medical Department of Harvard University, at the same time en- joying the advantages of the Tremont Street Medical School, in Boston. He received his diploma from Har- vard in 1850. He had thus spent nearly nine years in faithful and well-directed study before applying for his medical degree. Not satisfied with this, he went abroad and engaged in clinical work and further study under the great masters of London and Paris. He re- ceived his instruction in surgery mainly under the cele- brated Velpeau, and pursued his medical studies at the French capital with the eminent Drs. Valleix, Trous- seau, and Ricard. He also spent several months in Dublin, in studying diseases of the eye under Dr. William R. Wilde, Oculist to the Queen, and at the lying-in hospital known as the Rotunda, then in charge of the eminent obstetrician, Dr. William McClintock, where he made special studies in obstetrics and gynæcology. This very thorough preparation over, he returned and made a final entry upon American practice. Before going abroad he had spent about three years in the profession, in Massachusetts and at his old home, and returned to Bangor for the recommencement of his business. In 1857, his health having failed him in Bangor, by reason of overwork and the severity of the climate, he removed to St. Louis, where he recovered his health and secured a large practice, which he maintained until the outbreak of the war. He then found residence in the border city quite too unpleasant for a Yankee, and turned his face once more to the familiar hills of the Penobscot, among which his life has since been spent, in the active and successful practice of his profession. He has preferred to remain alone in its pursuit, and to cultivate a general practice, rather than specialties, although when in Dublin he intended to become an oculist. Singular to say, also, he has never had more than one student in medicine, and that one Dr. Henry A. Reynolds, later the famous temperance lecturer, and recently founder of the town of Reynolds, in Dakota.

Although somewhat in public office, Dr. Brown has never striven to be prominent in politics, or to take posi- tion as a leader. The first ticket he voted was a Whig one; but he has been an unswerving Republican from the inception of Republicanism. In 1854 his fellow-citizens placed him in the Common Council of this city, where he served one year, and then went abroad. He was re- turned to the City Council in 1878, as a member of the Board of Aldermen ; but at the expiration of his term was elected Mayor of Bangor, and served so acceptably that he was renominated and re-elected to the same post in 1880. He is the only native of the city who has ever thus far been elevated to this distinguished position.

During the late War of the Rebellion his medical abil- ities were in request as a member, under appointment of the Governor, of the State Board for the Examination of Surgeons, before whom candidates for the medical staff of the army were required to appear. He is a member of the Maine Medical Association, and has long been a leading member and for two years President of the Pe- nobscot County Medical Association, of which he was one of the founders. He has been a Free and Accepted Mason for over twenty-seven years, and is now a mem- ber of St. John's Commandery of Knights Templars, in Bangor, and of the subordinate societies.

Dr. Brown was united in marriage June 12, 1851, in Leicester, Massachusetts, to Miss Anna Eliza, only daughter of John and Ann (Jenkins) Woodcock, a worthy couple of that place, of which the father was a native and a child of one of the oldest families. Dr. and Mrs. Brown have two children-Annie Loise, who is with her parents home; and May Hammond, who is married to Professor John L. Stoddard, of Boston, the celebrated tourist and popular lecturer. She has invariably accompanied her husband in his tours of travel, and has thus enjoyed rare facilities for seeing the world.

DR. E. F. SANGER.

Eugene Francis Sanger, M. D., a prominent prac- titioner in Bangor, and a medical officer of celebrity during the late war, was born on the 18th of October, 1829, in Waterville, Maine, oldest son of Zebulon and Charlotte (Wayne) Sanger, and the second of four chil- dren. The father was then engaged in that city as a merchant and lumber operator. He was of Dutch an- cestry, but the family had been in America for some generations, settling originally at Framingham, Massachu- setts. The name is a very rare one in this State. On his mother's side the Doctor shares somewhat remotely the blood of the renowned Revolutionary general, An- thony Wayne. Eugene's early schooling was for a single term in the public schools of Waterville; he then entered the Institute there, and afterwards the Academy, where he completed a preparation for college. He was almost ready for college, indeed, when but thirteen years old ; but his health breaking down, he was unable to complete his preparation until two years afterwards, when he en- tered Waterville College, now Colby University. He spent three years here with credit, and then went to Dartmouth for his senior year. He was graduated from this famous old school with the class of 1849. He then returned to Waterville, after a time visited Virginia, and while there made an engagement as a tutor in the family of Lawrence B. Washington, on the old estate in West- moreland county, where General George Washington was born. He remained with the Washingtons a single win- ter and then returned home. He had already begun to read medicine in a private way, and looked forward to the life of a physician. At Waterville he entered the office of Dr. N. R. Boutelle, and with him finished his preparatory studies. He had meanwhile taken one

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

course of lectures in the Medical Department of Bow- doin College, and another at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, from which he took his diploma in March, 1853. After this very ample preparation, he began practice in the responsible post of Assistant-Sur- geon in the United States Marine Hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts. In the fall of the same year (1853) he was appointed Assistant-Surgeon of the Charity Hospital at New York city, on Blackwell's Island, serving in the various medical departments of the public institutions on the Island. He was a little more than a year in these, and then received an appointment as Assistant Physician in the Children's Hospital on Randall's Island, also near New York City. He declined this flattering appoint- ment, however, and went to Europe instead, where he pursued his professional studies and inquiries in the re- nowned hospitals of Edinburgh, London, and Paris. In about six months he returned to this country, and in May, 1855, settled as a practitioner at Ellsworth, in this State. He remained but two years here, however, and then removed his office to Bangor, where he has since remained in profitable and successful practice, except when absent during the late war. On the 24th of June, 1861, Dr. Sanger was commissioned by Governor Wash- burn as Surgeon of the Sixth Maine Regiment, with the grade of Major. He served in the medical department of the Army of the Potomac until November 9, 1861, when, after due examination, he was commissioned Brig- ade Surgeon, his comission being signed personally- not stamped, as afterwards-with the signature of Presi- dent Lincoln. Out of thirty examined for nine vacancies for this post, he was the third commissioned. On his original appointment, when Surgeons were examined by a State Board, he had been the first commissioned, and was one of but two commissioned as full Surgeons among twenty-five examined. The physician examined next before him had been already appointed by the Governor, was wearing a showy uniform, and was a large, "beefy " fellow. The Doctor is small and wiry; and when the Board came to pass him, the remark went around, "This is a case of Brain against Beef !" He continued to act as Regimental Surgeon, however ; but was attached to the staff of General Hancock as the medical officer of his command until he was ordered to the Department of the Gulf.

In April, 1862, Dr. Sanger reported to General B. F. Butler, at Ship Island, and was assigned as Brigade Sur- geon to the command of General Phelps, of Vermont. After the capture of New Orleans, he was made Medical Purveyor of the Department of the Gulf and Surgeon in charge of St. James Hospital, in the city. He was then assigned to duty as Medical Director of the defenses of New Orleans under General Sherman, and was Surgeon- in-chief of General T. W. Sherman's division during the siege of Port Hudson. It was upon his report that a number of rebel doctors were ordered out of the Federal lines, notwithstanding their declaration that their pres- ence in New Orleans was absolutely necessary to the treatment of yellow fever. The Doctor reported that they were not necessary, and they had to go. He was

presently assigned to General Franklin's (afterwards Gen- eral Emery's) corps, the Nineteenth, as Medical Direct- or, and was with it during the Western Louisiana and Red River expeditions. During the latter, after the retreat from Pleasant Hill, he, in pursuance of a promise made to our wounded men, skillfully penetrated the rebel lines, though under fire, with a small guard and an ambulance load of medical supplies, and actually got back to that place, forty miles distant, was met by a flag of truce (the enemy thinking the whole Federal force had returned), was admitted to the hospitals where the Federal wounded lay, ministered abundantly to their necessities for several days, and finally re-entered the Federal lines safely, after serious difficulties and deten- tions. This feat was hardly paralleled by any other event in the medical service during the war. He was on the staff of General Franklin in the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, when that officer was wounded in the leg and his Judge Advocate had both legs shot off. He had after- wards, in his capacity as Medical Director, the charge of the hospitals at Natchez, and also of the hospital steam- ers on the river. His next assignment was in July, 1864, as Surgeon in charge of the Government hospital at Annapolis Junction, near Washington; and then to the medical charge of the Elmira prison for rebel captives, from August to December of the same year. He long afterwards wrote an elaborate and convincing defense of the management of this prison, in answer to the attack upon it by General Hill, of Georgia, from his place in the Senate chamber - which defense was widely copied and commended iu txe Northern papers.

After Elmira, Surgeon Sanger became Medical Di- rector of the Department of Michigan under General Hooker, and was in charge of the Harper General Hos- pital in Detroit. Finally he reported to General Thomas at Nashville, just after the siege of that city by General Hood, and was made Medical Director of the District of East Tennessee, with general charge of the hospitals on Lookout Mountain. He was once assigned as Medical Director of the Department of Arkansas; but another appointment was substituted for this. His experience with the army was thus very full of important executive work. In September, 1865, he was finally mustered out of the service, and returned to Bangor, where he promptly resumed practice, in which he has since remained steadily, without special incident. His practice has been large and lucrative, especially in the department of surgery. Under Governor Chamberlain's administration he was Surgeon-General on the Executive staff, with the grade of Colonel. During the war, while at Chattanooga, he was breveted Lieutenant-Colonel in the Medical Staff of the army.

Dr. Sanger is reputed to have the largest surgical prac- tice of any surgeon east of Portland. In this department of practice his services are in demand all over Eastern Maine. Besides the usual professional round of duty, Dr. Sanger has contributed numerous papers to medical periodicals and the Transactions of the Maine Medical Society. Among the topics treated are the Resection of Joints, Abscesses of the Lungs, Litholapaxy, Malpractice,

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

etc. The last-named paper was published in pamphlet form, was widely circulated, and obtained much reputa- tion. Some of his cases of exsection of the elbow, during his service with the army, are noticed at length in Dr. Culbertson's prize essay on the Excision of the Larger Joints of the Extremities, published in 1876.

The doctor is a Republican in his political faith, but has not aimed at prominence in politics. He was a mem- ber of the Common Council in 1870-71, and has been Pension Surgeon at Bangor, by appointment of the General Government, since 1868. In 1876 he was chosen President of the State Medical Association. He is an honorary member of the Detroit Academy of Medicine, also of the Baltimore Medical and Surgical Society. He is now Surgeon of the Second Regiment of State Militia.

Dr. Sanger was united in marriage in Boston, Mas- sachusetts, December 9, 1857, to Miss Emily Fay, daughter of Sabin and Caroline (Fay) Pond, of Ells- worth, Maine. They have had three children, all living -- Mary Lottie, born March 27, 1859; Sabin Pond, born September 14, 1861, now a student in Harvard College; and Eugene Boutelle, named from his father and his father's medical preceptor, born February 20, 1871.

DR. SUMNER LAUGHTON.

Sumner Laughton, M. D., is a native of the Pine-tree State, born in the ancient town of Norridgewock, Somer- set county, April 5, 1812, just before the outbreak of the last struggle with Great Britain. He was the youngest child in a family of eight, most of whom lived to vener- able age, one of his brothers, John, dying but a few months ago aged ninety years. He was of English stock, and his father, John Laughton, was one of the early set- tlers of Norridgewock. His elementary education was received in such primary schools as the time and place afforded; but he attended a private academy in Norridge- wock, kept by the Rev. Mr. Brimblecom, thence in 1828 went to Bloomfield Academy, where he remained until the fall of 1829, when he returned to Norridgewock and took a select course of studies under the tuition of the celebrated Rev. Josiah Peet. In 1830 he entered as student the office of Dr. John S. Lynde, of Norridge- wock, father of Mr. John H. Lynde, a former editor of the Bangor Whig and Courier. At the same time he continued his classical studies with a law student in the office of Judge Tenney. In the summer of 1831 young Laughton came to Bangor and studied with Dr. Samuel Bradbury, whose student he remained until Dr. Brad- bury's death in 1833. He had, however, meanwhile at- tended the Medical Department of Bowdoin College, from which he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in March, 1834. After the death of Dr. Bradbury, he pursued his studies during the vacations with Dr. Elihu Baxter. He had meanwhile practiced for a few months, as the habit of medical students not infrequently was in those days, about 1833, in the present town of Passa-

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 192

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100