USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 60
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The houses in which Wood was born stands near the waterfront where 8. Now owned by Frances A. Sortwell and called the "Pumpkin House."
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the old shipyards were located, and here he spent so much time as a boy that later in life he stated that he "believed himself capable of stretching a keel, timbering and planking a hull to the point of launching." In the ninth year of his age he began a diary, the keeping of which he faithfully performed for over seventy years. Early in life he developed a taste for good litera- ture, a penchant which endured throughout his lifetime. Sports likewise attracted him and he became a fine swimmer, as well as an excellent skater, and found enjoyment in dancing even when past sixty years of age.
Joseph Wood was a public-spirited citizen. He was a member of the Wis- casset Fire Society, of which his grandfather was one of the founders; a charter member of Arambec Lodge No. 71 in Wiscasset and of Island Lodge No. 120 at Bar Harbor; and it is believed that he was foremost in originating the Past Grands Association in this state. He resurrected the Wiscasset Social Library, founded in the year 1799, but which had lain dor- mant for many years, and by his personal efforts made it function and added to it many volumes. He was always interested in public affairs, his chief concern being that of capital punishment, and he used all the power at his command to have hanging, which he called "legalized murder," abolished in Maine. He was a free thinker and an admirer of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and when his sons were born bestowed upon them the names of those scientists.
In his father's garden on Middle Street there stood an enormous elm, which had been growing there since the days of the American Revolution, and high among the branches of that tree which was long known as the Bailey Elm, he, in his boyhood, had a sheltered platform far above the traffic and travel of the town, where he read and meditated.
His first venture as a printer was when, at the age of sixteen, in company with Charles A. J. Farrar, he published The Wiscasset Herald. This paper was a miniature journal of four pages, three columns each, 10 by 17 inches in size, and was issued weekly. It lasted for three months, when, owing to lack of funds, it was discontinued.
On the first day of January, 1861, Wood entered upon a three years' apprenticeship at the trade of tinsmith under Charles P. Knight. He after- wards served an apprenticeship in the office of the Portland Evening Courier ; and in 1864 he took the various courses at the Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
In 1866 he began job printing in Wiscasset, an occupation in which he
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Rufus King Sewall.
Patience Stapleton.
Rebecca Kingsbury. Born, December 16, 1746; died, August 19, 1816.
Judge Thomas Rice. Born, November 29, 1734; died, April 21, 1812. Married, January 15, 1767, to Rebecca Kingsbury.
Writers and Art
had such success that his attention was turned to newspaper work, and in January, 1869, he issued the first number of the Seaside Oracle, a four-page sheet with three columns to a page, 12 by 17 inches in size. Wood devoted seven of the best years of his life to the Oracle, and when for lack of suffi- cient support, September 30, 1876, he was obliged to remove it to Bath, and a year later relinquish it to his partner, Fenelon G. Barker of Ellsworth, it must have been one of the greatest disappointments of his life. When Mr. Barker bought out Mr. Wood's share of the newspaper, its name was changed to The Bath Commercial.
At the time when Joseph Wood left the Bath newspaper, he returned to Wiscasset and lived in the old homestead for some time almost the life of a recluse. In October, 1877, he became engaged in the insurance business with an office in his house on Middle Street. In May, 1879, he had charge for four weeks of the Oxford Democrat, at Paris, Maine, during the absence of the publisher. In November of that year, Wood opened a job printing establishment at Skowhegan.
During the summer of 1894, Mr. Wood removed to Portland, where he became editor of the Maine Coast Cottager, and when he finally retired from journalistic work, continued to live in Portland until the time of his death, March II, 1923.
Ben Foster
Ben Foster (1852-1896), an internationally known landscape painter, spent several summers in Wiscasset, during the "early nineties" when he stayed in the Stacy house, now the Wiscasset Inn, and painted local scenes.
He was born at North Anson, Maine, and was the son of Paulinus May- hew and Lydia Ring (Hutchins) Foster. His famous picture "Lulled by the Murmuring Stream" was purchased by the French Government for $6,000 and hung in the Luxembourg Gallery. It was the second picture ever sold to the French Government by an American artist. A photographic reproduction has been used as a frontispiece to Embden Town of Yore.
The Corcoran Art Gallery has some of his best productions. One picture entitled "Autumn Leaf" is at the Bowdoin Art Museum and one which he painted for Alexander J. Cunningham was given by the latter to the Wis- casset Public Library and is on the wall in the reading room.
His brother Charles Foster, was a pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts, and
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it was he who painted the portrait of his father which is in the State Capitol at Augusta.
Ben Foster had many friends in Wiscasset, where his kindly nature and personal charm are well remembered.
Joseph Kingsbury Neal
Joseph Kingsbury Neal, the son of Barker and Rebecca (Ballard) Neal, was born in Wiscasset, January 13, 1830. He showed marked artistic ability, and studied with Hammatt Billings. He has left many beautiful water- color sketches made in Scotland and Italy, as well as an excellent pencil sketch of Wiscasset Harbor in 1845, not long before the Edgecomb bridge was built. Had he not died at the age of nineteen, his illustrations would undoubtedly have been famous. -
Elizabeth Pearson Patterson
Elizabeth Pearson Patterson, the daughter of Seth and Laura (Call) Patterson, was born in Dresden, Maine, October 22, 1865. The Patterson family moved to Wiscasset in 1869 and the children were all educated in the common schools of this town.
Miss Patterson early in life showed a marked talent for art and began her work with china painting. When Ben Foster came here for several suc- cessive summers, she took lessons from him and accompanied him on vari- ous sketching tours to reproduce the picturesque scenery of coastal Maine. Monhegan furnished subjects for rugged landscapes of rocks and sea; Boothbay, artistic groupings of wharves and buildings, boats and nets of the fisher folk; while at Wiscasset she painted such historic scenes as the old fort, the Marie Antoinette house, the Powder House, old mills and bridges and woodland views. These she did in water-color.
Later on Miss Patterson went to Boston to pursue her studies in art and at the Museum of Fine Arts she studied portraiture in oils. She was there with Alger Currier, who had been at the Museum for several years when she arrived. Although lacking in originality, her copies of old masters are works of unquestioned merit.
Notable among the pictures which she copied are: "L'Eminence Grise," by Gérôme, depicting a scene where Friar Joseph Richelieu's confidential
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advisers are seen descending the staircase of the Cardinal's palace; the so- called Nattier, formerly owned by Charles Sumner, entitled "Portrait of a Lady," once wrongly attributed to Sir Peter Lely, and the subject identified as the Duchess of Cleveland; another is "Race Horses" by Degas; the "Baby Stuart," the portrait of James I, by Van Dyck; "The Descent of the Bohemians" by Diaz; Le Brun's "Portrait of Marie Antoinette"; Thomas Sully's picture entitled "The Boy with the Torn Hat"; a copy of a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds; and two Rembrandts. These last were her best, for she excelled in refinement of expression and depth of coloring, especially in the use of warm siennas and umbers in their soft brown richness of tone.
Perhaps the best known of all her works is the "Portrait of Sir William Phips" in the old fort at Pemaquid.
For many years Miss Patterson had a studio in her garden on High Street, where she worked and taught with unflagging interest and zeal until her declining health put an end to her labor. She died at Augusta, June 10, 1932.
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XXVI Physicians and Lawyers
W E have no definite knowledge of the first resident physician of Wis- casset, but priority is generally accorded to Dr. Thomas Rice, who studied medicine with Dr. Oliver Prescott of Groton, and who settled in Wiscasset in 1762.
Other physicians who were here before the beginning of the nineteenth century were Dr. Edward Creamer, or Cremore, Dr. Daniel Rose, both of whom came here from Boothbay, Dr. William Barker, Dr. Samuel Adams and Dr. Arnold.
Long before the advent of regular physicians the age-old competition of magic and medicine as a cure for ills had been tried by Indian medicine men, and succeeded by cook-book recipes concocted and administered by the family. Cook-books, in their incipient stage, were replete with "Advice, Cures, and How to make leeches take hold." Black draughts were made and administered, one of these being a compound of senna and manna steeped on the kitchen stove; another was made of brimstone and molasses; balm tea was the tisane for fever; and saffron, or sheep tea, the proper medicine to drive out the measles. "Cream of life pills" and "striplings and molasses" also ranked in the home pharmacopœia at a time when the entire "materia medica" consisted of barely more than ten herbs or "simples" intermingled with thrice ten superstitions.
It was then the custom of the herb-woman to make weekly visitations at the back door, and in a voice with a wail as plaintive as the lament of Jere- miah for Josiah, whine her wares thus:
You don't want to buy any catmint or elder blow, white pine boughs, saxifras, fever- few, Life of men, yews, . . . e-e-e-h?
The botanic (or Indian) doctor claimed that he knew of a tree far up in the land, which would cure the falling sickness. This was thought to be one variety of oak. Cranberries were believed to cure cancer, and wormwood tea, epilepsy.
At least two medicines which for many years had an extensive sale and great popularity, were patented in Wiscasset. One was Colby's Liniment made from a recipe belonging to Fred Colby-a farmer who was for sev-
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Physicians and Lawyers
eral years in charge of the poor house-and considered highly efficacious as a cure for rheumatism; the other was Hall's Salve, an unguent prepared by Albert Hall, and used as a remedy applied externally to abrasions, burns, cuts, etc.
Many of the townspeople still remember the Indian medicine man who visited this town at regular intervals to sell the Kickapoo remedies. With the advent of physicians came the registered pharmacists, and in their hands the science of medicine passed from the experimental stage of the cook- books to definite prescriptions and cures. Indiscriminate bleeding and blis- tering went by the board.
The majority of physicians who have resided and practised in this town graduated from the medical school at Bowdoin. Lest there be confusion be- tween the Maine Medical School and the Bowdoin Medical School, the fol- lowing extract from Hatch's History of Bowdoin will furnish the explanation:
"The medical school at Bowdoin was called from 1877-1911, the Medi- cal School of Maine. It was then incorporated under the name of Bowdoin Medical School."
The Wiscasset physicians, as far as their biographies have been available, are listed below.
Dr. Albee
Fred Houdlette Albee was born April 13, 1876, at Alna, Maine. He is the son of Freylinghuysen White Albee, a progressive farmer, who was born in Wiscasset, October 6, 1848, and was deputy sheriff 1902-1904. His mother was Charlotte Mary Houdlette, born at Dresden, Maine.
Dr. Albee was educated in the common schools of Maine, Lincoln Acad- emy in Newcastle, and Bowdoin College, where he received the degree of B. A. 1899; Harvard University Medical School, M. D. 1903. He was house surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital for two years; Hono- rary Sc. D. University of Vermont, 1916; Sc. D. Bowdoin College, 1917; LL D. Colby College, 1930; Founding Fellow and Governor of the Amer- ican College of Surgeons.
Immediately after retiring from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Albee went to New York City where he began the practice of surgery specializing in bone grafting and bone surgery. He became the director and founder of the Curative Workshop in that city; professor of orthopedic surgery in the post-graduate medical school of Columbia University; hono-
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rary professor of orthopedic surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Atlanta, Georgia. He is the consulting orthopedic surgeon, Broad Street Hospital and Pan-American Clinics; consulting surgeon to the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York as well as twenty hospitals in that state, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont and Florida, and to the Pennsylvania Rail- road, Seaboard Air Line and Police Department of the City of New York. He was also consultant in Orthopedics, Byrd Antarctic Expedition and a member of the Faculty of International Clinics, Paris.
He is the author of Bone Surgery, 1915; Orthopedic and Reconstruction Sur- gery, 1919. That year he was co-author of Encyclopedia Britannica and Human Profits of War. He is a regular contributor to the leading scientific journals and is editor-in-chief of the Rehabilitation Review.
Dr. Albee has lectured and demonstrated his methods of bone grafting in Germany, England, France, Spain, Holland, Cuba, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Roumania, and Czechoslovakia. He was official representative of the Medical Corps, United States Army, to the Inter-Allied Rehabilitation Congress at Rome, in 1919; and also addressed surgical societies at Paris and Bologna the same year. He was honorary president at the Fourth Inter- national Congress for Industrial Accidents and Diseases, at Amsterdam, 1925, and at the Fifth International Congress in Budapest, 1928.
Dr. Albee was chosen as the opening speaker at the German Surgical Congress held in Berlin, April, 1914, just before the outbreak of the World War. In 1916 he was requested by the French War Office to demonstrate his bone graft surgery in various military hospitals in France, and spent six months operating and demonstrating in various hospitals at the front. Dur- ing this time he revolutionized bone graft surgery by his original methods and instruments.
A very important part of Dr. Albee's pioneer work in bone graft surgery has been the invention of an electrically driven bone mill by which auto- matic power driven tools were first applied to the molding of bone at the surgical operating table under strict surgical asepsis. Everything that can be done with wood in a carpenter's shop or with metal in a machine shop, that is as to shaping of the bone can be done with automatic machinery. To illus- trate: a bone graft taken from the tibia with a motor saw is pushed through a dowel shape or lathe, and made into a dowel of any desired size. If fur- ther refinement of technique is necessary, this dowel is then pushed into a die which places threads upon it, preparatory to being inserted as a living
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Physicians and Lawyers
bone graft screw, into the hole drilled into some bony portion of the anat- omy by the same bone mill. Again, bone can be grooved with an adjustable twin circular saw, thus furnishing a perfect inlay when inserted into the gutter.
During the World War Dr. Albee entered the United States Military Service as major and was advanced to colonel, M. R. C. He made valuable observations in France, Italy and Canada before the United States entered the war. His outstanding work in surgery has been commented on in the famous novel, Empty Pockets, by Rupert Hughes, in which the latter gives a description of intricate bone grafting.
Dr. Albee has done much to develop the use of moving pictures as a teaching aid to surgery, being one of the earliest physicians to have clinical films made. He has operated in nearly every capital city of Europe and has shown moving pictures of his work in the great world cities. In October, 1927, at the request of the governments of Czechoslovakia and Rumania he gave lectures on bone-plastic surgery at the Universities of Prague and at Bucharest and Cluj. In appreciation of his work and his attainments as a surgeon, the Regency of Rumania conferred upon him the highest decora- tion which can be given to a civilian, Grand Officer of the Crown of Rumania.
He is much interested in furthering the relationships between the medical profession in the United States and the Latin American countries. One of his trips taking him to Cuba, that government honored him with the decora- tion of Commander of the Order of Carlos P. Finlay, for his services to the medical profession. The above Order is granted by authority of the Cuban Secretary of Public Health. In recognition of his proficiency as a surgeon the King of Spain bestowed on him the decoration of Comendador de la Order de Isabella Catolica,1 and the government of Hungary made him Commander of the Order of Merit. The King of Italy in 1931 bestowed upon him the decoration of Cavaliere della Corona d'Italia.
Of greater merit than all of the honors heaped upon him, highly prized as their significance must be, is the reconstruction of injured bodies and the patient care given to bring broken lives back to usefulness if not to perfect health. Dr. Albee, in the capacity of a member of the Advisory Orthopedic Council to the Surgeon-General during the war, induced one of his intimate friends, Mr. Charles Freeman, to offer gratis to the government his exten- sive estate as a site for a hospital. He also succeeded in appointing various
I. This is the only honor from the old régime that was kept by the Republic.
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members of the staff for this hospital according to an agreement between the Surgeon-General and the Red Cross. This was United States General Army Hospital, Number 3, at Colonia, New Jersey, now no longer in existence.
The hospital consisted of 110 buildings on 200 acres of land. It was erected at a cost of $3,500,000, and there within fifteen months 6,000 pa- tients were treated immediately upon debarkation.
Because of his great interest in furthering all rehabilitation work, he es- tablished in January, 1927, The Rehabilitation Review, a monthly journal which serves as an international forum for the discussion of every phase of restoring the disabled.
Dr. Albee married February 2, 1907, Louella May Berry, and they have one son, Fred Houdlette Albee, Jr. They have a home in Colonia, New Jer- sey, and another in Nokomis, Florida.
Dr. Adams
Samuel Adams, the son of James and Delia Adams, was born in 1771, at the old homestead in that part of Concord now called Lincoln, which was bought by his great-great-grandfather, John Adams, in 1650. Four genera- tions of the family were born at the Adams place.
It is not known that he attended Harvard College, although he took his M. D. at the Harvard Medical School in 1794. He married in 1797, Mar- garet, the daughter of Nathaniel Austin of Charlestown, and that same year Dr. and Mrs. Adams came to Wiscasset to live. They remained here until 1818, when they moved to Boston.
Dr. Samuel Adams died January 27, 1844/45. Mrs. Adams died in 1838. Their six children were all born in Wiscasset. Dr. Adams was admitted to Lincoln Lodge, December 2, 1800, and withdrew from that organization December 27, 1808.
Stuart Chapin, the great-great-grandson of Dr. Samuel Adams, makes his summer home on Montsweag Road, just over the Woolwich line from Wiscasset.
Dr. Bailey
Bernard Andrew Bailey, the son of Benjamin Franklin Bailey, of Wool- wich, and his wife, Marjorie Wright, was born December 25, 1868. He at- tended the Maine Medical School 1888-1890.
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For several years Dr. Bailey lived in New York City where he was a practising physician.
He married Louise Isabel Dunwiddie, whose father came to this country from England. In 1906 the family removed to Wiscasset, where Dr. Bailey was one of the leading physicians.
Their children were: Marjorie; Louise A., now Mrs. Mackay Malcolm; Ruth, now Mrs. Skofield; Edna; Bernard and Barbara.
Dr. Barker
Dr. William Barker appears to have been a resident doctor in Wiscasset for about thirteen years, from 1786 to 1799, when he died on August twenty-sixth of that year and his funeral was attended with Masonic honors by Lincoln Lodge of which he was a member. The records fail to disclose whence he came but it is thought that he was a connection of the Quaker family of that name who lived at Swan Island.
The following record appears in the report of the town meeting, March II, 1790.
Article 16 .- To see if the Town will give liberty to Dr. William Barker to erect a hos- pital for enoculation of Small Pox in some part of the East Parish of this Town where they may think proper for that purpose.
and then follows:
Dismissed from the warrant article 16.
Clearly Dr. Barker was in advance of his time for it was not until several years later that vaccination was considered seriously enough for the select- men to be empowered to obtain "good kine pock matter for the inhabitants of the town."
The Cow Pox Act was forwarded by post, March 20, 1810, to the select- men and superintendents for vaccination of the shire towns of Massachu- setts. This unique document addressed "to the Selectmen of Wiscasset" is still extant.
Dr. Bick ford
Louis Charles Bickford was born at Dresden Mills, Maine, May 12, 1871. He was the son of Louis H. Bickford and Maryetta Avis Allen, daughter of Dr. Horatio Gates Allen (1807-1884), also of Dresden.
Louis C. Bickford graduated from the Maine Medical School at Bruns-
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wick, June 2, 1895. He married, July 21, 1897, Lydia Thwing of Wool- wich. His second wife was Dora Albee, a daughter of Eben Fred Albee of Wiscasset, who survived him. There were no children by either marriage.
Dr. Bickford was in Wiscasset from 1895 to 1907, when he removed to Portland, Maine. In 1909 he went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he re- mained until 1915.
Dr. Bickford died at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, September 16, 1924.
Dr. Browne
Benjamin Randall Browne, the son of Benjamin and Martha (Stevens) Browne, was born in Georgetown, Maine, December 5, 1859. He was the grandson of Benjamin Browne of Shirley, Massachusetts, and Sarah Orne of Edgecomb.
During the period of his residence in Wiscasset until he built a house, in 1888, on High Street2 next to them, Dr. Browne made his home with Dr. and Mrs. Cushman, the latter being a sister of his father.
Dr. Browne graduated from the Maine Medical School in Brunswick in 188 I, and was associated with his uncle, Dr. Cushman, from that time until 1895, when he moved to Newton, Massachusetts. He married Lena E. Patterson of North Edgecomb. Their children are: Benjamin Patterson Browne, born at Wiscasset, January 25, 1893; Mary Charlotte Browne, born at Lancaster, Massachusetts, March 10, 1910; Paul Corliss Browne, born in Bath, Maine, August 18, 1913.
Dr. Chase
Walter Greenough Chase, the son of Charles Greenough and Relief Judith (McQuesten) Chase, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 30, 1859. He was educated at the school of George W. C. Noble and Harvard University, receiving his A. B. with the class of 1882. After graduation he studied for a year at the Harvard Law School. In the autumn of 1896 he entered the Harvard Medical School, and took the degree of M. D. in 1901, after spending the year of 1900-1901 at Johns Hopkins Medical School. The following summer he pursued his studies in Paris, France, while preparing a report on the ozone water purification system.
Dr. Chase was a pioneer in applying moving pictures to educational pur- 2. This house, enlarged and improved, is now the summer home of Baroness Branca, of Florence, Italy.
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poses when he adapted the biography to epilepsy. This branch of scientific research led him to spend much time at Sonyea, New York, and Palmer, Massachusetts, where the epileptic colonies are located, in his efforts to dis- cover the cause and trace the progress of this disease, as well as to reproduce by films the falling sickness in such a way that physicians were enabled to witness the difference between convulsions of greater or lesser intensity for which the French language, both popular and scientific, has adopted the terms of "grand mal" and "petit mal" (i. e. great and little evil).
Most of the present-day advancement made in this line has been founded on his original investigation in this field.
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