USA > New Jersey > Morris County > A history of Morris County, New Jersey : embracing upwards of two centuries, 1710-1913, Volume I > Part 14
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ton, Philander B. Pierson, John H. Bonsall, George W. Stickle, Francis S. Hoyt, Eugene S. Burke, Henry C. Pitney Jr., and Philip H. Hoffman. It has been a very successful institution, having on deposit over $4,771,000, with surplus and profits of over $455,000, and owns its banking building, corner of South and De Hart streets.
Although Morris county was well supplied with banks and savings banks, there was not a trust company located within the county until 1892, when a long-felt want for an institution of that kind was filled by the organization of The Morristown Trust Company, with a capital of $100,- 000, and a surplus of $50,000. Its first board of directors consisted of Samuel Freeman, Charles F. Cutler, Willard W. Cutler, Frederick Crom- well, Patrick Farrelly, Aurelius B. Hull, Frank M. Hurlbut, Gustav E. Kissel, Luther Kountz, Richard A. McCurdy, Edwin Packard, Hamilton McK. Twombly, John I. Waterbury, and James A. Webb, with Samuel Freeman, president ; Aurelius B. Hull, vice-president ; F. M. Cantine, sec- retary, and Frank M. Hurlbut, treasurer. The capital of the company was afterwards increased to $300,000, and again to $600,000, its present capital being $600,000, while its surplus and undivided profits are over $1,100,000. At the present time its officers are Samuel Freeman, president ; Willard W. Cutler and John H. Capstick, vice-presidents ; John H. B. Coriell, secretary ; Harry A. VanGilder, treasurer; Ralph S. Streett, assistant secretary and assistant treasurer. Its present board of directors are: Samuel Freeman, Willard W. Cutler, Richard A. McCurdy, George G. Frelinghuysen, Otto H. Kahn, Walter G. Oakman, Henry F. Taylor, Louis A. Thebaud, John H. Capstick, Samuel S. Dennis, John N. Wallace, Dudley Olcott, Alfred R. Whitney Jr., James B. Duke, John Claflin, Granville M. White, Harrie T. Hull, William V. S. Thorne, S. Harold Freeman and Nicholas F. Brady.
The company began business in that portion of the Iron Bank Building formerly occupied by the Morris County Savings Bank, but these quarters were soon found to be too small, and it purchased and moved into the building at corner of Park Place and Market street. Its growing business soon required additional room, and it purchased the adjoining building formerly occupied by David P. McClellan, and converted the first floor of these two buildings into one large bank room, where it is still located. It has recently erected a fireproof addition to its building in which it has con- structed a fire, burglar and water proof vault for the use of its safe deposit department. This is an armor-plate vault and one of the best equipped and most modern in the State. The company has also storage vaults for silver and other bulky articles. This trust company is now one of the strongest financial institutions of the State, having on deposit over $7,047,000, and hav- ing paid its depositors interest on their deposits, since its incorporation, over $2,306,300. It acts as executor and trustee, and has had the management of many large and important estates.
In 1911 the American Trust Company was organized and is located at Morristown. It has a capital of $150,000, and a surplus of over $40,000. Its present officers are: Thomas J. Hillery, president ; Charles R. Whitehead, Edson J. Neighbour and A. Heyward McAlpin, vice-presidents ; Victor E. Boell, secretary and treasurer. Its present board of directors are : Harry M. Ball, David S. Brink, Albert Bunn, John W. Decker, Edward W. Elliott, Lyman J. Fish, Martin R. Hilderbrant Jr., Thomas J. Hillery, A. Heyward McAlpin, Edson J. Neighbour, J. W. Farrow, Charlton A. Reed, George E., Reeve, George C. Smith, Lewis C. Tompkins, G. S. VanArsdale, Herman Viedt, Patrick Welsh, Charles R. Whitehead, John V. Wise, Edward M.
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Young, Walter M. Young, David F. Barkman, Isaac D. Lyon, and George W. Melick. Its bank room is located on South street, and it has on deposit over $286,000, and is fitting up a new banking room on South street.
In 1902, the Dover Trust Company was organized, and located at Dover. It has a capital of $100,000 and a surplus and undivided profits of over $52,000, and its deposits are over $1,216,000. Isaac W. Searing is presi- dent ; Edward Kelly, vice-president; and Edward W. Rosevear, secretary and treasurer. The present board of directors are William H. Baker, E. W. Rosevear, John S. Dickerson, Julius Hairhouse, Max Heller, James L. Hurd, Emil G. Kattermann, Edward Kelly, E. J. Neighbour, J. H. Neigh- bour, Robert F. Oram and Isaac W. Searing. Its banking room is pleasantly located on Blackwell street, in Dover, but is now building a banking home of its own.
In 1910 a trust company, called the Madison Trust Company, was located in that borough. It has a capital of $100,000, and a surplus and undivided profits of over $105,000. Its present officers are: Alfred G. Evans, presi- dent; Theodore B. Morris, secretary and treasurer ; John J. C. Humbert, vice-president. Its deposits are over $735,000. This company has com- modious quarters on the corner diagonally opposite the First National Bank. Its directors are Alfred G. Evans, John J. C. Humbert, Samuel H. Miller, Frank McEwan, Albert H. Wiggin, Frank D. Waterman, Theodore B. Morris, Henry W. Shoemaker, Anderson B. Gee, Major A. White, James M. Gifford, Henry Feuchtwanger, Edgar J. Skeel and Walter S. Terrell.
Thus, from a small beginning, the financial institutions have grown until at the present time the county has eight national banks, with a total capital, surplus and undivided profits of over $1,663,000; one State bank, with a capital and surplus and undivided profits of over $94,000; four trust com- panies, with a capital, surplus and undivided profits of over $2,243,000; and one savings bank with a surplus of $455,000; there being on deposit in these wvarious institutions a total aggregate of over $23,650,000.
CHAPTER IX
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION OF MORRIS COUNTY
(Gathered from the records of the Morris County Medical Society, and other sources, covering a period of nearly one hundred years, as com- piled by Henry W. Kice, M. D., secretary of the Morris County Medical Society.)
Whether it be an individual or an organization, if either would leave an impression that will last, it must render some service that will help others. That life is good that reaches out, that fulfills itself in ministra- tion to other lives-and, while service has many forms, the life that counts most is the life that serves most. What service is greatest none may know, for none can disentangle the threads of particular acts from a con- plicated texture of cause and effect, and discover the far-reaching influ- ence of little things.
We owe no greater debt of gratitude to any class of men than to those self-sacrificing, noble-minded men, whose life work has been the alleviation of the burden of suffering that rests upon the world, thus lengthening the span of human existence. Their influence cannot be meas - ured by any known standard ; their helpfulness is as broad as the universe, and their power goes hand in hand with the beneficent laws of nature that come from the source of life itself. Some author has said: "He serves God best who serves humanity most."
The skilled physician, who by the exercise of native talents and acquired ability, is not only performing a service for humanity, but is following in the footsteps of the Teacher who said: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, who lived 460 B. C., said: "Wher- ever there is love of mankind, there is love of the Medical Art." Descartes, of the sixteenth century, said: "If it be at all possible to ennoble mankind, it will be through Medicine." The former was a physician; the latter, a metaphysician. It is the hope of the writer that, if the Father of Medi- cine could so appreciate the medical art two thousand years ago, and Descartes, a few centuries past, could see nothing better for the human race, we of today can better understand the truth of these statements than ever before. It is perfectly safe to believe that this twentieth century is to be characterized by a renewal of interest in health and physical effi- ciency, such as the world has never known, because there is to be in- spired in the individual greater concern for his own health, and a philan- thropic interest in the health of his brother men.
Because of this belief in the people of this age, that they are con- cerned about themselves, we feel that this chapter concerning the Medical Profession will be of interest not only to members of the profession, but to the general reader, as well. Not because of any information here given on medical topics, which is not the object of this chapter, neither to give a history of all the medical men, who have practiced medicine in Morris county. This would be too great an undertaking for a work of this kind. But because of a general interest in health and efficiency greater than at any time in history. As secretary of the Morris County Medical Society, the writer is in possession of some history of this organization, which will
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form a considerable portion of this chapter, recognizing that there are those who have not affiliated themselves with this society, and yet are members of the profession. If there are any of the honorable men of the profession whose names are not mentioned in these pages, it is because the writer was not familiar with the medical men outside of the society. How- ever, we find in looking over the field of Morris county, that there are about twenty-five who may be called members of the medical family who are not affiliated with the Morris County Medical Society. Nine out of the twenty-five are graduates of the Homoeopathic school, and probably belong to some organization representing that faith. These societies are not of the county: Marietta H. C. Woodruff, of Boonton; Robert A. Bennett and Peter S. Hann, of Dover; Anna L. Allaben, George C. Con- nett, both of Morristown; Edward S. Liozeaux, removed; Armin Uebel- acker, George Stuart Willis, Grace F. Wilson and R. Ralston Read, of Morristown. O. M. Walker, of Dover, is practicing Osteopathy.
Of the regular school of medicine, not affiliated with the society : George Coates, of Butler; Wm. F. Patterson, of Chappelhill; Whitfield A. Green, of Chester ; Wm. E. Derry, of Dover; Chas. F. Snyder, of Flor- ham Park; Harvey C. Upchurch, of Succasunna; John C. Houston, of Mendham; George W. Mosier (no data) ; John Miller, of Netcong; George W. Newcomb and Chas. D. Van Romondt, of Pompton Plains ; Enos T. Blackwell, of Stephensburg; Theodore F. Wolfe, of Succasunna. The last named is engaged in literary work, an author of some note. It is impossible to go into detail of the work of each of the above named physicians, but nearly all of them are busy in the healing art, or in the science of medicine, whichever we may prefer to call it.
Medical practice is not confined to the administration of drugs. We would quote from the address of our esteemed Dr. Abraham Jacobi, retir- ing president of the American Medical Association, and, as he says, "The greatest medical body in existence, and the most influential in forming the opinions of the country and exerting itself to remedy all the poor foods,. and to clean all the unsanitary cesspools, and canals and rivers and bays." Further he says, "Our (the profession) tendency is purely scientific." Our ancestors laid much stress on their successes in the treatment of the sick; we, however, on the result of our investigations. Our practical work does not compare with the amount of our knowledge. As long as medicine is art, it will not be science. Others would sink all medicine to the bottom of the sea, claiming with Dr. Holmes, it would be better for mankind, and worse for the fishes. But Dr. Holmes helps us out by saying it is not of the slightest interest to the patient to know whether three or three and one-quarter cubic inches of his lungs are hepatized; whether this or that strand of the spinal marrow is the seat of this or that form of degenera- tion. He wants something to relieve his pain; to mitigate his anguish or dyspnoea, to bring back motion and sensibility to the dead limb."
William Osler, of Oxford University, gives us a few crisp sentences in which he says, (I) "Be critical of the pharmacopoeia, as everything else." (2) "He is the best doctor who knows the worth and the worth- lessness of medicine." (3) "Study your fellow men and fellow women,. and learn to serve them; be their therapos, their servant."
Whether medicine is an art or a science, we believe it would be better for the human family, whom we serve, to unite in one great medical body for the purpose of ennobling mankind. The reason for the existence of any organization is that it may be more powerful. The great work done-
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by medical men is largely due to organized effort. We must realize that the goal to be reached by medicine (not drugs) is the extermination of disease. While trying to eliminate disease, we must heal the sick.
It is true that the physician of today is doing much to talk himself out of business. It is possible that in the not distant future our govern- ment may employ the doctor to keep us well. This is the age of service, and he who enters the field of medicine should do so with the spirit of help- fulness to others. Whether we enter with such spirit, or for personal gain, the product of his brain incidentally is for the public good. The man or corporation who recently reaped a fortune by the oppression of the poor employees today gives back that fortune to the service of humanity. All medical men, therefore, should unite in such effort that will best serve the human family. As practitioners and health purveyors, we can rejoice that State records show that the death rate is diminishing; life prolonged, health preserved, earning power augmented, the State made richer.
In the beginning of this chapter, Hippocrates is called the Father of Medicine, and correctly so. His opinions were recognized and revered for ages, but independence in thought and action made it impossible that Hippocrates' ideas should live for all time. Among the keen observers, original characters and geniuses of mankind, was Dr. Benjamin Rush. We introduce the name of Dr. Rush because he was one of the greatest men of his time, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; lived during the early medical history of New Jersey. While he was born near Philadel- phia, he was a graduate of Princeton, and died three years (1813) before the Morris County Medical Society was born (1816). Being contem- poraneous, we may judge somewhat as to the status of the early men in our medical society, knowing as we do something of what Dr. Rush taught and practiced in his day, who was far in advance of other medical men. We quote him as saying, "The signs and symptoms of disease are so modi- fied by climate, habits, and natural characteristics that one may not argue from one country to another. I honor the name of Hippocrates; but forgive me! Ye votaries of antiquity! if I attempt to pluck a few gray hairs from his venerable head. I was ever an idolator at his altar, nor did I turn apostate from his worship till I was taught that not one-tenth part of his prognostics correspond with modern experience or observtion." We note the use of the words "Modern Experience." Dr. Rush was fore- most in thought, and gave to the world the result of what was modern in those days, and much of which has stood the test to this day, now one hundred years since his death. How many of the modern teachers of this period will be living in history a hundred years hence remains for the pages of history to tell.
Dr. Rush was always a follower of the French physician Batallus, called Sangrado, because of his fondness for the lancet. Dr. Rush was so pleased with the lancet in the yellow fever epidemic of 1790, when he com- menced his treatment with "10 and 10," 10 grains of calomel and 10 grains of jalap, following that dose with a venesection to 10 or 12 ounces of blood, a procedure to be repeated day after day, if necessary, that he adopted this method of treatment as specific for yellow fever, and urged its use in all cases.
A terrible epidemic visited our country during the last ten years of the eighteenth century. It was believed and recorded in history that Dr. Rush saved six thousand cases of yellow fever. In the summer of 1790, in Phila- delphia, there were four thousand one hundred and forty-four cases of the
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fever. The doctor's violent measures were attacked by medical brethren, and yet his success was greater, and he soon became the most noted phy- sician in America. We are told that he would bleed eight or nine times in a single case, taking from fifty to one hundred and fifty ounces of blood. He used the lancet in almost all conditions accompanied by fever. How many of the modern physicians, those who have been in the field for the last twenty-five years, have taken one hundred and fifty ounces of blood from (all) their patients? It would be interesting to know.
One hundred years after this epidemic the modern physician knows nothing of yellow fever. He reads of it in his medical books, and that is the extent of his knowledge. Dr. Lozear proved to the world that a mosquito was the carrier of the disease. Some medical brethren laughed at him. The doctor rolled up his sleeve, allowed an infected mosquito to thrust his bill into his arm. He contracted yellow fever, and died. Today yellow fever is practically unknown, and while Dr. Rush became one of the most noted of physicians in the world, saving a few thousand perhaps of fever cases, Dr. Lozear gave his life to save tens of thousands, proving to all the world that our remedy was not ten and ten, and the lancet, but to get rid, or keep away from this particular kind of mosquito, the distributor of the disease.
The good patients submitted to the doctor's bleeding in the year 1800 to cure them of yellow fever and other ills. It remained for that immortal quartette-Doctors Reed, Carroll, Lozear and Agramente-to demonstrate one hundred years later (1900), that yellow fever can only be acquired by man from the injection into his blood when bitten by a mosquito (Stego- myia) of a germ or parasite as yet unknown, and that other diseases result from infection introduced in this way. The world can never appre- ciate the good resulting from these discoveries. To whom is the Panama Canal due? It is entirely due to the physician who discovered the yellow fever carrier to be a mosquito. Surely the profession is productive of results. And yet we are told that Dr. Rush even in his study of the cause of yellow fever, was most active in urging the non-contagious nature of the disease, and he curiously noted the constant association of swarms of mosquitoes and insect pests during the prevalence of the pestilence.
By thus comparing these noted physicians we may get our bearings of the medical men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For it is safe to say that the average man practicing medicine in the closing years of the eighteenth century was much less capable than Dr. Rush, while the average doctor of today is better equipped for the healing of the sick than the noted Dr. Rush.
The New Jersey Medical Society was organized in 1766, being the oldest in the Union, ten years before Dr. Benjamin Rush signed that im- mortal document, and twenty-five years prior to the great yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. It was a voluntary association for mutual im- provement, and for promoting the welfare of the medical profession. We note that the language sounds very ancient when we read, "Every gentle- man of the profession in the province" (New Jersey was not then a Statc) "was invited to become a member." Such a generous invitation holds good to this day ; but today a physician must first become a member of his county society, and such membership will admit him to the State, and being a member of the State, will admit him to the American Medical Association.
The New Jersey Medical Society received its first charter by an act passed June 2, 1790. "For incorporating a certain number (fifty-two are
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named in the act as corporators) of the physicians and surgeons of this State by the style and title of The Medical Society of New Jersey." This act expired by its own limitation in 1815, and a new act of 1816 provided for a district society in each county, to make their own laws and regulate their own concerns, provided they were not contrary to the constitution of the State society. This act of 1816 placed the control of the society in the hands of fifteen managers, to be elected annually by a plurality of votes. This board was empowered to choose its own officers, and make such by-laws and regulations for the management of its concerns as might be deemed necessary. At the annual meeting of the society, in May of the same year, it constituted district societies in the counties of Middlesex, Somerset, Monmouth, Essex and Morris. So we learn from this brief history of the New Jersey Society that our Morris County Medical Society (or Morris District Society, as it was then called ) was born in 1816.
The terms of this charter, placing the control of the society in the hands of a board of managers, an imperium in imperio, was not acceptable to the profession, and in 1818 a supplement was passed providing that the society should be composed of four delegates from each district society which were, or might hereafter, be formed, who, with the officers for the time being, should constitute the society. This supplementary act, consti- tuting the society by delegates of the local societies, placed it on a new basis, and secured the cordial sympathy and cooperation of the physicians of the State.
The State Society was then made the creature of the local societies, and derived its life from their delegates annually elected. The mode of constituting the society has undergone no substantial change since 1818. In the act of 1823 the presidents of the society "shall rank as Fellows, and be entitled to all the rights and privileges of delegated members." In 1864, the society, desirous of surrendering "all its special privileges and pecuniary immunities, and to reorganize, as nearly as possible, upon the voluntary basis," applied for and obtained its present charter, which went into effect in its centennial year, 1866. The State Society permits "All persons who shall have been or may hereafter be presidents of the society, shall rank as Fellows, and be entitled to all the privileges of delegated members."
From Morris county we find the names of Dr. Lewis Condict, who was ranked as Fellow in the year 1810, before Morris was organized, he having been president of the State prior to the organization of Morris. Nine years later (1819) Dr. Condict was again permitted to rank as Fel- low. This was three years after Morris county was organized. Dr. Lewis Condict had the honor of being the first president of the Morris District Medical Society. Jeptha B. Munn, a Fellow in the year 1828. These two Fellows, with Dr. Charles E. Pierson and Dr. Jonathan Johnes, are the four names who are mentioned as organizers of the county society in 1816. Dr. Lewis Condict practiced in Morristown; died in 1862, aged 89 years. Dr. Munn practiced in Chatham; died in 1863, age 83 years.
After Jeptha B. Munn ranked as a Fellow in 1828, it was not until 1884 that Morris was again honored by a member filling the office of president, when Dr. P. C. Barker, of Morristown, honored the society in this capacity, and also became a Fellow. Dr. John G. Ryerson, of Boon- ton, was the last from Morris upon whom this honor was conferred, who was made president of the State Society in 1893. Dr. Ryerson is still living at a ripe old age. He is a very regular attendant at all the meetings,
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county and State, and with the remarkable record of having attended every meeting for thirty years.
A little of the early history of Morris District Medical Society is copied from the first few pages of the society's minutes :
Morris Town, June 11th, 1816.
In conformity to an appointment of the New Jersey Medical Society convened at New Brunswick on the 14th day of May last: A number of Physicians assembled at Morris Town agreeably to public notice on the 11th inst. to organize a District Medical Society for the County of Morris, when the following officers were ap- pointed : Dr. Lewis Condict, President; Dr. Jeptha B. Munn, Vice-President; Dr. Charles E. Pierson, Treasurer; Dr. John B. Johnes, Secretary. Drs. Joseph Hedges, Hampton Dunham, and William Pierson, were admitted members of the Society.
Resolved: That Dr. Ebenezer H. Pierson, Lewis Condict and Charles E. Pierson be appointed a committee to draft rules and regulations for the government of the society. Resolved : That the Society adjourn to meet again at C. Swayze's tavern in Morris Town on the first Tuesday of July next at 3 oclk P. M. and that the Secre- tary be instructed to invite all regular licensed Practitioners of Physics and Surgery of the County of Morris to attend said adjourned meeting.
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