USA > New Jersey > Burlington County > Burlington > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 33
USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 33
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! See Dr. Wickes' History.
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MEDICAL PRACTICE AND PHYSICIANS.
lean, Dr. George M. Maclean, and Archibald Maclean are still living.
LEWIS FEUILLETEAU WILSON, M.D.,1 was the son of a wealthy planter in the island of St. Christopher, W. I. He graduated at Princeton with honor in 1773, and became tutor in college in 1774. He gave up the study of divinity when the war broke out and studied medicine, and was commissioned surgeon's mate in general hospital in the Continental army in 1778, and surgeon in 1779. After the war he went to England, and upon his return he settled at Prince- ton as a physician. In 1786 he removed to North Carolina to practice medicine, but he abandoncd the practice and became a licensed preacher. He became a distinguished Presbyterian preacher, and died in 1804.
JAMES FERGUSON, M.D., was a physician in Prince- ton, contemporary with Drs. Van Cleve and Stockton. . He studied with Dr. Stockton, and was for a time his partner, and relieved Dr. Stockton in the later part of his life of a part of his practice at the request of Dr. Stockton. He was a son of Josias Ferguson, a native of Pennsylvania, a captain in the Revolution. Josias was a justice of the peace in Princeton, and died in 1836, aged eighty-nine years. Dr. Ferguson was a good physician, and died in 1831, leaving one son, William G. Ferguson, surviving him.
JACOB SCUDDER, M.D., was a native of Princeton or its vicinity. He was a son of Lemuel Scudder, studied medicine with Dr. John Beatty, and removed to Virginia to practice his profession, where he lived for some years. His health failed him, and in about 1814 he returned to Princeton and occupied the Long-
street farm, where J. B. Van Doren now lives. He was a kind and gentle man, and died in 1859.
EZEKIEL P. WILSON, M.D., studied medicine with Dr. Ebenezer Stockton, and for a short time was in partnership with him in practice. He soon after took up his residence in West Windsor, and has con- tinued to practice there till the present time. He is still living therc, very aged. He belongs to West Windsor rather than Princeton.
HORATIO SANSBURY, M.D., was a son of Ralph Sansbury, of Princeton, who was a respectable citizen of some public reputation. He was long a justice of the peace, a prominent scrivener and steward of the college. Dr. Sansbury studied medicine and prac- ticed in Princeton for several years. His health failed, and he died Nov. 4, 1834, in the forty-second year of his age.
JOHN VAN CLEVE, M.D., was born in Lawrence township, in this county, where his parents lived. SAMUEL LADD HOWELL, M.D., was a descendant of a Welsh family in South Jersey, and came to Princeton in 1826, immediately after the death of Dr. John Van Cleve, and took his office. He after- wards bought the property next to the Presbyterian Church, where Professor Stephen Alexander now re- sides. He was a very popular physician and a pol- ished Christian gentleman. Without abandoning his large practice lie accepted a professorship in the col- lege, and gave lectures on anatomy and physiology to the students from 1830 till his death. In 1835 the home of Dr. Howell was invaded by a malignant fever, which terminated the life of the doctor and his son, William Meadc Howell, then a student in college. The Rev. James W. Alexander, D.D, said of him, after coming from his funeral, "He was a model of incalculable liberality and chivalrous honor, and all his feelings were the running over at the brim of these virtues." He left two sons-John and Har- He graduated at Princeton in 1797, and entered the office of Drs. Stockton and Maclean. For some years he was a partner with Dr. Stockton. In 1819 he re- ceived the honorary degree of M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He was a most estimable man, a skillful physician, and a con- sistent Christian. His medical learning caused the faculty of the college to invite him to deliver lectures on medicine. It was contemplated to make him head of the medical department of college, which they in- tended to establish, but his death on Dec. 24, 1826, put an end to it. He married a daughter of Profes- sor Houston. He was elder and trustee of the church, trustee of college, and had some political honors con - ferred upon him. He left six children, three sons and three daughters. Dr. Van Cleve was president of the New Jersey Medical Society in 1815, corre- sponding secretary in 1810-12, recording secretary. 1820-23, and was a valuable member of that associa- , rison-and two daughters, Anna (Mrs. Dodge) and tion. His residence stood where the University Hotel . Sarah. Richard L. Howell, of the New Jersey bar, now stands. It was removed to Bayard Avenue, where it still is.
and Benjamin Howell, M.D., were his brothers, and Mrs. Thomas L. Janeway, D. D., was his sister.
ALFRED A. WOODHULL, M.D., was a son of the Rev. George Spafford Woodhull, pastor for many years of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton. He grad- uated at Nassau Hall in 1828, studied medicine in the office of Dr. Samuel L. Howell, and commenced prac- tice in Princeton with his brother, Dr. John N. Woodhull, just as Dr. Howell died. He married Anna Maria Salomans, granddaughter of President S. S. Smith. He was accomplished and very much beloved, but died in 1836, leaving his widow and one son, Alfred Alexander Woodhull, M.D., a sur- geon in the United States army.
JOHN N. WOODHULL, M.D., was a younger brother of Alfred, before mentioned, and son of Rev. G. S. Woodhull, of Princeton, and grandson of Rev. John Woodhull, D.D., of the old Tennent Church. He was born in Cranberry, N. J., July 25, 1807, and graduated with his brother in the class of 1828. and at the Pennsylvania University in 1831. He first
1 Dr. Wickes', " History of Medicine."
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
began to practice at Middletown, in Monmouth County, but upon the death of Dr. Howell he entered into partnership with his brother Alfred, in Princeton. He was a man of fine personal appearance, with popu- lar manners, industrious, and devoted to his practice, which was very large and extensive. He kept on hand a large supply of medicines, and sold a large quantity of his own compounding, as specifics. He attempted as he became more advanced in years to confine himself to office practice, and removed on a fine farm on Stony Brook, which he farmed with great success. But he returned to Princeton and re- sumed his practice, setting apart special days in a week for office practice. He was a successful practitioner, had a host of friends, never married, accumulated about sixty thousand dollars, and left about one-half of it to the College of New Jersey, and the other half to his nephew, Spafford Woodhull. A scholarship in Princeton College bears his name. After thirty years of laborious practice, never having held a public offiee, he died Jan. 12, 1867, and was buried by his brother in the Princeton Cemetery.
JARED I. DUNN, M.D., came to Princeton from Washington, D. C., prior to 1838, and married a daugh- ter of Robert Bayles, of Kingston, N. J. He was a popular and skillful physician, a handsome person, an active partisan of the Democratic party. He had a good practice and the implicit confidence of his patients. He attended the Episcopal Church. He left a widow and four children, two sons and two daughters. The two daughters are living in this State,-Virginia (Mrs. Langlotz), at Trenton, and Georgianna (MIrs. Rev. Coyle), at Bridgeton. The sons went to the South, and only one is now living.
Dr. Dunn died in January, 1851. He was return- ing at night from Trenton, where he had gone to at- tend the inauguration of Governor Fort, and on the road, about half-way to Princeton, while returning home, his horse, a very spirited one, ran with him and dragged him entangled in the sulky. He was found dead on the road near midnight, and was brought to Princeton and buried in the cemetery.
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, M.D., was born in Prince- ton, a son of the Rev. Archibald Alexander, D.D., of the Princeton Seminary. He did not graduate at the college, but received the honorary degree of A.M. from it in 1836. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine of the Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, in the same ycar. He studied in the office of Dr. Howell, and commenced the practice in Princeton. After a few years he moved to Lambert- ville, N. J., but very soon returned to Princeton, where he spent the remainder of his life. He never married. He became a communicant member of the Second Presbyterian Church a few years before his death. He died at his rooms at the University Hotel, on the Sth day of April, A.D. 1882, after a short ill- ness, aged about sixty-eight years.
GEORGE MCINTOSH MACLEAN, M.D., is a native of
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Princeton, a son of Dr. John Maclean, who came from Glasgow to Princeton in 1795. He graduated at Nassau Hall in 1824 ; studied medieine and began the practice in Princeton, which he continued a few years, and then he went out to Indiana. He has been more occupied as it teacher of chemistry than as a practitioner of medicine. He was Professor of Medi- cal Chemistry at New Albany and at Hanover College, and lectured in other institutions of lower grade. He returned to Princeton in 1866, and is still there. He has published a "Treatise on Somnatology." He has also published several articles in medieal journals of professional interest, and the Indiana State Medical Society published two reports by Dr. Maclean' on "Medical Chemistry," and an article on "Teaching Chemistry," and on "The Elements of Chemistry," besides other articles. He is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church.
WILLIAM FORMAN, M.D., after having spent some time in a drug-store in Philadelphia, studied medicine with Dr. Holcombe, of Allentown, Monmouth Co., N. J. He graduated at the Medical University of New York. He began practice at Paradise, Pa., but soon removed to Allentown, N. J., where he practiced for several years. When Dr. Samuel L. Howell died in Princeton in 1835, Dr. Forman was invited to remove to Princeton, and take his practice. Though in deli- cate health he came to Princeton, and had the patron- age of the most influential families, though not the largest practice among the physicians. He had a brilliant mind, was well informed, kept abreast the science of medicine in its progress, had a literary taste, and was a fine conversationalist. He occupied at the time of his death the old Dr. Van Cleve man- sion and office in Nassau Street. He dicd Feb. 22, 1848, of a malignant typhoid fever which he con- . tracted while attending assiduously patients sick with that disease. He was a member and fellow of the New Jersey State Medical Society, and was held in high estcem by that body. The standing committee of that society in their report in 1848 noticed his death, and recognizing his superior abilities, said, among other complimentary things of Dr. Forman, this :
"In whatever position chance or design placed him he was at home, whether examining the student or candidate for medical honor or the intricate structure of the animated machine, eliciting an explanation of its complicated functions, investigating the extent of his examinant's knowledge of the resources and benefits deducible from surgical science, diving into the modus operandi of reproductive nature, drawing out the nature, kind, and virtues of vegetables, or the destructive character of mineral remedial agents, the same capability was manifested, and when drawn into the extensive field of classic and literary lore the same su- periority was evidenced. The club of Hercules seemed his by natural right of possession ; no faltering, uo hesitation marked his path."
Dr. Forman married Eleanor Quay, of Allentown. He was about fifty-two years of age when he died. Mrs. Professor Stephen Alexander and Miss Eliza Forman are the only surviving members of the family.
JOHN STILLWELL SCHANCK, M.D., LL.D., was a son of Rulef R. Schanck and Mary Stillwell, his
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MEDICAL PRACTICE AND PHYSICIANS.
wife, a daughter of Maj. John Stillwell, an officer in the Revolutionary war. The Stillwell residence was about midway between Middletown and Red Bank in Monmouth County, N. J .; the Schanck residence was near the brick church, where Dr. Van Vranken was long the pastor. The Schanck family tree their Duteh genealogy back to the sixth century. The family coat of arms exhibits a wine-eup with a hand pressing a cluster of grapes.
Dr. Schanek was born A.D. 1817. His mother soon died and his father married a second wife, when the son went to live with his unele, Joseph Stillwell, at the old Stillwell residence. It is interesting to note the little incident in the life of the country boy, which made the present distinguished professor of chemistry in Princeton College. When thirteen or fourteen years old he learned that some itinerant genius was to give a lecture at Middletown Point, at the tavern, on "Electricity." His curiosity to know what that meaut led him and another boy to go and hear it. The lecture was delivered in the sitting-room of the tavern in the presence of from twenty to thirty persons. Vials were used instead of jars. The lec- turer wanted some one to assist him, and to hold the jar or vial, and young Schanck did it, and to his surprise received the charge. The lecture and the experiment excited the curiosity of the boy and set him to inquiring about electricity. Judge Combes was then in Princeton College about graduating, and the boy attacked him with questions about eleetrieity more than he eould answer.
Mr. Combes advised the father of the boy to let him pursue the study, and go to assist Prof. Henry as a boy in his laboratory while lecturing to the classes in college. The result was that through the efforts of Mr. Combes the boy went to the laboratory of Prof. Henry, at Princeton, the next year. He was then waiting on the professor in his lectures to the class which contained Parke Godwin, Attorney-General Brewster, and others. He spent a year and a half in Princeton, and arrangements were made for his edu- cation. He returned to Freehold to school, and then was sent to Lenox, Mass., where he was prepared for college, and he entered Prineeton College in 1838, in the sophomore class. He jumped the junior elass, but did its work, and graduated with the seniors in 1840.
He began the study of medicine with Dr. John N. Woodhull, in Princeton, attended the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated there in 1843. He mar- ried Miss Robbins, of Lenox, settled at Princeton in April, 1843, and began the practice of medicine. He 1 soon acquired a good practice, and in about 1848 he and county. He has a wife and several children.
was made curator in the college, and then was invited by Dr. Maelean and Professor Henry to deliver lec- tures in college on natural history, and then on anatomy and physiology. After the death of Dr. For- man, Dr. Schanck acquired the most of his praefice, and was the leading physician in Princeton, though
not having perhaps the largest range of practice. In 1856, Professor Torrey resigned the chair of chemistry, and Dr. Schanek was elected to a half professorship in that chair, and continued to practice medicine and give leetures in college till 1865, when he received a full professorship, and was obliged to give up his practice. He has been a resident of Princeton for forty years and upwards, and has been one of the most seientific and best-read members of the medical profession, free from all taint of empiricism and in- sincerity in the profession. He is still living and making history for himself.
WESSEL T. STOUT, M.D., was a son of R. M. Stout, of Allentown, N. J., where he was born. He gradu- ated at the University of Pennsylvania, and was first settled for a short time in Hunterdon County. He then came to Princeton in 1851, and practiced there till his death, in February, 1862. He never married.
JOHN H. WARREN, M.D., was a son of Richard Warren, of Princeton. He received his education under Frederick Knighton, iu Princeton, and then pursued his study of medieine in the office of Dr. W. T. Stout and at the University of Pennsylvania. He practiced in Princeton for about twelve years. He died young and unmarried in 1866, aged about forty- six years.
We have enumerated all the known physicians who ever practiced medicine in Princeton and have cither died or removed from the place, except, perhaps, three or four who came here to reside and not to practice, as Dr. A. I. Berry and Dr. Rogers, from New York, and several others who opened their offices, but re- moved before they became fully established as prac- titioners.
The physicians who are at this time living and practicing in Princeton are the following :
WILLIAM J. LYTLE, M.D., was born in the city of Trenton. His father, William Lytle, came from Ire- land, and was a school-teacher and land-surveyor in this county, residing the most of his time in Somerset County, but at his death in Princeton. Dr. Lytle ae- quired an ordinary English education, and commenced the study of medicine and surgery with Dr. Ferdinand S. Schenck, at Six-Mile Run, and attended lectures at the University of New York. After receiving his diploma, he settled first at Metuchen, east of New Brunswick, and then in the year 184- he removed to Princeton, and has continued from that time to the present in a laborious and unremitting practice. He has a fondness for his profession, but an impediment. . and weakness in his speech have kept him from taking an active part in the medical societies of the State
OLIVER HUNT BARTINE, M.D., was born in Tren- ton in 1815; was a son of the Rev. David Bartine. a Methodist preacher and a grandson of Oliver Hunt. : He was a half brother of the late Rev. David W. Bartine, D.D.
Dr. Bartine began early in life to give attention to
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
the study of medicine, in the office of Dr. John Hunt, in Cincinnati, and afterwards with Dr. Ellis, of Rocky Hill. He accompanied his studies with practice, and settled at Middletown Point, in Monmouth County, but in about 1847 he returned to Princeton, and after · having attended several courses of lectures at medi- cal schools in New York and Philadelphia, he received his diploma at the Pennsylvania Medical College in the year 1859. He is a member of the State and County Medical Societies. His first wife was Miss Cottrell, of Princeton, and after her death he married Miss Waker, from New Brunswick, N. J.
JAMES H. WIKOFF, M.D., was born near Long Branch, Monmouth Co., N. J., and is a son of Garret R. Wikoff, of Allentown, N. J. He traces his ancestry to Cornelius Wikoff (or Wykoff), who came from Holland in 1636 on ship "King David," Capt. D. De Vries, and settled on Long Island, where he died, and whose son, Peter Clausen Wikoff, is buried under : the pulpit of the Reformed Church at Flatlands, L. I.
His descendants settled in Monmouth, where they purchased a large tract of land near what is now called Elberon, and occupied it until quite recently. Dr. Wikoff prepared for college at West Nottingham Academy, Cecil Co., MId., under . the Rev. George Burrowes, D.D., now professor in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, California. He entered the sophomore class in the College of New Jersey in ; about ten years.
1849, from which he was graduated in the class of 1851. He studied medicine with W. T. Stout, M.D., in Princeton, and was graduated in the spring of 1854 from the University Medical College of New York City. He settled in the fall of the same year and began the practice of medicine at Hightstown, N. J., where he remained until the spring of 1859, when he removed to Princeton, where he continues in an increasing and successful practice of his chosen profession.
Mr. Wikoff is devoted to his profession, is an ac- knowledged skillful practitioner in medicine and surgery, and of ready and quick perception in the diagnosis of complicated cases of disease. He is in- terested in all that relates to the advancement of medical science in the county and State, and a thoroughi student of his profession. He is a member and trustee of the First Presbyterian Church at Princeton, a member of the Mercer County Medical Society and State Medical Society, and also a mem- ber of the Medico-Legal Society of New York. Dr. Wikoff married, in 1854, Mary, daughter of the late Cornelius C. Cruser, a merchant, and former owner of Cruser's mills, now Aqueduct mills, on the Mill- stone. They have a daughter, an only child, Anna Wikoff.
ELSTON H. BERGEN, M. D., was born in West Wind- · sor; he is a son of I. S. Bergen, a farmer. He was in college at Princeton, but did not graduate; studied medicine with Dr. Wikoff and at the Columbia Col- I
lege Medical School, and settled at Princeton, where he is practicing his profession.
ARTHUR K. MACDONALD, M.D., is a son of the late Rev. James M. Macdonald, D.D., of Princeton, and was born in New York. He graduated at Nassau Hall in 1871. He entered the office of Dr. J. H. Wikotf to study medicine, and in 1874 he graduated at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, and had a position there in a hospital for a short time. Then he was employed as assistant to Dr. Buttolph in the lunatic asylum at Trenton. After six months he was transferred to the new asylum at Morristown, where he remained for over a year. After looking about for a place of settlement, Dr. Macdonald came to Princeton in 1876, opened his office, began to practice his profession, and is giving his attention to it with a promise of success.
JOHN G. BAYLES, born at Kingston, N. J .; son of Robert Bayles. Graduated at Princeton, studied medicine with Dr. Dunn ; after being settled at New Rochelle, Kingston, and Rocky Hill, is now practie- ing at Princeton.
Physicians in Hopewell .- GEORGE W. CASE, M.D., was the earliest resident physician in the vil- lage of Hopewell of whom we have account. He came from New York to this place about A.D. 1800, and he continued bis practice there for forty years. He died in February, 1842.
DR. ROBERT R. RANKIN has been settled there for
DR. ELIAS C. BAKER, a son of Isaac Baker, of Princeton, and a druggist, studied medicine with Dr. John N. Woodhull, and obtained a medical diploma from Yale; after practicing medicine in Princeton for a few years he settled in Hopewell village, and has been there for the last four years, both practicing and selling drugs.
JAMES H. BALDWIN, M.D., after obtaining his license, settled to practice at a place called Stouts- burg, east of the village of Hopewell and near the Somerset County line. We cannot give the precise year, but it must have been in the third decade of the present century. He married a daughter of Abram Stout of that neighborhood, and she is still living. Dr. Baldwin was a good physician and a good Chris- tian gentleman, universally respected by the people and by the profession. He had a large practice and sustained its labors for about forty years; and died greatly honored by the community which he had so long and acceptably served. He was a member of the Reformed Church of Blawenburg.
HENRY WICKAM BLACHLY, M.D., was settled at Pennington. He belonged to a medical family. Hc was a son of the third Ebenezer Blachly, M.D., and was born April 12, 1763. His father lived at Pater- son, N. J., but died at Pennington ou a visit to his son, and was buried there.
Dr. Henry W. Blachly was genial and affable in his manners, estecmed a good physician, and was clected a member of the New Jersey Medical Society
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James H. Trikoff. Am h. D.
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MEDICAL PRACTICE AND PHYSICIANS.
in 1784. He lived a bachelor, though there is an anecdote related of him that when a young man and out at a social party he was bantered to wed one of the young maidens present, possibly his partner in the dance, and being a gallant young man and his partner consenting to the proposal a minister was called. The ceremony was commenced and complied with on his part, but the lady then withdrew her word, and he continued the rest of his life a half-married bachelor.1
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He died Dec. 22, 1843, and was buried in the Presbyterian graveyard at Pennington.
ABSALOM BLACHLY, M.D., was a brother of Dr. Henry Wickam Blachly aforesaid, and was born Feb. 7, 1765. He first studied law and was admitted to practice, but becoming dissatisfied he studied medi- cine, and began its practice at Pennington with his brother, Henry W., and continned there during his long life. He was a close student and was well read, gifted though modest in conversation, his letters written in his old age indicate his fine generous nature. He lived eleven years after his . brother's deatlı. He died Dec. 30, 1854.2.
Dr. Blachly's sister's child, Miss Carmichael, be- came the second wife of President Millard Fillmore.
LEWIS SPRINGER. M.D., was a practicing physi- cian, settled in Pennington for several years from Dr. Neil was preceded in Titusville by Drs. Twining, about 1826 to the time of his death, in 1832. He . J. W. Robinson, Lyman Leavitt, George W. Copeland, came from Delaware, his native place being near and John Meeser, who had been settled there at dif- ferent former periods. Brandywine Springs. He was a physician of much promise and greatly respected. He died of cholera. He was engaged to be married to Miss Elizabeth Welling, a sister of Dr. Henry P. Welling, who had been a student in his office, and when taken with a relapse in his illness, and felt that he was dying, he sent for a magistrate and was married, and executed his will and died within an hour or two.
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