Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 34

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review
Number of Pages: 1256

USA > New York > Wyoming County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y > Part 34
USA > New York > Livingston County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y > Part 34

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After his discharge from the service at Cloud's Mills, Va., in July, 1865, the war being ended, he returned to Dansville, and accepted a position as clerk in the clothing store of Fritz Durr, with whom he remained until the spring of 1872. Mr. Kramer next formed a copartnership with his brother Fred, and established a clothing business in the Krein Block, under the firm name of William Kramer & Brother, said firm remaining in business until 1886. William Kramer then purchased his brother's interest, and continued the business until 1893, when he admitted his son Fred as a partner, the firm being now William Kramer & Son. They carry a full line of ready-made clothing and gentlemen's furnishings. A custom tailoring department, under the management of his son Carl, is a great addition to the business.

Mr. Kramer married Margaret Huber, a na- tive of Dansville, whose father was a farmer, and came to Western New York many years ago from Germany. Mrs. Kramer is the mother of six children, namely : Mary E., who married Edward C. Schwingle, a dealer in

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WILLIAM KRAMER.

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hardware and farming implements at Dans- ville, and who has one child named Margaret ; Fred L. ; Carl B. ; William; and Florine. William died at the age of eighteen, and a twin sister at the age of three months. The children were educated at the public schools of Dansville. Fred also attended the normal school at Geneseo, and both he and Carl B. attended the business college at Rochester.

Mr. Kramer is a member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 115, A. F. & A. M., Canaseraga Lodge, No. 123, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of Royal Arch Chapter, No. 94, and has been Commander of Seth N. Hedges Post, Grand Army of the Republic, for three years, and Officer of the Day for several years. He has been a member of the Board of Education for several years, as well as Vice-President of the Merchants' and Farmers' National Bank, and has served the public in various stations, from Corporation Clerk to Supervisor. Having been identified with many matters of interest to the general community, besides being closely attentive to his own private affairs, he has faithfully discharged the duties of the different positions of public trust which have fallen to him, with both credit to himself and his con- stituents.

A portrait of this patriotic, eminently use- ful, and highly esteemed citizen meets the eye of the reader on another page.

LEXANDER HUSTON, an extensive farmer of Geneseo, Livingston County, N. Y., favorably known in these parts, is a native of County Antrim, Ireland, where he was born in February, 1820. His father, David Huston, and his grand- father, Thomas Huston, were natives of the same county, the latter being of Scotch ances- try and a weaver by trade. David Huston ac- quired the calling of his progenitor at the period when all the looms were operated by hand, following that occupation a part of the time, the remainder being spent in tilling the soil, until the year 1848, when he came to America to pass his declining years with his children. He died at Geneseo, at the ripe old age of eighty-five years. David Huston's

wife was Jane Kirkwood, of County Antrim, daughter of Thomas and Jane (Alexander) Kirkwood. Her family were also of Scotch ancestry. She died at the age of seventy-one years, having given birth to seven children ; namely, Thomas, James, Alexander, Jane, David, William, and Mary. Thomas still re- sides at the old homestead in Ireland; while all the rest came to America, where James and Mary have since died, David and Alexander, the subject of this sketch, being residents of Geneseo.

Alexander Huston was a weaver himself in his younger days, and followed that calling until 1846, when he, in company with two of his brothers, emigrated to America, leaving Belfast, March 28, for Liverpool, where they embarked on a sailing-vessel, landing in New York the seventh day of May. He came directly to Geneseo by the way of the Hudson River to Albany, and thence by the Erie and Genesce Canals. For a time he worked for monthly wages, but ere long he began life for himself upon rented land. He continued in this manner until able to purchase a small tract of five acres for himself. From this small beginning he rapidly rose in prosperity, steadily adding to his landed possessions, which at the present time amount to four hun- dred and ninety-four acres, nearly all of which is under the highest state of cultivation.

Mr. Huston married Sarah McDill, of County Antrim, Ireland, who, like himself, is of sturdy Scotch ancestry; and five children have been born to them; namely, Alexander N., Jennie J., Agnes J., Mina J., and Sarah A. Mr. and Mrs. Huston have the highest respect and esteem of their fellow-townsmen, and richly deserve the abundant prosperity which they have so laboriously acquired. They are enjoying the peace and contentment of a moral and religious life, Mrs. Huston being a member of the Baptist church.

ILLIAM BEATTY WOOSTER is a prominent resident of the town of Leicester, Livingston County, N. Y. His birthplace, however, was in Schenectady County; and his birthday was Christmas,

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1828, when Andrew Jackson's triumph over John Quincy Adams was delighting the Demo- cratic party.

It is thought that his grandfather, Reuben Wooster, was born in Danbury, Conn., a de- scendant of one of four brothers who came from England in the early Colonial days. Reuben removed from Connecticut to Dutchess County, New York, and finally settled in Duanesburg, Schenectady County, where he spent the rest of his days, working at his trade of tailor. He had a son, William Ward Wooster, who was born in Dutchess County on the first day of balmy June, in the first year of this century, but grew up in Duanesburg, and there lived till 1833, when thirty-three years old.

William W. and his wife then went to Rochester via the Erie Canal, and thence came to Livingston County, where he pur- chased of David Shepard the place known as the Granger farm, located five miles from Geneseo and four miles from Mount Morris. On that farm he died, in 1855; and his re- mains lie in the churchyard of the United Presbyterian church of Covington. His wife was Marion Milroy, a native of Princetown, Schenectady County, a daughter of Anthony Milroy, who came from Scotland. The grand- father, John Milroy, also came from Scotland, in the very first year of the American Revolu- tion, 1775, and became one of the Princetown pioneers when this settlement was known as Currie's Bush. He once lived on the site of the old capitol in the city of Albany; but his later years were passed in the town of New Scotland, Albany County. Mrs. Marion Wooster outlived her husband, and died aged seventy-five, having reared three children - Jane Ann, William Beatty, and Anthony Mil- roy Wooster. Jane is now the widow of Hugh D. McCall, and resides in Woodward, Ia. Anthony Milroy died June 25, 1888.

William Beatty Wooster was very young when his parents came to Livingston County. He first attended the district school, but later went to the Temple Hill Academy. He re- mained with his parents till he was eighteen, and then settled on the farm he now owns by inheritance from his uncle, Mr. William Beatty. It is a beautiful place in the Genesee

valley, five miles from the village of Geneseo, and four miles from Mount Morris. In addi- tion to general farming, he has of late years been engaged in the produce business with Dorus Thompson, in Moscow. In 1856, at the age of twenty-eight, he was married to Mar- garet Jane Gifford, of Princetown, daughter of William Gifford and Catherine Wingate. The Woosters have four children : Jane Anthony, born in 1857; George Bradshaw, born in 1859; William G., born in 1863; and Beatty, born in 1867. Mr. William B. Wooster is a Trus- tee and Elder in the United Presbyterian church. As a Republican he has filled various offices of trust, having served seven terms as a member of the county Board of Supervisors, and later as Sheriff, to which post he was elected in the centennial year. Well has it been written -

"No grace is more necessary to the Chris- tian worker than fidelity - the humble grace that marches on in sunshine and storm, when no banners are waving and there is no music to cheer the weary feet."

FORGE MILES PALMER, M. D. Whether it helps or hinders, heredity is a formative influence in every char- acter. Observation and Scripture teach this, though Mr. Depew is reported to have said of Lincoln that he "did not represent heredity, for he had none." The influence of heredity is not plain if we do not interpret it fairly. In the last analysis, however, it is always felt. A glimpse of ancestry and surroundings, with pertinent facts and sidelights of opportunity, cannot well be left out, even in a short sketch of life and character. We know them better by knowing where they grew. Mr. James says, "We know very little about a talent till we know where it grew up."

It cannot be said that a man has lived in vain because we cannot see any great or imme- diate result of his life. To live up to his op- portunity, to do what the hand finds to do, to act right, as it is given him to see the right --- by this a man may deserve a statue when a vulgar man who poses for greatness earns only contempt. We are not considering one of

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Plutarch's men. We would write fairly of the career of a man who deserves mention among those who live to a purpose, though his esti- mate of himself would be modest enough.

George Miles Palmer, M. D., was born at Angelica, then the county seat of Allegany County, New York, October 4, 1827. His father, John Flavel Palmer, who was Sheriff of Cattaraugus County, New York, in the year 1846, was born in Connecticut in the year 1800. Stephen Palmer, the father of John, was born and spent his life in Connecticut. His lineal ancestor was Walter Palmer, a stout Puritan, who came to Stonington, Conn., from Plymouth Colony in 1653, having emi- grated from London, England, to Massachu- setts Colony in 1629, and moved from there to Plymouth in 1642.

The maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch was John Mullender, a Scotchman, whose father was driven from the land of his birth, like many another north-of-the-Tweed man in the middle of the eighteenth century, because he favored the Stuart claim to the English throne. John Mullender married Catherine Van Winkle, the daughter of a Dutch burgher who had settled in the Mohawk valley. He was Sheriff of Allegany County in 1813, and was killed by a falling limb when travelling on horseback along the bridle path that was then the only highway from Ham- mondsport to Angelica. His daughter, Cath- erine Scaffe Mullender, wife of John F. Palmer, and the mother of George Miles Palmer, was born at Angelica in 1804. She was the first white child born in Allegany County. She died December 21, 1894.

It may be inferred from the time and place of his birth, without detailed statement, that young Palmer's opportunities at school were limited in character and extent. He had the common-school instruction usual half a century ago in the lumber district about the head waters of the Alleghany River. From the age of thirteen years he was practically thrown upon his own resources. The boy is so far "father of the man" that it would be difficult, were it desirable, to state in such a case pre- cisely where actual preparation begins for the pursuit which finally becomes the chosen work

of a successful life. The bent of young Palmer's mind was indicated early. With an open sense of his opportunity, when he heard of a surgical operation he sought to witness it, sometimes going ten or twelve miles for this purpose, when other boys talked about the coming and were satisfied with the show of a travelling circus. Drs. Colgrove and Simeon Capron were then surgeons of local prominence in Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties. These able practitioners took a kindly interest in the boy, and in their professional work gave him object-lessons which proved a formative influ- ence in his development. An older brother, the late John Mullender Palmer, who was afterward a surgeon in the War of the Rebell- ion, also helped him.

Nature urged and directed his growing ambi- tion, as she always directs and inspires the boy who is to make a useful man. There were obstacles in his way. The manner of sur- mounting them, and the fact that they were surmounted, vindicated the quality of his man- hood. He began to read medicine under the direction of his brother. As an auxiliary and a stepping-stone to his profession, he studied, and from 1854 to 1864 he practised dentistry, for which his mechanical aptitude fitted him. He attended two courses of medical lectures at the University of Michigan, and afterward at- tended courses at Buffalo Medical College, where he graduated and received his diploma in 1864. He also passed the special examina- tion then required for service as an army sur- geon, and was designated for such service with orders to report at Beaufort, N.C. Eight years later he attended a course of lectures at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York. So the purpose and ambition of his boyhood crystallized into his chosen pursuit. His profession has been the master passion of his life; and thirty years of active practice have shown how wisely he chose, and how well he could follow his calling. Such success proves fitness for his profession, and shows that the healing art or the science of surgery is not a more jealous mistress than he an earnest devotee. To use Sydney Smith's apt illustration, his choice was not a vain "at- tempt to fit a round peg to a square hole. "

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While this is true, he has not been so en- grossed in professional duties as to overlook the demands of citizenship. Dr. Palmer has never been an indifferent spectator of political events. He gives no assent to the shallow platitude of the man who does not vote, and who believes that the success of the defeated candidate in any Presidential election of the last fifty years would not have materially affected the prosperity of the country. Dr. Palmer has been a Republican from the birth of that party, devoted to its principles, influ- ential in its councils, and a contributor to its success. He has been Supervisor of his town five terms. In 1880-81 and again in 1884-85 he was the representative of Wyoming County in the State legislature. In the language of that day, he was a stalwart. Personally he was friendly to Mr. Conkling. The arrogant leader who had quarrelled with Mr. Blaine and sulked in the last campaign, had resigned the United States Senatorship, thrown down the gage to the President because he had used his discretion in making an appointment to office, and asked the legislature to send him back to this vacant seat, - in effect, to proclaim the hostility of New York to the Garfield adminis- tration at the outset. The candidate sum- moned the Assemblyman to an interview, and spoke of the situation. His visitor frankly told the haughty leader he could not be elected. "I thought you were one of us. You do not understand the situation," said the great orator. "I have supported you," was the reply, "and I regret that you are not now the senior Senator from New York; but you threw away your opportunity and resigned your trust. I have accepted your resignation and cannot vote for you." Through months of fruitless balloting, of intrigue, and base methods, the member from Wyoming was the manly opponent of the proud leader he had formerly followed, and the honest servant of the people who elected him.

While faithful performance of these duties attests his usefulness as a public servant, political service was only an episode in his busy life. In his view such service becomes a duty which every citizen owes to the State when he is called to it. This belief, however,

has nothing in common with the spirit that seeks place for what individual profit can be made in it, and degrades politics into a mer- cenary scramble for pelf. Undertaken as duties in his career, they were gladly laid down when the occasion came. His political service in no sense eclipsed what he regarded as the real business of his life, or prevented his keeping abreast of the advanced medical investigation of the time. Leaves from the diary of a physician, in this case, would illus- trate the mechanical and technical skill which supplements the elementary learning of the profession and insures skillful surgery. A vol- ume of judicious selections might be gleaned from his note-books that would prove useful to the practitioner, interesting to the intelligent reader, and a credit to the professional skill it would illustrate.

The case related by Abercrombie of the woodman who remained in a semi-comatose state for a year after a blow on the head, and, on being trepanned, completed the sentence he began before he was struck, has an authenti- cated parallel in the boy of thirteen years who was knocked down by a blow on the head from a stone thrown by a boy with whom he was quarrelling. The patient lay for weeks in a semi-unconscious state. Medical treatment gave no relief. The physicians in attendance declared the case beyond their skill, and pro- nounced a cure impossible. Dr. Palmer was then called. He made his diagnosis, honestly stated the possibilities, and assumed the re- sponsibility of an operation which proved suc- cessful in his hands after others pronounced the case hopeless. The first words the boy uttered completed the angry sentence begun a month before, when the missile of his antagon- ist broke it abruptly.

There is a strange case of a boy of fourteen who had ridden a bicycle, become heated, then undressed and plunged into a pond, when he felt, he said afterward, as if a sharp blow had been dealt just over and behind his left eye. Violent headache and delirium followed, with occasional partial paralysis after a few days. A swelling came just under the superior border of the orbit of the left eye. It grew rapidly until there was complete motor paralysis of the

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right side. The microscope revealed parti- cles of dead bone in the contents of this abscess. Then a tumor developed in the mid- dle and upper surface of the forehead. After the second abscess began to heal, and after some exfoliation of the outer plate of bone, a large vascular tumor appeared on the top of the head. Introducing a drainage tube through the tumor along the cranial surface, the pro- fuse flow of blood made it necessary to close both ends of the tube. The sensations of the operator may be more easily imagined than de- scribed. The emergency was met, however, and skill triumphed. Dead bone was removed from time to time. Treatment extended over a period of eighty days. The troublesome symptoms at last disappeared, and the boy regained his usual health. His intellectual faculties were unimpaired. He pursued a course of study, graduated from a seminary with credit, and learned and practised teleg- raphy until he received a fatal electric shock. "It was to me," said the Doctor, "one of the most interesting cases that ever came under my observation. I have never been able to give it a name, and I have seen no literature that gives any explanation of its peculiar feat- ures. ... These two cases show the wonder- ful tenacity with which the two great factors of our being, the physical and the mental, cling to their vitality, and retain their integ- rity under so hopeless and adverse conditions. In one the intellectual and physical organs could be paralyzed by a little pressure of the thumb and fingers: in the other, after long weeks of stupor that made the whole life a blank, the removal of the pressure instantly restored all the faculties."

With less modesty Dr. Palmer might have gained more notoriety. He has followed the traditions of the profession, and left advertis- ing to itinerants, and newspaper accounts of miraculous cures to the quacks. He has never encouraged reports that magnify trivial opera- tions into capital, and represent the work of cutting a fish-hook out of a boy's thumb or opening a felon as operations worthy of Mott. Yet one who has opportunity to look over the Doctor's note-books can hardly avoid the re- flection that he might contribute to the relief

of suffering on a field broader than his own patients and practice, should he give due pub- licity to his crucial cases within the limits approved by the faculty. The Doctor's com- mon sense is not smothered under a burden of theory and bookish rules. Asked in the lect- ure-room how he would treat a case of pneu- monia, he replied : "I don't know. Show me a patient, and I will indicate the treatment." "You would treat the patient, not the disease ? So would I," said the lecturer. In no sense rash or careless, either in diagnosis or treat- ment, - in fact, patient and painstaking in investigation, his faculties are trained, his knowledge is in hand and available in emer- gencies, his reading and observation have as- similated into faculty so that he has the cour- age of his convictions; and he sometimes wins success because he dares to do what duller men of equal information would hesitate to attempt. In emergencies profound knowledge is useless without prompt action; and, in critical mo- ments, when to do is quite as important as what.

Instances are not wanting which illustrate his personality and character better than formal statement. We can only indicate one or two here. He once had charge of Union soldiers who had been sent to hospital after their release from rebel prisons. He cared tenderly for these men, who had stood in ser- ried ranks, closed up as their comrades fell, and moved steadily forward, looking into the muzzles of the enemy's guns. Men who had been starved into the weakness of children shed glad tears when they tasted dainty food, and brave men wept when the Doctor gave them delicacies which recalled a mother's care. Patriotic sentiment was quickened by such duty and surroundings.

In April, 1864, Wessel's force of nineteen hundred men had been captured after four days' fighting at Plymouth, N. C., by a rebel army of twelve thousand, aided by the rebel ram "Albemarle." John M. Palmer was the Post Surgeon. The Twenty-fourth Battery, largely recruited in and about Perry, N. Y., had been taken prisoners. The sad news came April 20. On that evening the Doctor found five Knights of the Golden Circle gathered at

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"Bascomb's store " to exult over this news in the venomous spirit that characterized the Northern copperhead of that day. Then past thirty six, five feet ten and a half inches, weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, alert and sinewy, this Yankee of Connecticut parentage, who had never used tobacco or narcotics or spirituous liquors, with race ten- drils striking into English Puritan, Dutch burgher, and Scotch cavalier, stood among the ne'er-do-wells who exulted over such disaster to "Lincoln's hirelings," though it had cost the blood of their own neighbors. He heard the vile epithets and the coarse abuse of things sacred to him. The hospital beds rose before him; the hell of battle, the privation of march and bivouac, the nameless horror of prison pen, stirred him. His Scotch blood was hot. His diagnosis was rapid, his prognosis correct, his treatment heroic. As he finished the success- ful operation, he stood alone of the six, the sole occupant of the store. The next day sev- veral sullen men, who were never known to cheer the stars and stripes, wore significant strips of adhesive plaster, while the Doctor was as free from scratch or bruise as he was from sympathy with treason. He was never heard to boast of this; though, when the affair was alluded to in his hearing, he was under- stood to offer as an excuse for drastic methods that he had faith in radical treatment, and he never gave homeopathic doses in such dis- orders.

His courtesy to associates and his modest estimate of his own services are characteristic. Called in consultation in the case of a child, then some time ill, examination satisfied him that the child must die unless it could have speedy relief. He indicated a radical change of treatment. The family physician was startled, and protested that the traditions were violated. "Well, Doctor," said he, "this is your patient ; and under present treatment the child will not see the sun rise again." This was evident. Still the physician said, "I can- not consent to administer your remedies with- out a prescription over your signature in your own handwriting. " The prescription was written, and the treatment changed. During the day the patient grew better, and soon re-

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Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 34

Author: Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review Number of Pages: 1256

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review
Number of Pages: 1256