USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 16
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* Transactions of the New York Literary and Philosophical Society, 4to., vol. i. pp. 281-310.
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New York Hospital, he never omitted, when the opportunity presented, to employ the results of his investigations for clinical appliances. The simplicity of his prescriptions often provoked a smile on the part of his students ; while he was acknowledged a sound prescriber at the bedside. His anecdotical remarks on theories and systems at once declared that he was fully apprised of pre- vious therapeutical means, from the deductions of Hippocrates and Pliny, to the fanciful speculations of Darwin. But his great forte was natural his- tory. Here his expositions of that vast science, in its several ramifications, gave the best proofs of his capacious stores of bookish and personal knowl- edge. He may fairly be pronounced the pioncer investigator of geological science among us, pre- coding McClurc by several years. He was early led to give his countenance to the solidity of the Wernerian theory, but had occasion to announce his belief, from subsequent investigation in after life, that the Huttonian system was not wholly without facts deduced from certain phenomena in this country. His first course of lectures on Nat- ural History, including geology, mineralogy, zoolo- gy, ichthyology, and botany, was delivered, in ex- tenso, in the College of Physicians and Surgcons, in 1811, before a gratified audience, who recog- nized in the professor a teacher of rare attain- ments and of singular tact in unfolding complex
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knowledge with analytic power. Few left the lec- tures without the conviction that an able expositor had enlisted their attention. There was a whole- some natural theology blended with his prelcc- tions, and an abundance of patriotism associated with every rich specimen of native mineral wealth. It would have proved difficult for him to have found adequate language to express his gratifica- tion at the present day of our Californian treas- urcs. His manner throughout as an instructor was calculated to attract the attention of the stu- dents by his intelligible language and his pleasing elucidations. His confidence in his cxpositions was not always permanent ; new facts often led to new opinions ; but the uncertainties of geological doctrines, not yet removed, gave him sometimes more freedom of expression than rigid induction might justify ; and when he affirmed as his belief that the American continent was the Old World, and that the Garden of Eden might have origi- nally been located in Onondaga Hollow, he im- poscd a tax on credulity too oncrous to bear. He felt, in contemplating his investigations on fishes, as though he had enlarged the boundaries of sci- ence, and his exclamation, " Show me a fin, and I will point out the fish," was not thought too hyperbolical by his scholars. For nearly a score of years it was my lot to be associated in collegiate labors with this renowned man ; and I may be
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pardoned if my remarks are of some length on his professorial career.
I never encountered one of more wonderful memory : when quite a young man, he would re- turn from church service, and write out the ser- mon nearly verbatim. There was little display in his habits or manners. His means of enjoy- ment corresponded with his desires, and his Frank- linean principles enabled him to rise superior to want. With all his official honors and scientific testimonials, foreign or native, he was ever acces- sible to everybody ; the counsellor of the young, the dictionary of the learned. To the interroga- tory, why he did not, after so many years of labor, revisit abroad the scenes of his earlier days for recreation, his reply was brief :- " I know Great Britain from the Grampian Hills to the chalky cliffs of Dover : there is no need of my going to Europe, Europe now comes to me." But I must desist. The Historical Society of New York will long cherish his memory for the distinction he shed over our institution, his unassuming manners, his kind nature, and the aid he was ever ready to give to all who needed his counsel. He furnished an eulogium on our deceased member, the great jurist, Thomas Addis Emmet, also on Samuel Bard ; his discourse on the Botany of North and South America, is printed by the Society in their Collec- tions. Mitchill has not unjustly been pronounced
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the Nestor of American science. He died in New York in 1831 : his remains now lie in the Green- wood Cemetery.
The claims of Edward Miller to your remem- brance are associated with those of his brother Samuel. Edward Miller, learned and accom- plished as a scholar, generous and humane as a physician, urbane and refined as a gentleman, was of that order of intellect that could at once see the relationship which such a society as this holds with philosophy, and the record of those occur- rences on which philosophy is founded. That he aided his reverend brother in that portion of the " Brief Retrospect" which treats of science in general, and of medicine in particular, was often admitted by the gifted divine. I have in strong recollection the enthusiastic terms in which Dr. Edward Miller spoke of our organization at the memorable anniversary in 1809 ; and all versed in our medical annals can give none other than ap- probation of his professional writings, though they may maintain widely different opinions from some inculcated by other practical observers, and have received a counterblast in the occurrences which marked the introduction of pestilential yellow fever in several sections of the Union in the year 1856. He survived the commencement of the So- ciety but a few years, dying in March, 1812. I accompanied him, in consultation, in the last pro-
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fessional visit he made, in a case of pneumonia, a few weeks before his death. In the sick room he was a cordial for affliction. His biography was written by his brother, and I have given a memoir of his life which may be found in the American Medical and Philosophical Register.
I will close the record of our friends belonging to the medical faculty, with a brief notice of two other members, Hugh Williamson and Nicholas Romayne ; the former by birth a Pennsylvanian, born in 1735, the latter a native, born in the city of New York, 1756. After the acquisition of sound preliminary knowledge, Williamson was graduated M. D. at the University of Utrecht, Holland. He practised physic but a short time in Philadelphia, on account of delicate health. In 1769 he was appointed chairman of a committee consisting of Rittenhouse, Ewing, Smith, the pro- vost, and Charles Thompson, afterwards secretary to Congress, all mathematicians and astronomers, to observe the transit of Venus in 1769. He pub- lished an Essay on Comets, afterwards enlarged, and printed in the Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York. In this communication he adheres to his original opinion, that every planet and every comet in our system is inhabited. By appointment with Dr. Ewing, he made a tour in Great Britain in 1773, for the benefit of a literary institution. He wrote on the
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Gymnotius electricus, and upon his return to North Carolina was an active agent in the promo- tion of inoculation, and finally received a commis- sion as head of the medical staff of the American army of that State. In 1782 he took his seat as a representative of Edenton in the House of Com- mons of North Carolina. In 1786 he was one of the few members who were sent to Annapolis on the amendment of the constitution, and in 1789 we find him in New York, and in the first Con- gress, when the constitution was carried into effect. He wrote an octavo volume on the climate of America. He contends, from numerous facts, that the climate is ameliorated, and Jefferson ad- mitted that his memoir was an ingenious, sound, and satisfactory piece of philosophy. In the Med- ical Repository he offered some new and ingenious speculations on the fascinating powers of serpents. In 1812 appeared his History of North Carolina. He was the author of several papers on medical and philosophical subjects, and on the canal policy of the State, printed in the American Medical and Philo- sophical Register. He was among the first of our citizens who entertained correct views on the practi- cability of the union of the waters of the Hudson and Lake Erie. He penned the first summons for the formation of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York. He died in 1819, at the advanced age of 83 years.
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The career of Williamson is well known from the ample Biography of his friend and physician, Dr. Hosack. He was justly esteemed for his tal- ents, his virtues, and his public services. Hosack affirmed on the testimony of Bishop White, John Adams, President of the United States, Gen. Reed, and John Williamson, that Hugh William- son was the individual who, by an ingenious de- vice, obtained the famous Hutchinson and Oliver letters from the British foreign office for Franklin, and I can add that John Williamson, the brother of the doctor, communicated to me his concur- rence in the same testimony. This curious rela- tion is however rejected as not well founded, by our cminent historians, Sparks and Bancroft.
Williamson was a peculiarity in appearance, in manners, and in address. Tall and slender in per- son, with an erect gait, he perambulated the streets with the air of a man of consideration ; his long arms and his longer cane preceding him at a commanding distance, and seemingly guided by his conspicuous nose, while his ample white locks gave tokens of years and wisdom. Activity of inind and body blessed him to the last of his long life. His speech was brief, sententious, and emphatic. He was often aphoristic, always perti- nacious in opinion. There was rarely an appeal from his decision-he was generally so well forti- fied. He had great reverence for the past, was
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aneedotical in our revolutionary matters, and eher- ished with almost reverential regard the series of coeked hats which he had worn at different times, during the eight years' erisis of his country. His History of North Carolina has encountered the disapprobation of many, and is deemed defective and erroneous, yet he was a devoted diseiple of truth. No flattery, no compliment could ever reach his ear. Witness his eurt correspondence with the Italian artist, Caraechi : look at his tes- timony in the case of Alexander Whisteloe. To a solieitation for peeuniary aid in behalf of an indi- vidual whose moral character he somewhat doubt- ed, when told that a reform had taken place : " Not so," replied the doetor, "he has not left the stage,-the stage has left him." His punetu- ality in engagements was marvellous ; no hour, no wind or weather, ever occasioned a disappointment on the part of the old man, now over eighty years of age ; and, though in his own business transae- tions, from which mainly he derived his ample support, one might apprehend the requirement of much time, he let not the setting sun elose upon him without their entire adjustment. He died, if I remember rightly, about the hour of 4 o'eloek in the afternoon, while in a carriage exeursion to the country, from excessive solar heat, in June ; yet it was found that his multifarious aeeounts and
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correspondence had all been adjusted, up to the hour of two on that same day.
Some of my most gratifying hours in early life were passed with this venerable man : it was in- structive to enjoy the conversation of one who had enriched the pages of the Royal Society ; who had experimented with John Hunter, and Franklin, and Ingenhouze in London, and had enjoyed the soirées of Sir John Pringle ; who narrated occur- rences in which he bore a part when Franklin was Postmaster, and in those of subsequent critical times ; one who, if you asked him the size of the button on Washington's coat, might tell you who had been his tailor. A more strictly correct man in all fiscal matters could not be pointed out, whether in bonds and mortgages, or in the pay- ment of the postage of a letter. I will give an illustration. He had been appointed in Colonial times to obtain funds for the Seminary at Basken- ridge, N. J. : he set out on his eastern tour, pro- vided with an extra pair of gloves, for which he paid 7s. and 6d. ; on his return he revisited the store in Newark, where he had made the purchase, had the soiled gloves vamped anew, and parted with them for 6s. In his items of expenditure, he reports 1s. and 6d. for the use of gloves, invest- ing the 6s. with the collection fund. Such was Hugh Williamson, whose breastplate was honesty, the brightest in the Christian armory. If I mis-
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take not, I think I once saw him smile at the trick of a jockey. Dr. Thacher, the author of the " Military Journal," told me he had listened to him when he was in the ministry, in a sermon preached at Plymouth ; but his oratory was gro- tesque, and Rufus King the Senator, who noticed him in our first Congress, said his elocution pro- voked laughter. Yet he spoke to the point. Take him altogether, he was admirably fitted for the times, and conscientiously performed many deeds of excellence for the period in which he lived. Deference was paid to him by every class of citizens. He holds a higher regard in my esti- mation, than a score of dukes and duchesses, for he signed the Constitution of the United States. His Anniversary Discourse for 1810 you have se- cured in your publications. The portrait of Dr. Williamson by Col. Trumbull, is true to the life, and eminently suggestive.
A monograph on Romayne would not be too much. He entered the Historical Society some years after its formation. He is associated with innumerable occurrences in New York, his native city, and was born in 1756. Of his antecedents little is satisfactorily known. His early instruc- tion was received from Peter Wilson, the linguist, at his school at Hackensack. At the commence- ment of the war of the Revolution, he repaired to Edinburgh, where he pre-eminently distinguished
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himself by his wide range of studies, his latinity, and his medical knowledge. His inaugural for the doctorate, prepared unassisted, was a dissertation De Generatione Puris, in which he seems to have first promulgated the leading doctrincs received on that vexed subject. He now visited London, Paris, and Leyden, for further knowledge, and re- turning to his native land, settled first in Phila- delphia, and shortly after in New York. He had a fair chance of becoming a practitioner of cxten- sive employment. His erudition justified him in assuming the office of teacher, and he lectured with success on several branches of physic. He was pronounced an extraordinary man. Anatomy, chemistry, botany, and the practice of medicine, were assumed by him. His most eminent associ- ates, Bayley, Kissam, Moore, Treat, and Tillary, echoed his praises. Hc spoke with fluency the French and Latin tongues, and the Low Dutch.
When the provincial government of King's College was changed after 1783, he was nominated one of the Trustees. The Board of the College, now Columbia, determined upon reviving a new faculty of medicine, but from causes too numerous to relate, Dr. Romayne was not chosen to an ap- pointment. In 1791, an act was passed, author- izing the Regents of the University to organize a medical faculty, which, however, did not go into operation until January, 1807, when Dr. Romayne
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was appointed President of the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons under their authority. He gave lectures on Anatomy and on the Institutes. I was present at his opening address to the stu- dents on the ensuing November. It was an ele- gant and elaborate performance in science, and on the ethnology of the red man of America. He was a pleasing speaker ; his discourse justified all that had been previously expressed concerning his varied knowledge and his classical taste. He would rise in his place and deliver a lecture on the aphorisms of Hippocrates, unfold the structure of the brain, expound the philosophy of paludal dis- eases, or discourse on the plant which Clusius cherished. He was indeed clever in every accep- tation of the word. I find since that period, by an examination of his copy of the Conspectus Medicina of Gregory, and his MS. notes, that his Lectures on the Institutions were drawn chicfly from Gregory's work. Yet was he an original ob- server and an intrepid thinker. He died sudden- ly, after great exposure to heat, in June, 1817.
It rarely occurs to any individual to enjoy a larger renown among his fellows, than did Dr. Romayne, during the time he filled the station of President of the College. Yet he was not con- tent with this condition of affairs, and was con- stantly studying new things, until ejected from his high office by the Regents of the University, when
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the venerable Samuel Bard was chosen as his successor.
His penury in early life had taught Romayne the strictest economy. At Edinburgh his ward- robe was so slender, that it often reminded me of the verses of an old ballad :-
"The man who has only one shirt, Whenever it's washed for his side, The offence is surely not his If he lies in his bed till it's dried."
Such, literally, was the case with the student Ro- mayne, and still he bore himself with becoming respectability, and left the University one of the most accomplished of her sons in general knowl- edge and professional science. He did well enough during his two years in Philadelphia as a practi- tioner ; an equally favorable turn in business fol- lowed him in New York, in which place he settled as the British troops left the city. The spirit of adventure, however, seized him : he embarked in the scheme of Blount's conspiracy, was seized by the constituted authorities, and Pintard saw him conveyed to prison. In what manner his troubles were removed I am unable to state. I have heard of no special disclosures that he made. He was too long-headed for self-accusation, and however bellicose by nature, preferred his customary cau- tious habit. Romayne had learned the proverb of
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the old Hebrews :- " One word is worth a shekel -- silence is worth two." But awhile after he re- visited Europe, became a licentiate of the Royal College of Edinburgh, returned to his native city, and was chosen President of the College, an insti- tution of only two years later date than your own, and which, amidst great vicissitudes and an anom- alous government, has enriched with meritorious disciples the noble art of healing, and diffused un- told blessings throughout the land.
Romayne was of huge bulk, of regular propor- tion, and of an agreeable and intelligent expres- sion of countenance, with a gray eye of deep pen- etration. It was almost a phenomenon to witness the light, gracious, and facile step of a man sur- passing some three hundred pounds in weight, and at all times assiduous in civic pursuits and closet studies. He was unwearied in toil, and of mighty energy. He was goaded by a strong ambition to excel in whatever he undertook, and he generally secured the object of his desire, at least profes- sionally. He was temperate in all his drinks, but his gastric powers were of inordinate capabilities. I should incur your displeasure were I to record the material of a single meal : he sat down with right good earnest and exclusive devotion at his repast. His auricular power seemed now sus- pended. Dr. Mitchill long ago had said that the stomach had no ears. In charity I have conjec-
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tured that he must have labored under a species of bulimia, which pathologists affirm will often pervert the moral faculties. His kind friend, the late Rev. Dr. M'Leod, tells us, that though many of his acts were crooked, yet that Romayne died in the consolations of the Christian religion. He was generous to the young, and ready with many resources to advance the student. He made a great study of man ; he was dexterous with legis- lative bodies, and at one period of his career was vested with almost all the honors the medical pro- fession among us can bestow. Some of the older medical writers, whose works were found in the residue of the library of the late Dr. Peter Mid- dleton, as well as others of the late Dr. Romayne, were deposited in your library ; but of late years, I am sorry to say, I have not recognized them.
I shall now take leave of the departed doctors, while memory cannot forget their living excellence, and cast a glance at some few circumstances, which, more or less immediate and remote, had an influ- ence in fostering those associations which finally accelerated public opinion, and led to the estab- lishment of the Historical Society at the fortunate epoch in which it was organized.
The extraordinary occurrences of the American Revolution, which had left their impress on the minds of most of the patriots who had survived that mighty event, the peace of 1783, which
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closed the great drama, and now presented the country impoverished and in debt, its resources exhausted, its people rich in a knowledge of their rights, yet poor indced in fiscal power, were cir- cumstances calculated to awaken a personal inter- est, more or less deep, in every bosom, and to excite inquiry, with a curious scrutiny, what his- tory would unfold of the marvellous trials through which the people had passed, and what historian would write the faithful record of their sufferings and their deeds.
This city, which had been the occupancy of their enemies during that long struggle, though now freed from the British army, still retained a vast number of the Tory party, who, while they were ready to be the participators of the benefits of that freedom which sprung out of the Revolution, were known to be dissatisfied by the mortifications of defeat, under which they still writhed, and whose principal relief was found in yielding the listening ear to any narrative that might asperse the purity of American devotion in the patriotic cause of liberty. Thus surrounded, the natives, the true Whigs, the rebel phalanx, so to speak, were often circumscribed in thought and in utterance. To recount the specifications of the wrongs which they had endured, as cited in the immortal Decla- ration of Independence, was deemed, by the de- feated and disaffected, cruel and unwise, so hard
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was it to root out the doctrines of colonial devo- tion. Here and there measures were in agitation, and suggestions hinted, the object of which was to prevent the public reading of the Declaration on the 4th of July ; and even so late as July, 1804, I witnessed a turmoil which arose, upon the occa- sion of the expressed sentiments of the orator of the day, John W. Mulligan, Esq., now, I be- lieve, the oldest living graduate of Columbia College.
It was in vain that appeals were made to the instructive facts of the issues of usurpation and oppression, that millions of property had been wantonly destroyed by British hirelings and mer- cenary troops, that individual rights and posses- sions had been disregarded, that the records of churches, of institutions of learning, and the libra- ries of schools and colleges, had been consumed. A further glance at affairs presented the fact, that conflicting and erroneous statements of the war itself, and the primary motives of action of its American leaders, were also perverted and taunt- ingly promulgated as true history by foreign writers. The champions of freedom were daily harassed. To be subjected to such a state of things, was no more nor less than to yield to re- newed degradation, and to leave the contest an imperfect work. In fine, the tares which had been rooted out were, it was apprehended, again to
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infest the soil, and liberty itself again to be endan- gered.
Topies involving matters of this nature were not unfrequently the subjects of warm controversy. The people were cognizant of the ordeal through which they had passed. They knew there were still among us men of the same calibre for the hour of peril, as those who had proved themselves valiant indeed. They also recognized among us men who saw how difficult in the future would be the procurement of authentic documents for that volume, which, in after times, was destined to prove a second Revelation to man, unless a proper and timely spirit were awakened by co-operation with living witnesses, with those who best knew the priee of freedom by the cost of purchase, and who were duly apprised of the value of correct knowl- edge diffused among a new-born nation. The blood that had been spilt, the lives that had been lost, the treasures that had been expended, were fa- miliar truths of impressive force. But the memo- rials of a tyrannic government were still more palpable, in the destruction which laid waste so many places, and which eneompassed the city round about. And what spectator, however in- different, could fail to learn by such demonstra- tions, and cherish in his bosom profitable medita- tions. I am speaking now, more especially, of the scenes presented in this city. But more than this.
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