The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 60

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II > Part 60

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The warehouse, with stock and fixtures, was entirely destroyed by fire on the 2d of July, 1850, but the premises were rebuilt within a few months, and a new partnership established by the same partners, under the firm name of Olcott, Mckesson & Robbins.

Mr. Charles M. Olcott, the senior partner, died in August, 1853, and the business was continued by Mckesson & Robbins, which has continued to be the firm title of the house. Mr. Geo. B. Gilbert, Mr. Olcott's assistant in the financial department of the business, was admitted as a partner in January, 1854. John Mckesson, Jr., was admitted in 1865, William Hull Wickham in 1870, and Charles A. Robbins, son of D. C. Robbins, in 1876, all of whom had been previously connected with the house as assistants in various capacities. To keep pace with the progress of trade, and to meet the requirements of an increasing business, Messrs. Mckesson & Robbins built, in 1855, a large business warehouse, which is situated on Fulton street, near William street. The building is a brick structure with a front on Fulton street of 50 feet, and comprises Nos. 91 and 93 Fulton street, and 80, 82 and 84 Ann street, with an area of a little over 50 by 120 feet, with 5 stories in front on Fulton street and 6 stories in the rear on Ann street, with basement and vaults and subcellar, making a total of 50,000 square feet of floor room on the premises.

As this main building in time came to be wholly required for the display of stock and for the execution of orders, the storage of goods was mainly accomplished in three other and separate buildings. From the incon- venience arising from this want of concentration of

stock, and the necessities of an increasing business, the firm built, in 1879, an adjoining building, 50 by 120 feet, thus doubling their former space.

The principal part of this additional extension, 50 by 120 feet, is now occupied by extensive apparatus for the manufacture of chemical and pharmaceutical prepara- tions. In addition to their extensive importing, dis- tributing and manufacturing business, Mckesson & Robbins are considerable exporters to Central and South America and the West India Islands, and other foreign countries.

The firm has kept up with the progress of the trade, and with every improvement in the practice of phar- macy, as well as in mercantile business. They have aimed to place themselves at the head of their profession, and their success in these endeavors is generally admit- ted. They are largely engaged in the manufacture of well-known medicinal and officinal specialties which are widely used and approved. They were the first to introduce into general use the capsulation of quinine and other medicinal drugs, whereby the prescriptions of physicians have been rendered less obnoxious without interfering with their efficacy; while such a perfect divi- sion and combination of materials is effected that every capsule or pill, as these are frequently called, is abso- lutely certain to contain the actual amount in the formula.

The importance of this can be readily appreciated where active poisons are prescribed, and it has almost revolutionized the dispensing of medicines. In mer- cantile transactions in the purchase of crude drugs, the same care and foresight has been manifested; and this distinguished house, which is the growth of half a cen- tury of steady application and development, possesses superior facilities and a most enviable reputation where- ever known. Indeed, it would be difficult to point out any important locality where it is not known, because the drug trade is the least circumscribed of all pursuits. All the most important remedies in the crude or nat- ural form are indigenous to special countries; as, for example, quinine, one of the most important of all remedies, is the product of the cinchona tree, which only grows at a high elevation, while it is the special remedy for the depressing malarial diseases which pre- vail in low countries. In this connection it may be said that the science and the practice of medicine is similar in all civilized countries, as a constant exchange of remedies and of collective experience takes place. The profession, also, of medicine, while it may not be said to hold a superior place among other professions, is really one of the most important, because it cannot be circumscribed by any future progress. Wars may

Shal Chitting

885

BIOGRAPHIES OF BROOKLYN CITIZENS.

cease, the practice of law may be greatly limited, and the work of the teacher of the race improve, or the cultivation of its powers become less difficult, and there- fore less important; but the province of the physician will never be less needful, for all the great problems of birth and life and death can never be diminished; they can only be more appreciated as civilization advances. Among the truths which pertain to human life, none is better understood among intelligent observers than the fact that as all the savage races disappear when placed in contact with civilized life, the continuance of civilized life is hardly possible without the care of medi- cal science and those sanitary provisions which increase in importance with the increase of population everywhere.

Mr. Robbins was married, and became a resident of Brooklyn, in the year 1846. He has the good fortune to be surrounded with all those attractions for which Brooklyn is justly famous as a city of model American homes. He is an old and highly-esteemed citizen, and has always evinced a warm interest in the growth and development of the city where he resides. He is an able contributor to the literature of his profession; and has earned a degree of learning, experience and literary ability in the improvement of his profession, and in the discussion of commercial questions in which the public is greatly interested, which gives him a deserved reputation in the business circles of the metropolis as well as in the country at large.

LEWIS T. LAZELL.

MR. LEWIS T. LAZELL, senior member of the well- known firm of Lazell, Marsh & Gardiner, wholesale dealers in drugs and druggists' supplies, at No. 10 Gold street, New York, and for many years a resident of Brooklyn, is descended from Huguenot stock, and was born in Bellingham, Massachusetts, February 19, 1825.

The first of the name of Lazell, in America, came to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637. The family re- mained in that State, and many of the name, in succes- sive generations, lived in the vicinity of Hingham, and of Bridgewater. Joshua Lazell, great-grandfather of Lewis T. Lazell, lived at Bellingham, Massachusetts, was a soldier in the American cause in the Revolution, and was at Boston at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill, but is thought not to have participated in that historical engagement.

Joshua Lazell had children named Warren, Daniel, John, Lavinia and Elias. John, one of these, removed to Ohio, and became a judge, and was known as a prominent man in his time. Daniel was a farmer at Bellingham, and was a leader among the Baptists of that locality, long holding the office of deacon of the old Bellingham Baptist Church. He died, leaving children named Warren, Jonathan E., Nathan, Lorinda and Caroline. Jonathan E. Lazell became a Baptist clergyman, and at one time was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Brooklyn. Warren Lazell passed his early life on a farm, and later became a New Eng- land schoolmaster. He married Miss Sophia Thurber, and not long afterward, when Lewis T. Lazell, his eld- est child, was an infant, removed from Bellingham to Worcester, where he became known as a school teacher, and later as a bookseller.

Lewis T. Lazell was educated in the public schools of Worcester; and, in 1839, at the age of fourteen, be- came a clerk in the book-store of Clarendon Harris, who is still living, and a highly esteemed resident of that

city. Soon afterward, Warren Lazell became the owner of another book-store; and, in 1842, his son began to assist him in the conduct of his business. He was then seventeen years of age. Two years later he went to Troy, New York, and for a year was employed in a factory there. In 1845, at the age of twenty, he re- turned to Worcester, where he associated himself with an apothecary named David Scott, Jr., and engaged in the drug trade.

Five years after thus beginning the career in which he was destined to make the business success of his life, Mr. Lazell purchased the interest of his partner, Mr. Scott, and continued the business as sole proprietor until 1855; when he removed to New York, in company with Mr. Edward H. Marsh, a former clerk in his em- ploy, and bought the jobbing trade of Haskell, Merrick & Bull, at No. 10 Gold street, where he has since been located; his partners in the transaction being Mr. Marsh and Mr. Freneau Hunn, a former employe of Messrs. Haskell, Merrick & Bull. Mr. Hunn retired from the firm on account of ill-health, in January, 1860, and died not long afterward. At the date mentioned, Mr. Warren B. Gardiner became a member of the firm, and the house then became known as that of Lazell, Marsh & Gardiner. Mr. Gardiner retired in January, 1881, and the business has since been continued under the same firm name. Mr. Alfred N. Andrus became a partner in the concern in July, 1883. This business, which Mr. Lazell and his associates began on a small scale, has, despite the periods of financial distress through which it has passed, been very successful, and having been enlarged and increased five-fold, the trade of the firm now extends to all parts of the Union.

Politically, Mr. Lazell is a Republican, but the de- mands of his business have been so unremitting upon his time and energies, that he has never had an opportu- nity to devote more than passing attention to public affairs, though taking the interest of an earnest and

886

HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

well-informed citizen in all questions affecting our na- tional existence or the public prosperity. In religious belief he adheres to the faith of his family, and has long been a member, and for twenty-five years a trus- tee, of the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church of Brook- lyn. He married Miss Ellen Stone, second daughter of Daniel Stone, Esq., of Worcester, Massachusetts, and has four daughters.

Among sportsmen, Mr. Lazell has a wide and envi- able reputation; and he has long been an ardent and in-

defatigable disciple of Isaac Walton, and is recognized as an enthusiastic angler. He was one of the founders of the Ognossoc Angling Association, of Franklin county, Maine; and spends the month of September, each year, fishing amid the solitudes of the Pine Tree State. An earnest, devoted adherent to any cause he espouses, he is regarded by those interested in this elub, and by others with whom he has been brought in contact in connection with business, social, religious, charitable or public interests, as at once generous and helpful.

JEREMIAH J. RAPPELYEA

The subject of this sketch was the youngest child of Folkert Rappelyea and Agnes De Bevoise, his wife. He was born February, 15th, 1813, in the old Rappelyea house, built by his great-grand- father and situated on Cripple Bush Road, Walla- bout. He was educated in the small red school-house situated on the same road at a point where Flushing avenue now crosses Lee avenue; and which was the same building in which his uncle and guardian, Gen. Jeremiah Johnson, started a Sunday school in the year 1830, which was the beginning of the famous Lee Avenue Sunday School. In this same red school-house was afterwards held one of the largest and most flourishing public schools in the city, presided over by the late Samuel C. Barnes, and known as No. 4. After receiv- ing a common-school education, he entered the grocery store of Ralph Malbone, which then occupied the point now or lately occupied by the Long Island Savings Bank.

He there become acquainted with most of the prominent down-town people, such as Domonie John- son, Bergen Stryker, and others. He was employed there some time as clerk, until his guardian thought it better that he should return to the farm, and there he remained until he moved from the old house; being the last Rappelyea who lived there, as it was shortly after- wards torn down on account of its age. > During his residence in the old house, he married Ann Pilling. They then moved with their three children to the house he had built on the upper portion of his farm, where he led a quiet farmer's life. He was a member of the Brooklyn Horse Guards, until trouble arose in regard to foreigners in the ranks; when he took sides with the foreigners, Hilliard, Dobson, McLeer, Pilling and others, and helped form the Washington Horse, of which company he was made First Lieutenant, the only public office he ever held. He died May 6th, 1868, in his fifty-fifth year.

Jeremiah & Pappcica

HISTORY OF THE

MEDICAL PROFESSION OF THE

CITY OF BROOKLYN,

1822 -- 1884.

Frank B. Grow. med.

N pages 414 to 418, we recorded the History of the Medical Profession in Kings County, from its earliest known beginnings to the formation, in 1822, of the Kings County Medical Society. We now proceed to trace the history of this So- ciety, and the profession generally, down to the pres- ent time .*

Kings County Medical Society. - In 1837 the society ordered three hundred copies of their by-laws printed. It may be stated, in passing, that evidence ex- ists indicating that in 1822, and again in 1829, the society had its constitution printed. At this last date there were thirty-six active members belonging to the society. In 1836 the Code of Ethics of the State Soci- ety was adopted, and in 1848 the code of Ethics of the American Medical Association. From its formation, in 1822, till the repeal of that power by the Legislature in 1881, the Kings County Society conferred sixteen licenses to practice medicine.

Among the many men who have belonged, and now belong, to the profession, there are but very few who have violated their faith as physicians and their honor as men. The vast majority have followed their calling in the full spirit of its nobility; have met and combat- tod disease and death without fear and without pre- sumption; and many, far more than can be estimated, have not only given their time and strength in work, in medical charities, but have contributed as well the hard-earned fees obtained from wealthier patients for the relief of pain and suffering in the homes of poverty and woe. Faithfully working in their chosen fields of labor till the hour came for their departure,

they have left but small record of their toil behind them as individuals. In a profession where disease and death are the enemies that must be met, many have contracted the contagion which they were seeking to overcome, and have died in harness. In a busi- ness that is not over lucrative, most of its followers have reached their end poor, and left their families without competence. While their individual records are not voluminous, their work in the abstract has small need of a historiographer. The limits of this work render it impossible to mention more than the few of those who, by their abilities either in discovery or by their contributions to medical literature, have become leaders in the profession; but leaders in any cause are useless, unless sustained by the rank and file ; while leaders direct, armies fight battles. Among the few names that may be mentioned is that of

DR. MATHEW WENDELL, first Vice-President and sixth President of the Society He came to Brooklyn, from his birthplace, Albany; having been a student with Dr. Hyde, of Bethlehem, N. Y He became a licentiate in 1804, and, entering into partnership with Dr. Charles Ball, in, or about 1806, he opened an office at the corner of Sands and Fulton streets. The Doctor was a practitioner in the days when Calo- mel, Jalap and blood-letting prevailed; and, when it is said that he was a conscientious man, a statement that he believed in the efficacy of that treatment is unnecessary. Dignified, courteous, and with great natural ability, to which he had added by study, he obtained and retained a large practice. For many years he was Health Officer of the city, and, in hours of pestilence, as well as quiet, displayed keen executive ability. The end of his life was somewhat sad. He exceeded the allotted age of man by some eleven years. Under the long-continued strain, his mind had weakened, and he be- came a devotee to the form of gambling known as "policy." His end came from cancer of the stomach, in July, 1860.

DR. ADRIAN VANDERVEER, born in Flatbush, December 21, 1796, was the great-grandson of Cornelis Vanderveer, who settled in the village in 1683. At an early age he was sent to Erasmus Hall Academy, where he was prepared for college; and, when 16, entered Columbia College, graduating with a very creditable record in 1816. He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, being also an

* MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF KINGS .- Officers and com- mittecs for 1883 . G. G. Hopkins, M D., 283 Lafayette avenue, President; F. L. Colton, M.D., 136 Montague street, Vice-President ; R. M. Wyckoff, M.D., 532 Clinton avenue, Secretary, E. H. Squibb, M. D., 35 Doughty street, Assistant Secretary : J. R. Vanderveer, M.D., 301 Carlton avenue, Treasurer ; T. R. French, M.D., 469 Clinton avenue, Librarian. Censors . A. Hutchins, M.D .; C. Jewett, M.D., J. S. Wight, M.D .; G. R. Fowler, M.D .; B. F. Westbrook, M.D. Delegates to the Medical Society of the State of New York (1882 to 1885) : Drs. J. C. Shaw, C. Jewett, T R. French, E. N. Chapman, G. G. Hopkins, J. A. McCorkle, S. Sherwell, J. H. Hunt, J. Byrne, B. F. Westbrook, G. W. Baker, L. S, Pilcher,

888

HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

office student of the late eminent surgeon, Dr. Wright Post. In 1819, at the age of twenty-three, he graduated as M. D., and entered upon a practice which ere long extended over the whole of Kings county. At the organization of the Medical Society, he was elected secretary of that body, and became its seventh president, holding that office during the years 1837-38. It is not unworthy of note that he and Dr. T. W. Henry were the only members of the society, at its organization, who were graduates from a medical college, the other members being licen- tiates. In the epidemic of Asiatic cholera in 1832, Dr. Vanderveer was appointed Health Officer of Flatbush. In 1838, he abandoned general practice and confined himself to a special branch of the profession, contemporaneously with Dr. Sabine, of New York. This, of course, aroused some op- position from liis medical brethren ; but, persevering in his ideas, he eventually accomplished great success, patients vis- iting him from all over the country and from abroad. He also received a large number of letters from distinguished English and Continental surgeons and physicians, seeking ad- vice in his speciality, and informing him of the marked suc- cess of his method in the cases they had sent to him for treat- ment. His success was, indeed, remarkable; and it is to be re- gretted that no record of his cases was kept, and that he never published anything on the subject. With an office at Flat- bush and another in Brooklyn, it was almost impossible for him to attend to all who applied to him. Long before office hours, a line of carriages was in waiting in front of his office; and from his Brooklyn office he was seldom able to return until long after midnight. Had he not been possessed of an iron constitution, as well as untiring energy and an in- domitable will, he could not have accomplished his work. But twelve years of this labor ended in an attack of paralysis in 1850; and, though he rallied from it, and associated with him his nephew and student, Dr. John R. Vanderveer, yet he was ultimately compelled to relinquish practice entirely. He died July 5, 1857, in his sixty-first year. In 1832, he was medical adviser to the village Board of Health; in 1825, with Rev. Dr. Strong, he organized the Reformed Church Sabbath School; was its superintendent for nearly thirty years, and an elder for many years. He was a thorough Bible student, well versed in theological lore; and especially interested in horticulture, his garden being filled with rare and beautiful plants from all climes. He was a man of remarkable de- cision, clear intellect and sound judgment .*

Contemporary with Dr. Vanderveer, for many years, was

DR. JOHN BARREA ZABRISKIE, son of Rev. John L. Zabriskie and Sarah Barrea de la Montagnie, born at Greenbush, N. Y., April 20, 1805; removed with his parents, at the age of six, to Millstone, N. J. He was prepared for college by a private tutor; and, when sixteen, entered, as junior, Union College, where his father had been a member of the first class which graduated in 1797. At college he became intimately ac- quainted with Hon. John A. Lott ; and, at the close of his college course, began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Wm. McKeesick, attending two courses of lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. He became a licentiate of the New Jersey Medical Society in 1827, but not being satisfied with this license, he took a final course of lec- tures and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, April 6th, 1827. He began practice in New York city; but, in 1830, when Dr. Isaac I. Rapelyea moved to Brooklyn, Za- briskie took his place in New Lots, where his peculiar tal- ents, affable manners and remarkable professional skill soon brought him into an extensive practice in the county, al- though the field was already occupied by eminent physicians.

Iu 1829, he became a member of the Kings County Medical Society. He held at different times the office of secretary, censor (1832), delegate to the State Medical Society (1830), and president of the County Society in 1839. Deeply engaged as he was in professional duties, he found time to devote to the public weal. In 1847, he was superin- tendent of the Flatbush School District, which at that time, and till 1852, included the present New Lots; and it was one of his acts that created School District No. 3, embrac- ing the territory of Cypress Hills and East New York. He was a man of peculiarly diversified talent, and his hours of relaxation were devoted to the scientific pursuits of music, botany, horticulture, etc. He was interested in photography, and took pictures by the camera long before it came into general use; he experimented with electricity and galvanism, and left many plaster casts of groups and medallions of bis own modelling. He was a frequent contributor to the Amer- ican Journal of Medical Sciences (vol. xii., 1846); early discov- ered the virtues of Sanicula Marilandica in the treatment of chorea (St. Vitus' Dance); was appointed by the Kings County Medical Society to prepare a paper on the " Medical Topography of Kings County " (see Trans. N. Y. State Med. Soc., 1832); was physician in charge of the Kings County Alms-house ; member of the Flatbush Board of Health, and a trustee of the Erasmus Hall Academy ; an elder in the Re- formed Church, and at one time surgeon of the 241st Regi- ment, N. Y. State Militia. No man in the town was wider known, more generally respected and deeply lamented. Hs died in his forty-third year (1850), from contagious diseass, which he had contracted in his professional labors .*

We have already spoken of Dr. FRANCIS H. DUBOIS, of New Utrecht. In 1832, his son, James E. Dubois, graduated from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and joined the father in practice. After his father's death in 1834, James' practice was too large for the attention of one physician, but he con- tinued alone till 1848, when he took Dr. BERIEE in partnership. This arrangement lasted but two years, when Dr, Berier's health broke down. In 1850, Dr. JOHN LUDLOW CRANE took the place left vacant, and this last partnership was continued till September, 1856, when it was dissolved by the death of both Dr. Dubois and Dr. Crane, within a few hours of each other, from yellow fever contracted at the bedside of patients in the epidemic of that year. Then followed Dr. CARPENTER, who had removed from Fort Hamilton to New Utrecht. Dr. HUBBARD was the first resident physician of Gravesend, from about 1855 to 1865, when he removed to Red Bank, N. J. Dr. R. L. VAN KLEEK settled at Gravesend in 1863, a recent graduate of the L. I. College Hospital, and has secured the entire confi- dence of the community. In 1880, Dr. JAMES F. MOR- GAN came from Jersey City and settled at Sheepshead Bay, and is doing well there. In 1877 or '78 a Dr. GALLUP settled in Gravesend for about two years.

In the name of Dr. GEORGE GILFILLAN, the older residents of Brooklyn will recognize one who was known to all by reputation, and endeared to many by friendship.

* In these sketches we have been indebted to Rev. R. G. STRONG, of Flatbush ; and to Dr. P. L. SCHENCK'S " Zabriskie Homestead."

889

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 60

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co Number of Pages: 1345

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345