USA > Ohio > Sandusky County > History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers > Part 70
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Dr. Rawson married, July 8, 1829, So- phia Beaugrand, daughter of John B. Beaugrand, who was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1768. He was married in St. Anne's church, Detroit, in 1802, to Mar- garet Chabert, daughter of Colonel Cha- bert de Joucaire, of the French army. Mr. Beaugrand was a merchant at Maumee from 1802 till 1812. He then went back to Detroit, where he remained till 1823, then came to Lower Sandusky.
Mrs. Rawson was born October 20, 1810. The family of Dr. and Mrs. Raw- son consisted of seven children, four of whom survived childhood-Dr. Milton E., Joseph L., Eugene A., and Estelle S., two of whom are living, Joseph and Estelle.
We have in this sketch touched upon only the leading features of the life of a worthy man and citizen, who from early youth was busy, and who in old age has not wholly laid aside the cares of business. His life has been one of real worth, which
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we have but feebly reflected. Mrs. Raw- son is a woman of quiet temperament and refined taste. She is a consistent member of her church, and possessed of the vir- tues which only Christian convictions can give a woman.
DR. ROBERT S. RICE was born in Ohio county, Virginia, May 28, 1805, and died in Fremont, Ohio, August 5, 1875. At - the age of ten he came with his father's family to Ohio and located in Chillicothe, Ross county. From that place, in 1818, the family removed to Marion county, and in 1827 he settled in Lower Sandusky. He worked at his trade, a potter, until about the year 1847, when, having long employed his leisure hours in the study of medicine, he began the practice; and al- though he labored under the disadvantages of limited educational opportunities in his youth, and of not having received a regu- lar course of medical instruction, his ca- reer as a physician was quite successful. He numbered as his patrons many among the most respectable families in his town and county.
Dr. Rice was a man of sound judgment, quick wit, fond of a joke, and seldom equaled as a mimic and story teller. He was a keen observer, and found amuse- ment and instruction in his daily inter- course with men by perceiving many things that commonly pass unnoticed. His sym- pathies were constantly extended to all manner of suffering and oppressed people. He denounced human slavery, and from an early period acted politically with the opponents of the hated institution. Dur- ing a period also when the most brutal corporal punishment was the fashion and practice in families and schools, his voice and example were given in favor of the humane treatment of children. He was of a deeply religious turn of mind. In early years, when preachers were few in this new country, he often exhorted and
preached. He was colonel of the first reg- iment of cavalry militia organized in the county, and also general of the first brig- ade. He assisted in running the line be- tween Ohio and Michigan, the dispute in regard to which led to the bloodless "Michigan war." He also served one term as mayor of Lower Sandusky, and several terms as justice of the peace. He was married to Miss Eliza Ann Caldwell, in Marion, Ohio, December 30, 1824. They had seven sons and two daughters. The first two were boys, and died in infancy. William A. was born in Fremont, July 31, 1829; John B., June 23, 1832; Sarah Jane, February 20, 1835; Robert H., De- cember 20, 1837; Albert H., September 23, 1840; Charles F., July 23, 1843; Em- eline E., January 14, 1847. Sarah Jane died June 20, 1841; Emeline died Sep- tember 19, 1859.
The name of Mrs. Eliza Ann Rice de- serves more than bare mention in connec- tion with the record of the family whose chief ornament she was, and to whose in- telligence, affection, and example they owe whatever of good they have, or shall ac- complish in the world. This amiable and Christian lady, and loving and devoted wife and mother, was born near Chillicothe, Ohio, March 19, 1807. She died on Jan- uary 17, 1873, in her sixty-sixth year. She belonged to the older class of the commu- nity, and occupied a high place in the af- fection of a large circle of friends. She was a devoted mother, and in return was loved and revered by her family. The following is an extract from a notice in the Fremont Journal of January 24, 1873- one week after her death. It is from the pen of Dr. Thomas Stilwell:
It was not for her to shine in the fashionable as- sembly, or the more ostentatious circles of social life, but wherever "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit" was the passport to recognition, she was emi- nently entitled to receive it. But it was within the sacred precincts of home, the true woman's grandest
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field of display, that she exhibited the virtues that win the heart and add a charm to the sacred name of mother.
From early life a member of the church, the Protestant Methodist, her heart was ever in unison with the teachings of the Divine Master, and she died prepared, by a life of faith, "to pass through the valley · of the shadow of death, and to fear no evil." Wise in counsel, devoted in her love for her children, her sons, who rank as prominent and respected professional business men of our city, honor themselves by the rec- ognition they give that sainted mother's teachings, for much of what they have at- tained in the walks of life.
Her father, William Caldwell, was the third of the ten children of Rob- ert Caldwell and Mary Stephenson, and was born in York county, Pennsylvania, on the 5th of June, 1779. His parents emigrated to Bourbon county, Kentucky, in 1782. William Caldwell was married to Miss Polly Park, August 2, 1804. in Kentucky. She was born in the State of Virginia, in a block house to which her mother had fled for refuge from an Indian massacre which threatened the settlement where she lived. Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell settled near Chillicothe soon after their marriage, but afterwards removed to Ma- rion, and finally made their home in Lower Sandusky. The former died June 29, 1835, the latter in 1861. He was a gun- smith by trade; served in the War of 1812, under General Hull, at whose surren- der he was made a prisoner of war. They also had two sons: Robert A., who died in California, and Judge William Caldwell, of Elmore.
PETER BEAUGRAND, a son of John B. Beaugrand, came to Lower Sandusky with his father's family in 1823. He was born in Detroit, in August, 1814. In March, 1833, he began the study of medicine at Findlay, Ohio, in the office of B. and L. Q.
Rawson, and when Dr. L. Q. Rawson re- moved to Lower Sandusky, Mr. Beaugrand came with him. In the winter of 1835-36 he attended a course of lectures at the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, at Fair- field, Herkimer county, New York, and af- terwards, in 1845, graduated at Ohio Medi- cal college, Cincinnati. Dr. Beaugrand began practicing in Lower Sandusky in 1834. Between 1837 and 1840 he was a partner of Dr. Rawson. At the dissolution of the partnership he went to Michigan and practiced at Monroe City three years. He returned to Fremont in 1843, and has since been in practice here except while serving as surgeon of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Ohio Vol- unteer Infantry.
DRS. BROWN and ANDERSON are two physicians of the earlier period. Both were at different times partner's of Dr. Rawson. Dr. Anderson was a partner of Dr. Rawson during the cholera scourge of 1834, but gave no assistance to the suffer- ing. Dr. Brown was a merchant at that time, and made himself conspicuously useful. He afterwards practiced medicine with a fair degree of success, but was all the time more or less interested in mer- cantile pursuits. He died during the epi- demic of 1848-49.
DR. B. F. WILLIAMS was born in Pom- fret, Chautauqua county, New York, June 27, 18II, and came to Lower Sandusky in October, 1822. He attended school at the academy in Sangersfield, New York, after which he returned to Fremont in 1829. About two years later he began the study of medicine with Dr. Anderson, with whom he remained three years. He then went to Cincinnati, where he became a student of Dr. Drake, and attended lec- tures. He graduated in 1835 or 1836. During his stay in Cincinnati he became acquainted with and married Miss Sarah Addison, a descendant of the English
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author, Joseph Addison. He then return- ed to Lower Sandusky and began the practice of medicine, in which he contin- ued until the time of his death, which occurred February 9, 1849. Dr. Williams' untimely death terminated what would have been an honorable and successful career. His mental powers were good, and he applied himself closely to study. He was exceedingly fond of scientific pursuits, and possessed excellent literary taste. His manners were cultivated and agreeable, and his character pure and above reproach.
His widow, a son and a daughter reside in Brooklyn, New York, and another son in Minnesota.
DR. LOUIS GESSNER was born April 6, 1804, in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. His father died in 1809, leaving a widow and four children. Although in moderate cir- cumstances, she succeeded, through true motherly sacrifice and devotion, in secur- ing for them a good education. Louis left home at the age of fifteen, and travelled on foot to the Danube, and thence went to Vienna, where he had relatives, who kindly rendered him assistance in the com- pletion of his education. After finishing his course of study in medicine, he left Vienna, travelling on foot to Switzerland. Arriving at the Canton of Berne in 1828, he commenced the practice of medicine, and in the same year was married to Miss Elizabeth F. Schwartz, daughter of a prominent physician of Thun. In 1833, with his family, he emigrated to America, and located first near Tonawanda, but soon afterwards in Buffalo, New York. In 1837 he removed to Williamsville, Erie county. Leaving his family in that place, he returned to Switzerland, and coming back in 1838, decided to move West. He accordingly settled in Lower Sandusky in that year. He soon enjoyed a good prac- tice, largely, but by no means exclusively,
among the early German settlers in San- dusky county. As a physician, Dr. Gess- ner won the confidence of the public, and his standing among his brethren of the medical profession was always high. He purchased a house and lot of Thomas L. Hawkins in 1841, and his present residence in the country in 1848.
The offspring consisted of eleven chil- dren, three of whom-Karl, Louis, and Louise-were born in Thun, Switzerland. Karl, the eldest, died during the voyage to America, and was buried at sea. Freder- ick and Emily were born in Buffalo, and Matilda, Caroline, Gustavus A., Randolph, and two others who died in early infancy, in Fremont.
Mrs. Elizabeth Frederika Gessner was, on the maternal side, of Italian descent. Her mother's father was a physician of the name of Rubini. Her great-grand- father, of the same name, was the author of a treatise on materia medica, written in 1688, a copy of which is still preserved. Mrs. Gessner died in 1864. She was a lady of excellent education and great re- finement of feeling, tender and sympa- thetic. Amidst the constant and exacting duties of wife and mother, from which she never shrank, and which she never slighted, her moments of leisure were given to books and music, her passion for which ended only with her life. She de- lighted most of all in the songs and tradi- tions of the land of her birth, and dwelt on them and kindred topics with a pathos often tinged with melancholy, that im- pressed those with whom her memory is sacred forever that her lot should have been so cast that the land of her birth had been also the land of her life and death, surrounded only by familiar scenes, and gentle and loving friends.
DR. JAMES W. WILSON was born in New Berlin, Union county, Pennsylvania, February 1, 1816.
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His grandfather, James Wilson, emi- grated from Connecticut to Eastern Penn- sylvania about 1791. His father, Samuel Wilson, the only son of James Wilson, was born in Schuylkill county, Pennsyl- vania, November 25, 1793. He married Miss Sarah Mauck, a native of Pennsyl- vania, at New Berlin, and resided there, à much esteemed and successful merchant, until his death, November 3, 1855. His wife, the mother of Dr. Wilson, died May 31, 1872, aged eighty-four years.
Dr. Wilson studied medicine with Dr. Joseph R. Lotz in New Berlin, and after- wards attended lectures at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where he graduated in March, 1837. He com- menced the practice of medicine in Centre county, Pennsylvania, in Novem- ber of the same year. He emigrated to Ohio in June, 1839, in company with Dr. Thomas Stilwell, and settled in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont), July 24, 1829, where they opened an office, and con- tinued to practice as partners most of the time until 1862.
During the years that Dr. Wilson was engaged in the practice of his profession, he ranked among the most successful physicians in this section of the State. He was distinguished for prompti- tude, and faithful punctuality in fufilling engagements. The urbanity of his man- ners made him ever welcome to the' bed- side of the sufferer. His intelligence and manly deportment won the confidence of the public. His acknowledged skill, and the painstaking care with which he investi- gated the cases submitted to his judgment, commanded the respect and regard of his fellow-practitioners. It is probable that no physician outside the large cities of Ohio has ever enjoyed a larger practice, or performed more arduous labor in meet- ing its requirements.
In consequence of extraordinary ex-
posure, while attending to this large practice, Dr. Wilson was attacked, January 9, 1858, with a severe pneumonia, from the effects of which he has never com- pletely recovered; nor has he since de- voted himself to the practice of medicine. He has, however, retained a lively interest in whatever pertains to the profession of his choice. He is president of the San- dusky County Medical Society, and a member of the Ohio State Medical Society. During the war of the Rebel- lion he was appointed by Governor Tod (August, 1862), surgeon for Sandusky county, to examine applicants for exemp- tion from draft.
On the 25th of May, 1841, he was mar- ried to Miss Nancy E. Justice, daughter of Judge James Justice, of Lower San- dusky. They have four children-two sons and two daughters. Charles G., the eldest son, a graduate of Kenyon College and Harvard Law School, now of the law firm of Pratt & Wilson, of Toledo, mar- ried Nellie, daughter of J. E. Amsden, of Fremont. The younger son, James W., is collection clerk in the First National Bank. The eldest daughter is the wife of Dr. John B. Rice, of this city. Mary, the younger daughter, is married to Charles F. Rice, of New York City.
In 1857 Dr. Wilson became a partner in the banking house of Birchard, Miller & Co. In September, 1863, the bank was merged into the First National Bank of Fremont, with Dr. Wilson as vice-presi- dent. January 27, 1874, after the death of Mr. Birchard, Dr. Wilson was elected president, which position he now holds.
To the various enterprises tending to promote the business interests and growth of Fremont, the doctor has been a liberal contributor.
Dr. Wilson is a man of conservative views, but still not wanting in the liber- ality which accords to others the same
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rights and privileges he desires for himself. He is a man of firm religious convictions, and has always been consistent with his professions. For thirty years he has been a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and a regular attendant upon its services. Dr. Wilson holds the church to be the mainspring of law and order in society, and contributes liberally for the support of its charities.
THOMAS STILWELL, M. D., was born in Buffalo Valley, Union county, Pennsyl- vania, five or six miles west of Lewisburg, in January, 1815. His father, Joseph Stilwell, for more than half a century an honored citizen of that county, died in 1851, aged seventy - four years. His mother, Anna Stilwell, died eleven years later aged eighty-four years.
While a child his parents removed to New Berlin, the county seat of Union county, where he continued to reside, with the exception of such time as he was absent at school, until he left to make the West his future home.
After a full academic course at Milton, Pennsylvania, under the tuition of Rev. David Kirkpatrick, a distinguished teacher in that section of the State, and a brief course of selected studies at Lafayette college, Easton, Pennsylvania, he entered upon the study of medicine with Dr. Joseph R. Lotz, at New Berlin, and grad- uated at Jefferson Medical College, Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, in March, 1839, and located the same year at Fremont.
He was married to Miss Jerusha A. Boughton, of Canfield, Mahoning (then Trumbull) county, in 1842. Their chil- dren, five in number, are: Charles B., who resides at Watertown, New York; Thomas J., at St. Louis, Missouri; Charlotte E., married to John T. Lanman, at New London, Connecticut; Mary, married to W. T. Jordan, Louisville, Kentucky; and Anna M., at home with her parents.
At the close of forty-one years of pro- fessional life he still continues in the prac- tice of medicine.
Dr. Stilwell's place in the profession has always been with those in front. For the past two years he has been vice-president of the Sandusky County Medical Society, and for many years a member of the State Medical Society. He was among the first appointed pension examining surgeons (February, 1863), which position he held until he resigned in 1879. To his letter of resignation the Commissioner of Pen- sions replied in very complimentary terms, expressing regret for its having been ten- dered. He has recently been elected one of the censors of the medical depart- ment of the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, having held the same posi- tion in Charity Hospital Medical College, afterwards known as the Medical Depart- ment of Wooster University. Dr. Stilwell has been a member of the Presbyterian church during the whole of his mature life, and has for many years been an elder.
Dr. Stilwell, at our request, has fur- nished the following account of some of the experiences of himself and Dr. Wil- son connected with their practice :
Drs. Wilson and Stilwell-who grew up together in close companionship in their Pennsylvania town, and were fellow-stu- dents in Dr. Lotz's office, graduating at the same college-formed the purpose, while yet office students, to emigrate to the West together. Accordingly, on the 13th of June, 1839, in a two-horse covered carriage, purposely constructed with ample room for themselves and baggage, which included a small stock of books and in- struments, they left their home for a West- ern prospecting tour, with the design, if no location to their liking offered sooner, to go on to Illinois, at that day the " Far West." Travelling leisurely, they stopped long enough at each important town on
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the way to ascertain what inducement it could offer two adventurous young men who were in the pursuit of bread and fame. Calling on their professional breth- ren, both as a matter of courtesy and interest, the pleasure of their journey was much increased thereby. In this way they reached Lower Sandusky (Fremont). Spending a few days visiting friends-who a few years before, on coming West, settled in the neighborhood of Lower Sandusky -they continued on to Perrysburg and Maumee. Here they saw what had often been the exciting theme of their childhood -a tribe of Indians-the Ottawas, who were encamped on the flats opposite Mau- mee, preparatory to their "being removed to their new hunting-grounds west of the Mississippi, assigned them by the Govern- ment.
Finding the roads impassable for their carriage the travellers returned to Lower Sandusky, and turned south. At Tiffin they met with Dr. Dresbach-of lasting reputation in that locality for his genial manner, and his ability as a physician and surgeon. Advised by him, they decided to remain at Lower Sandusky, to which they returned, and "put up" at Corbin's, the Kessler House of to-day, it being the 24th of July. A week subsequently oc- curred the 2d of August, whereon the citizens of Sandusky and neighboring counties celebrated the anniversary of Croghan's victory by barbecuing an ox on the commons-now the court-house park, Eleutheros Cook, of Sandusky City, delivering an oration from the porch of the low frame dwelling-house erected a few years before by Jacques Hulburd, standing in the middle of Fort Stephen- son, and which, three or four years ago, was removed from the gounds when they became the property of the city and Birchard library by purchase.
The breastworks of the fort were, at !
that day, still conspicuous, a few of the decayed palisades yet to be seen.
Within a few days after their arrival both were taken sick with · fever. Oc- cupying beds at the hotel in the same out-of-the-way room, they were left pretty much to themselves, to acquire experience as patient, nurse, and doctor, all at the same time and at their leisure. A new settler had a good deal to learn about sickness, and but few lacked opportunities for acquiring knowledge by personal ex perience.
A notable fact connected with the his- tory of the hotel that season is remembered by living participants, namely: That at one time, for a few days, not a woman re- mained in the house, filled as it was with guests and boarders, of whom many were sick, except the landlord's wife, and she, too, down with the fever. The women help had all gone home sick. It was very hard to obtain others. A colored man- a steamboat cook-with man help for general housework, supplied their place.
The sickness that season being very general all over the town and country, before either had so far recovered as to be able to do more than leave their room they were importuned to visit the sick and were compelled to comply long be- for they were fit for the service.
They secured for an office a little one- story frame structure, which stood where Buckland's block now stands, at the cor- ner of Front and State streets. It was an unpretentious building, belonging to Captain Morris Tyler. Their neighbors on the south were Morris & John Tyler, merchants, whose store occupied one-half of a low two-story frame house of very moderate dimensions, but for size and appearance one of the noted mercantile establishments of the town. To the north they were in close proximity to General R. P. Buckland's law office, of
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about the same size as their own, and in no way superior to theirs, excepting it was a shade whiter from having probably had two coats of- paint, while theirs had but one, and that one almost washed off by the northeasters which swept its front, unobstructed by three-story blocks on the opposite side of the street.
And just here a digression may be par- donable to· relate how nearly this office, with that of General Buckland, came to be put out of sight, or left standing only in ruins-a testimonial of the patriotism that periodically continued to display itself upon these historic grounds. A cannon fired at the intersection of State and Front streets, on the occasion of a jollification in 1842 over the election of Wilson Shan- non as Governor of Ohio, burst, sending its butt-end through the north side of General Buckland's office, and but for its wise discrimination in the interest of hu- manity, it would have gone through the north side of the doctors' office as well.
The "doctor's ride" in that day meant twelve or fifteen miles in all directions, and on horseback, mostly through woods on new cut-out roads, often paths for some part of the way. He found his patients in the scattered cabins in which the farmers of Sandusky county then lived.
During the continuance of their part- nership, and until Doctor Wilson's health became impaired by a severe attack of sickness by exposure, as noted in his per- sonal biography o. a preceding page, they so arranged their business that their at- tendance upon patients was by alternate visits, making thus an equal division of the labor. He who went on the eastern round to-day would go on the western to- morrow.
The "sickly season"-meaning from about the middle of July to the middle of October-was a phrase very familiar in those times, happily not applicable to this
day, for the State may be challenged to name, within its bounds, a county health- ier now than this same Sandusky. The change has been wrought partly by clear- ing up the land, but mostly by construct- ing ditches to carry of the water that over- spread the surface.
During the sickly. season the pressure on their time was such as to enable them to make the round only once in two days. Oftentimes each passed over the other's route before they met in their office-not seeing each other for days- the necessary communications being made on a large slate kept in the office for that purpose.
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