USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 28
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The Rev. Theodore P. Frohne, under whom their new church was built, was pastor of the congregation from 1904 to 1910. In 1905 the Amann lot at the corner of Main avenue and South street was bought for $3,000 and on November 4. 1906, the corner stone for a new building was laid. Two years later the church was finished at a cost of about $20,000. Its dimen- sions are forty by seventy-five feet and it consists of an auditorium and Sun- day-school room, with all the modern appointments in the basement. A gallery is' erected across the west end of the auditorium.
The church was consecrated September 27, 1908, with an elaborate pro- gram and a new pipe organ, one half the cost of which was donated by An- drew Carnegie, was opened at the same time.
Beautiful stained glass windows were furnished by individual members. The Rev. Frohne was succeeded by the Rev. R. Wobus in 1910 and handed over to his successor a church in a most flourishing condition which had more than doubled itself during his pastorate.
The church council for 1912 consists of A. R. Friedman, president ; An-
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drew Curtner, vice-president; Allen Maurer, secretary; Carl Wolf, treasurer Deacons-Julius Stein, George Weiss. Trustees-George Weiss, Fred Brockman, Julius Stein. Elders-Andrew Curtner. Carl Wolf. Organist- Miss Ola Friedmann.
The United Brethren church was organized in September, 1894, by the Rev. E. E. Swords, a missionary pastor, who commenced with nine charter members in the old Dunkard church at the corner of Ohio avenue and South street. A Sunday school had been formed prior to this, by W. W. Lucas, who served as . superintendent for five years. The Rev. L. C. Reed took charge of the church in 1895 and was its pastor for two years and built the Sunday-school room, which is a part of the church, at a cost of $3,500. He was followed by the Rev. Waldo, 1897 to 1898, and he by the Rev. J. W. Lower, who conceived the idea of a memorial church dedicated to the mem- ory of Ella Schenck, who met a tragic death in Africa while devoting her life to missionary work. Miss Schenck was from Shelby county. The Rev. W. T. Roberts became the pastor in 1899 and under his pastorate the church was built at a cost of $9,000, a splendid memorial to the martyr missionary. Eighty-nine persons were received during his ministry, which lasted until 1903. The Rev. W. S Sage was pastor from 1903 to 1904 and was followed by the Rev. L. S. Woodruff, who received two hundred and ten persons into the church. The Rev. Carl Jameson took charge from 1907 to 1909, fol- lowed by the Rev. Carl Roop. The present pastor, the Rev. D. C. Hollinger, followed in September 1910 and has a church membership of 391, a wonder- ful growth. H. G. Henly has supervision of the Sunday-school, which is graded into five departments with an enrollment of three hundred and ninety- four members.
The Mount Vernon Baptist church, African, is now in the process of building at the corner of Park and Linden streets in the northwestern part of the city. The structure is built of cement at a cost of $3,000 and is modern in all its appointments, making a splendid church home for its sixty- five members. The Rev. Hathcock is the present pastor. The congregation worshipped for many years at the corner of South and West avenues in a little frame church on property bequeathed by Charles Sterrett. The town council bought the lot last year for $1,800 and it has been selected as the location for the new armory to be built by the state this year of 1913.
During the year of 1895 Arch Deacon Brown, now Bishop of Arkansas, came to Sidney and found four communicants of the Episcopal church, Mrs. Sarah Stuber, Mrs. J. W. Cloninger, Mrs. W. S. Ley and Mrs. B. M. Don- aldson. With these as charter members under the leadership of the Rev. Barkdull, St. Marks parish was begun. A series of services was held in the assembly room of the court house. The first confirmation service with the Rt. Rev. W. . 1. Leonard, Bishop of Ohio, in attendance was held in the U. P. church. Shortly after this the old Christian church on North Miami avenue was remodeled and decorated and fixed up as a mission in charge of the Rev. T. R. Hazzard. In 1901 the strength of the mission was considered great enough to build a church of its own on the church lot. This lot on North
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Miami avenue had been left to the church in 1820 by Charles Sterrett, who was a member of that denomination. Mr. Hazzard drew the plans for the building after a church he had so much admired in England. It is built of red brick, with brown trimmings, Gothic in style, finished off in Flemish oak with beamed ceilings, a dignified little church. To be as economical as pos- sible the Rector donned blouse and overalls and did much of the manual work. Rev. Hazzard was called to a New York pastorate and Rev. Linric became Rector in charge. He was succeeded by the Rev. Stalker and he in turn by the Rev. T. G. C. McCalla. The Rev. H. J. Haight followed and at present the mission is in charge of the Rev. John Stewart Banks, who divides his time between Bellefontaine and Sidney.
CHAPTER XV
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
The Pioneer Doctor-Prevailing Discases in Early Days-Crude Methods of Cure-Great Medical Discoveries-Some of the Early and Later Phy- sicians of Shelby County -- The Shelby County Medical Society-Present Physicians and Surgeons.
The first disciples of Esculapins and Hippocrates to practice within the present limits of Shelby county did not have the advantages enjoyed by their brethren of the present day. One hundred years ago the practice of medi- cine was crude and unsatisfactory. It was the day of the lancet, calomel and jalap. People then were afflicted with many diseases arising largely from the climate and exposures. Doctors were few and ofttimes a half day's ride from the isolated cabin and not infrequently a swollen river intervened. They were men of the family physician type-a type which has almost passed away in these days of specialism. They did their work well and never flinched where duty called them. Their patients honored them as they did their priest or minister. They were the men who fought the scourging epi- demics of smallpox, black diphtheria, chills and fever and typhoid that were so prevalent. They did it the best they could with the means at their command. The prevailing diseases of the early days of county history were many. The winters were cold. Consumption was practically unknown among the pio- neers, croup was the terror of the household, rheumatism and, along the water courses, remitting and intermitting fevers including ague were com- mon. Dysentery occurred every summer in this locality, jaundice was com- mon and besides the scourge of smallpox, there were two invasions of cholera. Among the other diseases with which the first physicians had to contend were scrofula, rickets, scurvy, dropsy and apoplexy. Cancers were hardly known in the county then and insanity was very rare. No bills of mortality were kept in the early days, there were no boards of health, and the old doctors were not called upon to furnish mortuary statistics. The old- time medical profession of the county had an intense hatred of the charlatan or quack doctor who came to the surface now and then to the detriment of the regular profession. Drug stores were unknown and every family was largely its own doctor.
Who has not heard of the thrifty housewife and her bowl of goose grease for smearing the children's throats, a custom which obtains to the present day. Each household had various remedies compounded from herbs and roots-
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among which tansy, boneset, snakeroot and poke were favorites. Stim- ulants were found in the prickly ash, Indian turnip, sassafras, ginseng and the flower of the wild hops. tonics in the bark and flower of the dogwood, the rose willow, yellow poplar, the cucumber tree and the Spanish oak, while the red maple, wild cherry and crowfoot were regarded as astringents and so used. Almost every neighborhood had its "charm doctor" that claimed to be expert in the removal of ringworms, tetter, felon and the like.
It mattered little how weak a patient might be he had to be bled. The bleeding process obtained in this county till long after the birth of the nine- teenth century. Sometimes, when they could be obtained, leeches were used in the practice of medicine to draw blood from the patient. They bled for croup, which was another name for diphtheria, and nothing was as efficacious for pneumonia. It is said that Washington was bled to death by his physicians.
It must not be thought that the pioneer doctor was a man of little educa- tion. He was a man much ahead of his profession. He kept abreast of his time and especially in the therapeutics of the day. His stock of medicine came generally from the east, though in later years pharmacopoeias were estab- lished at Columbus and Cincinnati. For the remedies which he did not manu- facture himself he drew on the nearest medical depot and aside from jalap and calomel, he was dependent on his own resources.
To the introduction of anaesthetics and antiseptics is due a complete revolution of earlier methods, complete reversal of mortuary statistics, and the complete relief of pain during surgical operations; in other words, to these two discoveries the human race owes more of the prolongation of life and relief of suffering than can ever be estimated or formulated in words. In the same class from the point of usefulness to mankind may be placed the discovery in recent years of the great value of antitoxin by 'Professor Von Behring of Berlin. To Lord Lester is due the great honor of the discovery. of antiseptics-a process that would avail against putrefaction and to Dr. William T. G. Morton the use of ether in surgery first proved to the world in 1846. On his tomb in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston is this self- explanatory inscription :
"Inocutor and revealer of anaesthetic inhalation, before whom in all time surgery was agony, and by whom pain in surgery was averted and annulled; since whom science has controlled pain."
The two grandest medical discoveries of all time are of Anglo-Saxon origin-the one British, the other American.
It would be next to impossible to catalogue all the old physicians of the county. Some are forgotten and the record of them is but the slightest. They lived in the days of poor fees and hard work but this did not daunt them.
The first practicing physician that settled in Shelby county was Dr. Wil- liam Fielding who settled in Sidney in 1824, shortly after its selection as the county seat. He was born May 1, 1796, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and after a full medical course, commenced the practice of his profession in 1816 in Madison county, Ohio. He was in the War of 1812 and served six months under Colonel Johnston. In 1818 he went to Franklin and there practiced
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until coming to Sidney. Dr. Fielding was identified with church, state and Masonic affairs as he was one of the ruling elders in the organization of the Presbyterian church in 1825. He represented this county in the legislature for seven years both as senator and representative and was one of the original petitioners of Temperance Lodge No. 73, in 1825, was honored with being its first worshipful master, which position he held during his life at different times for twenty-seven years. He was a thirty-third degree Mason and to this day the brethren assemble in the lodge room on his birthday every year. His portrait in oil hangs on the walls of the temple. He was probably the most learned of the past physicians of the county, a fine scholar and deep thinker, a Lord Chesterfield in manners, immaculate in dress and his name for nearly fifty years was a household word in Sidney and Shelby county. He was married in 1818 and the father of twelve children, eleven of whom reached maturity.
In 1836, when Sidney had a population of about one thousand, Dr. H. S. Conklin came to Sidney. The country for miles around was wild, the roads merely trails or paths through the forest and enough game remained in this section to furnish hunting grounds for a few Indians. A physician's practice extended over a large area and carried with it a great deal of genuine exposure and hardship. Sleep was often found in the saddle, while the saddle-bags were capacious enough to carry both medicines and surgical instruments. The subject of this sketch was born in Champaign county, Ohio, in 1814, and read medicine with Dr. Robert Rogers of Springfield. He graduated from the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati in 1836 and at once located in Sidney where he continued practising up to his death in 1890. He was surgeon for the state militia for fifteen years and held the offices of president and vice president of the State Medical Society, and was surgeon with General Fremont during the war. He was largely instrumental in secur- ing the D. and M. and C. C. C. and I. railways for Sidney. A great lover of fine stock, he indulged his fancy to the fullest extent. A man of splendid physique, with a mind so astute as to enable him to arrive at a diagnosis of a case with almost unerring correctness, he was wise in counsel and sought for all over the state. In 1838 he married Miss Ann Blake, a native of England and raised a family of three children. .
Dr. Albert Wilson, the third son of Col. Jesse H. Wilson, one of the pioneers of Shelby county, was one of the early practitioners of the county, settling here in 1852. He was born September 14, 1826, studied medicine under Dr. H. S. Conklin, of Sidney, and graduated from the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati in 1851. In the spring of 1861 he entered the army as regimental surgeon and remained in the service four years and three months. He was the first volunteer from the town of Sidney having offered his service as surgeon within forty-eight hours after Lincoln's first call for troops. At the close of the war he returned to his practice in Sidney and in 1875 engaged in the drug trade in connection with his practice. In 1871 he married Miss Irene Ayres of Wapakoneta, and had one daughter,' Jessie Ayres Wilson. He possessed a strong physical organization coming from a hardy race of
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people, was loyal to his friends, honest and sincere, and his life was certainly an exemplary one. He died June 2, 1903.
Another physician that was contemporaneous with our early practitioners was Dr. Park Beeman, a native of New York, who settled in Sidney in 1838. No data concerning the doctor can be found but it is recalled that he made surgery a specialty, was painstaking and honest and a man highly respected in the community for his deferential bearing to his elders and the sympathy and aid to the sick and unfortunate. One of his two daughters, Mrs. Glori- ana Driscoll, of Detroit, still survives him.
While not contemporaneous with the old time practitioners of Shelby county it is thought best to enroll the name of Dr. D. R. Silver in the list of early physicians and his death a year ago, December 8, was sincerely mourned by the entire community. He was reared on a farm near Wooster, Ohio, where he was born April 1, 1844, and when eighteen years of age entered upon an academic course at Vermillion Institute in Haysville, Ohio. After finishing there he studied medicine in Wooster and then graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia in 1868. He came to Sidney in 1871 from Apple Creek, Wayne county, where he had been practising and married Miss Jennie E. Fry of Sidney, June 2, 1872, and has had three children, two of whom survive, Edith and Arthur, the latter having taken up his father's practice since his death.
Dr. Silver was possessed of an analytical mind, positive in his convic- tions and unswerving in his devotion to his principles. He was a stanch Republican in politics, an implacable enemy of the saloon and it is said his activity in the wet-and-dry campaign hastened his death. An orthodox Pres- byterian in which church he had been an elder since 1873. A member of the board of health of the city, identified with the schools as medical inspec- tor, in which capacities hie made investigations of sanitary conditions and the laws of hygiene. The father of the Shelby County Medical Society and a member of the Ohio State Medical Society.
One of the old school of physicians was Dr. Wilson V. Cowan, born near Urbana, Ohio, January 11, 1816. Atter receiving such instruction as the public schools afforded he attended Miami University taking a four years' course. He was a graduate of the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati and in 1844 commenced the practice of his profession in Hardin, Turtle Creek, township, which he continued up to his death in 1874. He was elected to the lower house of general assembly in 1856 and in 1861 joined the Fremont Body Guards as assistant surgeon. He was surgeon of the Ist Ohio Cavalry and afterwards was made brigade surgeon. He was married in 1845 and had a family of eight children.
He was an excellent physician, suave and gentle in his manners, kindly in the sick room and a charming entertainer in his home. A most ardent Methodist and a stanch Republican in politics.
A doctor universally beloved by his community in which he lived, whose home was noted for its old time hospitality, was John C. Leedow, who settled on a farm near New Palestine in Green township in 1842. He was born in 16
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Bucks county, Pennsylvania, November 13, 1817, was educated in the Phila- delphia schools, and in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. He was married in Pennsylvania in 1839 and had five children. He combined the business of farming in connection with his profession and was a most enterprising man keeping abreast of the times. A fine looking man of splendid physique, with most agreeable manners, he was truly a physician of the old school. He died at his home in Green township October 28, 1891.
The first Doctor Hussey, we say first because two of his sons adopted the profession of their father. Allen, who practiced in Port Jefferson, and Millard F., who has a large practice in Sidney, came to Port Jefferson, Salem town- ship, in 1848, and thus is identified with the early history of the county. He was born Stephen C. of Irish parentage in Greene county, Ohio, in 1819, the third in a family of seven children .. He was a graduate of Sturling Medical College, Columbus, and continued the practice of medicine until his death in 1871. In 1840 he married Miss Ann Wical and raised a family of eleven children, ten of whom were living at his death. He was a man of genial disposition, positive in his convictions, a Democrat of the Jackson type, and one of the first officers in Stokes Lodge, No. 305, of F. and A. Masons.
Dr. John L. Miller was another Port Jefferson practitioner, a student of Dr. S. C. Hussey, who enjoyed a lucrative practice in that community for many years. He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1833, and came to Salem township in 1854. After studying medicine there he attended Star- ling Medical College and commenced the practice of his profession in Port Jefferson in 1857. He married Miss Margaret Henry in 1858, and had two sons one of whom survives him. He was a physician of more than ordinary ability, of fine literary tastes, and his death which took place in 1906 at Dela- ware, where he passed the last few years of his life, was most sincerely mourned by his old friends. His body lies in Graceland cemetery.
The Shelby County Medical Society was organized in 1871 and its founder was the late Dr. D. R. Silver. Its organization is on the plan adopted by the American Medical Association that is that the County Society is the unit of organization. It is a component part of the Ohio State Medical Association and also of the American Medical Association. Any member of the Shelby County Medical Society in good standing is a member of the Ohio State Medical Association and is likewise eligible to membership in the American Medical Association. The officers of the County Association are Lester C. Pepper, president : J. D. Geyer, vice president ; Arthur Silver, secretary.
LIST OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF SHELBY COUNTY
Sidney-F. D. Anderson, Henry E. Beebe, Hugh McDowell Beebe, W. D. Frederick. J. W. Costolo, J. D. Geyer, S. G. Goode, A. W. Grosvenor, A. B. Gudenkanf, A. W. Hobby, Flint C. Hubbell, B. S. Hunt, Millard T. Hussey, C. E. Johnston, Lester C. Pepper, A. W. Reddish, B. M. Sharp, E. A. Yates. Osteopath, F. D. Clark.
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Anna-C. W. B. Harbour, D. R. Millette.
Botkins-Frederick McVay, G. M. Tate.
Montra-C. M. Faulkner.
Jackson Center-Arlington Ailes, Mary E. Hauver, J. M. Carter, Edward McBurney, Edgar McCormick.
Maplewood-O. C. Wilson, Waldo N. Gaines, Dr. Elliott.
Lockington-S. S. Gabriel.
Houston-William Gaines.
Newport-J. N. Strosnider.
Kettlerville-O. O. Le Master.
During the past century medical advance in the county has been great. The old system of practice has passed away and there remains of it at the present day nothing but a memory. It may be said in conclusion that the medical profession of the county has a record to be proud of and that it keeps in the foremost rank of research and discovery in its particular domain.
CHAPTER XVI
EDUCATION
Lack of Educational Facilities in Early Days-The Old Log Schoolhouse -Introduction of Graded Schools-The Schools of Sidney and Shelby County-Superintendents and Teachers-The New High School.
SCHOOLS
While the pioneers had a high appreciation of the value and necessity of the education of their children it is amazing how crude were their ideas of the essentials in the furtherance of it. With forests that were an encum- brance all around, they erected small, squatty school houses out of the logs, crowding the pupils together on inconvenient and excruciating seats, paying no regard to their comfort.
With land cheap and boundless in extent no yard which ought to have consisted of an acre or more furnished a play ground for the children, but the house was set as close to the highway as possible with a stake and ridered fence high and strong enough for a bull pen or a buffalo corral.
The fact is the fathers and mothers did not stop to think that conveniences and beauty played any part in the right development of the mental and physi- cal man, and it is only in later years that parents have struck the right track.
Public schools paid for by taxation were not known and teachers were remunerated by subscription and the fathers of large families kept up the schools while childless homes took no part in defraying the expenses. Large families were looked upon as blessings and were in the sparsely settled country but the burden of their educational support rested upon the comparatively poor and when a fund for the purpose was proposed it was largely antagonized by men of property. Happily things have changed and the children of the poor are educated without money and without price in buildings commodious and beautiful.
Prior to the 2d day of January, 1857, all the schools of Sidney were taught in private houses or churches in different parts of the town, except one that was taught in a log house erected on the school lot given by the proprietor of the town ( Mr. Sterrett ). They were supported by private subscription, with the exception of a small fund from the state and a fund arising from the rent of a farm donated to the Sidney schools by Wm. Covill in 1843. There was no system of graded schools until after the erection of the present Union school building in 1856. In 1855 the board of education of the school district
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determined to take steps toward the erection of a Union school building. .Accordingly it was ordered that the clerk of the board should give the requisite notice to the voters of Sidney and the territory thereto annexed for school purposes, to assemble at the courthouse and vote upon a proposition to levy a tax of $12,000, payable in three annual installments, commencing in 1856, and to issue corporation bonds therefor, bearing seven per cent. interest, for the purpose of building a schoolhouse in said village and buying the necessary grounds upon which to erect it. It was also stipulated in the notice through the public prints that if the school tax should carry, the qualified voters of the district should have the right of voting on the location of the school building. Accordingly, as per notice, a vote was taken on the 30th day of April, 1855; the result of the vote was 134 in favor of school tax and 79 against. There was a great strife in the selection of the site. A number of propositions were made by different persons in different parts of the town, and it was some length of time before a site was selected; finally, lot No. 106 and the west half of lot 105 were selected and purchased from Birch & Peebles at a cost of about $2,100. The east half of lot 105 had been given to the town by its proprietor for school purposes. U'pon these lots a brick building, 90x64 feet and three stories high (beside basement ) was erected at a cost of about $18,000. The building was not ready for occupancy until the Ist of January, 1857. At the completon of the building only eight rooms ( four in the first and four in the second story) were fitted for schoolrooms : the third story was used as a hall for several years. As soon as necessity demanded, the third story was divided into four rooms, making in all twelve rooms. In the year 1828 Wm. Covill came from England to the United States, and for a few years stopped in the state of New York, but prior to 1840 he came to Shelby County, O., and bought the northeast quarter of section 26, in Clinton township. Some time prior to his death (which occurred in July, 1843), he bequeathed to the common schools of the town of Sidney this piece of land, which the board of education accepted, and gave a lease of the same for ninety-nine years. The fund aris- ing from the lease of said land has, since that time, been used in the mainte- nance of the schools in the town of Sidney.
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