USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne county, Ohio, from the days of the pioneers and the first settlers to the present time > Part 46
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In medicine there are but few men who combine all the traits indispensable to the true physician. This fact seems to be much better understood with Europeans than in America, where the va- rious branches of medicine are divided into separate and distinct professions. A man may practice skillfully in the materia medica and be but an indifferent surgeon, or he may excel in the science of compounding and be ill-suited to preside over the education of others. Moreover every profession has its literature and morale, and he may wield a pen with elegance, power and point who would prove but a blunderer in the dissecting-room.
Dr. Firestone has not only vindicated his claim to an exalted rank in surgery, but in every department of the occult mysteries of medicine. He wields a strong and trenchant pen, talks with the freedom of the gushing brook, and presides over the studies of others with eminent success, and to the fame he has achieved with the scalpel he adds the luster of the teacher.
He was born in Saltcreek township, Wayne county, Ohio, in the year 1819. After he attained his fourteenth year his time was spent in performing such service, during the summer, as a boy of that age was competent of doing upon the farm, while during the winter he had the occasional opportunity of attending the country school. He now went to Columbiana county, near Salem, where he had some sprightly jostling with the world, and where he ob- tained some scant instruction in a district school from a Mr. Kings- bury and a Mr. Mills. From there he went to Portage county, Ohio, where for three months he indulged in the health-inspiring, muscle-expanding, chest-enlarging, lung-invigorating occupation of chopping cord-wood, and that for three shillings per cord, and hard beech at that.
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Whether the Doctor was so successful as to acquire distinction as a cord-wood carpenter and champion of the wedge and maul, we are not at liberty to tell, but fancy, however, that with all his pre- conceived conceits of the dignity of labor that he did not desire to extend his knowledge of his occupation beyond an exact rudiment- ary limit.
Adopting the Westonic method of locomotion, he then pro- ceeded to Chester township, Wayne county, making his home with his uncle, John Firestone, two miles north of New Pittsburg, with whom he remained until he was eighteen years of age. On the farm of his uncle he found "ample room and verge enough" for his developing and powerful muscular forces- felling grand old trees, rolling and tumbling logs, plowing among stumps and stub- born roots, an occupation sufficient indeed to test the patience and manly fortitude, not only of the youthful Firestone, but of the sternest Calvinist of the faith of Brown or good old Ebenezer Erskine. In the fields and woods the summer was spent; in the dingy school-room the winter.
He taught his first term in what is now Perry township, Ash- land county, then in Wayne county, in what was called the Hel- man district, receiving for his services twelve dollars per month, and boarding himself. By appropriating the intervals between labor and sleep to hard study, he obtained his education, and laid the marble on which is built the superstructure of his professional name.
If he did not, like Pope, teach himself to write by copying printed books, he managed to acquire the art by other equally novel methods. He wrung the secrets from Kirkham and the Calculator by the blaze of burning brush-heaps. During this time he made weekly recitations to Rev. Thomas Beer. In addition to such studies that directly qualified him for teaching, he devoted himself to botany, philosophy, chemistry and other branches of natural science. He had no collegiate education. The farm was his academia and university ; the teeming fields and valleys, the trees and brooks his tutors. Life was his school, where "the clink of mind against mind" strikes out those brighter intellectual sparks which shine forever, and reflect light in endless irradiations. He studied hard, and had a clear understanding of what he read.
Industry and perseverance are stout levers when fulcrumed upon a resolute will. Possunt quia posse videntur is a maxim full of pith as in any time past. There is a marvel in earnest study. He
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adopted the idea of Bacon: "Read to weigh and consider"-not too many books but all good ones well. For "some books," adds he, "are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested." Under difficult and adverse conditions he studied and struggled, "unfolding himself out of nothing into something." Or as Carlyle would say, he drew continually toward himself in continual succession and variation the materials of his structure, nay his very plan of it, from the whole realm of accident, you may say, from the whole realm of free-will building his life together, a guess and a problem as yet not to others only but to himself.
On the 26th of August, 1838, he was married to Susan Fire- stone, and the next year, then but 20 years old, began the study of medicine with Dr. S. F. Day, an eminent practicing physician of the county at that time, and for whose great and consummate skill as a practitioner, to this day, he entertains a profound regard. With him he remained for nearly three years, during which time he took a course of lectures at the Medical College of Philadelphia.
On the 28th of March, 1841, he located at Congress village, Congress township, where he began his first floatings on the abys- mal sea of professional life.
His residence and office were in the first house north of the ho- tel, then kept by James Huston and known as the Homer Stanley property. Here he continued for 13 years, where he had an ex- tensive and lucrative practice and acquired a signal local reputation during which more than a decade, he graduated from the medical department of the Western Reserve College, then located at Cleve- land, Ohio. We have said he had now attained to a local celebrity. More than that. He had not only impressed the community that embraced his circumference of visitation of his superior ability and where he had been saving
" Some wrecks of life from aches and ails,"
But the noise of his skill and the echo of his professional ex- ploits had reached the ear of the broader and more scientific pub- lic. The college, from which he had but recently graduated, was in need of an occupant for one of its professional chairs, and in its survey for a suitable man to fill it, the abilities of Dr. Fire- stone were recognized, and in 1847 he was made Demonstrator of Anatomy in that institution. This position he held until 1853, where his reputation as an anatomist and dissecting-room instruc-
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tor was established, and when it became evident that honorable dis- tinction awaited him.
He next was appointed Superintendent of the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, located at Newburg, which position he filled with conspicuous fitness until August 6, 1856, when he removed to Wooster, where he has lived ever since, and engaged in a success- ful and sweeping practice. In 1858 he was elected President of the State Medical Society, then holding its sessions at Columbus.
In the winter of 1864 he was made Professor of Obstetrics and the Diseases of Women in Charity Hospital Medical College at Cleveland, which position he has continuously held ever since, ex- cepting two years, during which he occupied the Chair of Surgery in the same college. In the summer of 1870 this institution was constituted the Medical Department of Wooster University, in which he continues Professor of Obstetrics and the Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women, and Class Lecturer on Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene to the University students at Wooster.
The title of LL. D. was conferred upon Dr. Firestone by the University of Ohio, at Athens, June 24, 1874. This honor was be- stowed, not simply in appreciation of his brilliant attainments in the medical profession, but for his distinguished and pre-eminent achievements in the departments of science and literature, and the literature of science.
He has had eight children-three girls and five boys-all of whom are dead, save his two sons, W. W. Firestone, M. D., and M. O. Firestone, M. D.
Dr. L. Firestone is now at the very zenith of his powers- standing on the mainlands of professional eminence. Being yet in the prime, the noon of his years, and considering his past progress- ive elevations, we have not the courage to forecast his future. We see what he has, but know not what he might have accomplished. He stands over six feet high, is massively built and solid as a for- est oak. He is fleshy, but not corpulent, stout-limbed, broad- chested, and altogether well proportioned. His face is classic, his forehead is symmetrical, oval and dome-like. Causality, compari. son, ideality, are as perceptible as the snow-summits of the Sier- ras. His countenance is expressive of thought, benignity, reflec- tion, repose. Time has made reprisals upon his hair and what has not been pludered is slightly brushed with gray. He is accessible, sociable and communicative, yet he has the secret of secretiveness. He does nothing by proxy, not even his own thinking; has faith
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in himself, in his ability to decide for himself. All men do not know his thoughts ; he cages them like canaries, and when he lets them out, like carrier pigeons, they perform an errand. He under- stands himself, and is a skillful tactician. He has perfect control of himself and never does anything in haste. Hurry, rush and run are not in his dictionary. He is cool, imperturbable, self-poised and stands solid on his feet. With him there is time enough for all things. He will amputate your arm in less time than a barber will shave you, and do it with as little concern. He has an exu- berance of animal spirits and may well feel discouraged over the prospect of dying of hypochondria. He is as full of mirth as a spring rivulet is of water, and his sense of the ludicrous is as keen as Halliburton's. He can tell a story with the same ease that Tal- lyrand could turn a coffee-mill or a kingdom. He believes with Sterne that "laughter, like true Shandeeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs." He is fond of music and will never die with all of it in him. "He has a strong hand at one end of his arm and a strong head at the other."
He is a mechanic in his profession as he would have been out of it. He would have made a better lawyer than nineteen-twen- tieths of those already at the bar. In the pulpit he would have been a fire-kindler and segregator of sin, preaching from inspiration, and as all ministers should, without manuscript. His voice is susceptible of immense slides and modulations-is smooth enough for the evening party, strong and bellowing enough for anniversary pa- geant. He has many friends who are warmly attached to him. His enemies we imagine are few and he will get the best of them in the end. As a public lecturer he is popular. His addresses are eloquent and masterly productions, replete with pathos and senti- ment, and chaste and sublime in imagery. His descriptive power is terse and brilliant; his analyzations methodical and thorough ; the feeling, of the higher key and reflective. In this field he ex- cels-shines, for the same reason that the sun gives light. As a professional instructor few aspire even to be his equal.
He is indeed a born surgeon, enjoying peculiar adaptation to this branch of his profession. He possesses firmness and dexter- ity of hand, a calm, cool brain, a quick perceiving eye, a stout nerve, physical endurance and tenacity of will. In his operations he is resolute and decided, and in case of unforeseen complications he is ever guarded against surprises. Like Dr. Mott, his motto is, "Recognize the advance of science with the growth of the world,"
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and hence Dr. Firestone welcomes all valuable discoveries in medicine and surgery.
We may imagine, with his strong and composite elements of character and hardy vigor of intellect, how he has attained to pro- fessional distinction and honor. Every power and faculty of mind and brain were subjected and made tributary to his ambition and will. He willed to succeed, and success crowned him. Laborious toil and indefatigable industry are the Doric and Corinthian pillars of the edifice he has built. Day was a host, a besetting legion, in the splendor of his manhood, but on his pupil of 30 years ago has fallen, not only his mantle, but a wider name and a richer munifi- cence of honors.
W. W. FIRESTONE, M. D.
W. W. Firestone, M. D., was born in Congress village, Con- gress township, Wayne county, Ohio, February 25, 1842. A member of the family of Dr. Leander Firestone and wife, it would be superfluous to add that the home-culture and government to which he was subjected would be of the kind and character both to develop and discipline the boy.
The education that underlies and is the sub-stratum of human character, upon which its possessor builds in after life, and which is the brightest spot in the long, green fields of memory, is that which is imparted by those two natural and God-commissioned in- structors of the youthful mind-the father and mother! In this respect we are justified in the inference that W. W. Firestone re- ceived assiduous and requisite attention.
His other opportunities of education were promptly supplied by an open passage to the public schools of the city of Wooster, and to select and graduated teachers, under whose tutelage he com- pleted his desired course of study. He attended the Mt. Union College for three years.
In the year 1861 he began reading medicine with his father, Dr. Leander Firestone, when a term of four years was spent in study, in professional assistance of his father, and attendance on lecture courses, at the expiration of which period he had gradu- ated from Charity Hospital Medical College, Cleveland, Ohio, now the Medical department of the University of Wooster.
Since 1865 he has devoted himself wholly to the profession of his selection, and soon found himself partner in the office of L. Firestone, M. D.
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He was married, July 6, 1862, to Miss Sarah A. H. Webster, daughter of W. C. Webster, a musical artist and accomplished lady, by which marriage they had five children, three of whom are living, W. L., Alice M. and F. Sylvia Firestone.
W. W. Firestone, though one among the younger of the medi- cal practitioners in our midst, has rapidly risen to success and popularity in his profession. Having barely attained the meridian of life, he has a future of great assurance and promise before him.
As a physician he has secured the confidence of the people, and if the standard of professional eminence is to be measured by success, he has fought his way to the summit, and is justly entitled to the colors he has won. Constant, watchful, sympathetic, and possessed of good judgment and quick insight and comprehension, he possesses the normal elements of successful practice.
Society, jealous and critical though it may be of its members, may worthily include him and his family in its better circles.
As a man and citizen he is genial, hospitable and generous, alive to enterprise and ready to perform an honorable part in the promotion of the common good. Honesty and integrity consti- tute the parallels between which he moves. With him, all the do- mestic "nerve-centers" are concentrated in home. In this "charmed circle" are to be found his attachments, for surely here all the sweet atmospheres of this world are breathed.
MARTIN WELKER.
Martin Welker was born in Knox county, Ohio, April 21, 1818. His father, who was of German descent, was an early set- tler in Ohio, and having but little means to educate a large family, the subject of this sketch was obliged to rely almost exclusively upon his own resources, which did not consist of money, influence or friends. His educational advantages in youth were necessarily limited to a few years winter instruction in the log cabin school- houses of the West.
This primeval educational structure-this old-time, antiquated and vanished predecessor of the modern university-we will not more faithfully or succinctly undertake to describe than Mr. Wel- ker has himself, in a speech delivered by him at the dedication of the Wooster High School, October, 1870. From this speech we extract the following :
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We may well be proud of our Common School System, Now no youth of scho- lastic age need be deprived of the benefit of public instruction in the endowments of education at public expense, so that, poor or rich, all are equally provided for within the borders of our State.
The scene before me to-day recalls to me days of other years, far back in the history of common schools of our State. I shall never forget the first school in which I entered and the house in which it was held. On a cold December morn- ing I walked through a heavy snow, three miles, to the school-house, on the banks, of Owl creek, in Knox county. I there found a little log cabin, sixteen feet square, with puncheon floor, clap-board door and roof, greased paper in the windows, the whole end of the house one wide fire-place, with a chimney made of clay and sticks, built on the outside, and a blazing log fire in the ample fire-place. The benches or seats were split logs, with the flat side uppermost, with round sticks for legs, on which we sat, with our feet dangling above the rude floor. The " Master," as the teacher was then called, had the only desk, and that was a flat board, with four legs, standing in one corner. The " writing-tables" consisted of wide split slabs along one side of the room, supported by pins driven in the logs of the house. In this public building-and it is a fair representative of its day-we were provided a school for three months in the year, the winter season only.
It was under such circumstances and possessed of such meager facilities of education, that Martin Welker was to receive the men- tal training that was to prepare him for the discharge of duties that an active public life was to impose. At an early age he developed a powerful inclination for books and the acquisition of knowledge, and such was his assiduity and habit of application that he very soon achieved familiarity with the English branches taught at that time in the schools.
At the age of thirteen he abandoned his father's farm, and ob- tained a situation as clerk in a store in a neighboring village, where he remained five years, in the meantime appropriating much of his leisure time to the investigation of the higher branches of an English education.
When a clerk in the store an event occurred which, no doubt, largely influenced, and, to an eminent degree, imparted purpose and determination to his career in life. He was called as a wit- ness before a grand jury at Mt. Vernon. He had heard of Courts and Judges, but this was his first opportunity of witnessing either. The Hon. Ezra Dean was then the Presiding Judge, and a man of commanding appearance and dignified deportment and manner.
This single but extraordinary circumstance so wonderfully im- pressed the then plastic mind of the young witness, for the first time in court, that he then and there resolved to be a lawyer, and if possible to be worthy, and to attain to that higher and nobler
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distinction of the Judge-the position so well and admirably being filled by Dean. This resolution ripened into a firm and settled purpose. His boyhood associates heard his declaration, and many of them lived to see it verified.
He never lost sight of this young ambition, and how earnestly, zealously and indefatigably he has labored to accomplish and vindi- cate it, his remarkable Judicial record most eloquently explains. At the end of twenty years' hard and unremittent labor, and of many changes of fortune, he was elected Judge of the District over the same Judge Dean, who was his competitor, and actually occupied the same chair in the same old Court House at Mt. Vernon. This was the position he had declared to an associate that he would aspire to attain, and on its attainment his youthful friend, but now an eminent physician, warmly congratulated him upon the fulfillment of his boyish dream, the realization of his early and most laudable ambition.
At the age of eighteen, having made considerable progress in a general education he entered a lawyer's office and commenced the study of a profession, in the multitudinous and complex intricacies of which he has acquired a national reputation. While engaged in the study of the law he occupied a portion of the time in probing the roots and exploring the beauties of the Latin tongue. Nor did he omit to carefully peruse the pages of ancient and modern history, and thus lay deep the foundation for the su- perstructure of his future eminence. In the literary societies with which he was identified he soon acquired reputation as a cogent reasoner, an apt and skillful debater, as well as an accomplished and vigorous writer.
In the political campaign of 1840 he took a very active part for one so young and inexperienced. The editorial department of the paper published in the county in which he resided received many keen and valuable contributions from his pen.
In 1846 he was appointed Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Holmes county, for a term of seven years, serving but five, when he resigned and resumed the practice of law.
At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the bar, and rap- idly rose in distinction as a jurist and advocate. Since then we might almost say of him, as Phillips said of Bonaparte, his path has been "a plane of continued elevations." After he had been practicing ten years he was nominated and elected District Judge of the Sixth District of Ohio, which then included Wayne county,
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and served the constitutional term of five years. At the close of this period he was unanimously re-nominated, but on account of much political excitement at the time, growing out of the Presi- dential contest of 1856, and being a Whig in politics, and the dis- trict largely Democratic, he lost a re-election, though running largely ahead of his ticket.
In the fall of 1857 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Ohio at the same time that Chief Justice S. P. Chase was made Governor. In this position he served one term, but declined a re-election. At the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion he was appointed a Major on the staff of General J. D. Cox, afterwards Governor of Ohio and Secretary of the Interior, and served out the term for which the first soldiers were enlisted. He was then appointed Aid-de-camp to the Governor, and assigned to the duties of Judge Advocate General of the State, and acted as such until the expira- tion of the term of office of Governor Dennison. His business qualifications in this position contributed valuable service in calling out and organizing the Ohio troops.
In 1862 he was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of the State of Ohio, and was the State Superintendent of the draft for that year. While in discharge of that duty he was nominated for Congress by the Republican party of the Fourteenth Ohio District, but was defeated, as were many others in that disastrous cam- paign, by a majority of only thirty-six.
In 1864 he was again nominated, and was elected to the 39th Congress by a large majority. In 1866 he was re-elected to the 40th Congress, serving on the Joint Committee on Retrenchment and on the Committee for the District of Columbia. In 1868 he was elected again to the 4Ist Congress, where he served as Chairman of the Committee on Retrenchment of the House, on the Com- mittee of the District of Columbia, and the Committee on Private Land Claims, of which latter he was the acting Chairman during the last session of that Congress.
In the summer of 1869 the Congressional Retrenchment Com- mittee crossed the continent to California, with a view of visiting and investigating the Custom House of San Francisco. Mr. Welker was Chairman of the House Committee, and Patterson, of New Jersey, Chairman of the Senate Committee. Whilst on the Pacific coast they were most hospitably received, and were the re- cipients of much attention and many favors by the citizens. They
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visited the Geysers, Yosemite and the Cliff House; crossed the beautiful bay, and were saluted by cannon from Alcatraz.
In December, 1873, he was appointed by President Grant, vice Charles Sherman, resigned, District Judge of the United States for the Northern District of the State of Ohio, and was immediately confirmed by the Senate. This is a life appointment, and is the key-stone in the handsome and enviable arch which so sym- metrically crowns the reputation of Martin Welker. He brings to the performance of its duties the mature products of a life of toil, the solid experiences of professional manhood, an enlightened and discriminating mind in the highest condition of culture, a sound judgment and keen and lucid comprehension of the law. The office honors him no more than he honors it.
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