USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 9
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Doctor Thomas Eyres was a son of Rev. Nicholas Eyres, pas- tor of the Second Baptist church in Newport, a native of Great Britain, born August 22d, 1691, died in Newport February 13th. 1759. Doctor Eyres was born August 2d, 1735. married Amey Tillinghast, August 2d, 1759. and died February 23d, 1788, in Newport, leaving a daughter who married Wil- liam Briggs, of Newport. His race being long extinct, little more can be gathered concerning him. He attended Heury Collins in his last illness. He left Newport during the revolu-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
tion, and practised in Providence. Doctor Eyres received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Yale College in 1754, and was the first secretary of Rhode Island College, afterward Brown University, from 1764 to 1776.
Doctor Joseph J. Fales was born at Wrentham, Mass., Jan- mary 27th, 1797. He was graduated from Brown University in 1820, attended lectures at Philadelphia and Boston, was grad- nated in medicine at Boston. and settled in Newport in 1822. In 1825 he married Miss Terry, an English lady. She died in 1830, having had two children, who died young. He left New- port in 1832, and afterward lived in Boston. In 1835 he mar- ried Caroline L. Hammett, sister of Doctor George A. Hammett, and daughter of Deacon Nathan B. Hammett, of Newport. His widow survived, and with four children, Mary E., George H., Edwin M. and Emma G., resides in East Boston.
Doctor Havela Farnsworth, with his brother Oliver, came to Newport in 1798, from Vermont, and with him established a a democratic newspaper, styled the "Guardian of Liberty." After a year or two the publication was abandoned, and the doctor became a practitioner of medicine in Newport, and, at one time, in Portsmouth. Oliver continned the paper under the name of " Rhode Island Republican," and published in 1800 a book entitled, "Memory of Washington." Of Doctor Farnsworth's subsequent history nothing is known.
Doctor Moses Fifield, son of Rev. Moses and Celia (Knight) Fifield (the father being an itinerant minister of the Methodist Episcopal church) was born December 23d, 1823, at Warehouse Point, Conn. The Reverend Moses was from New Hamp- shire, his wife from Providence, R. 1 Doctor Fifield at- tended school at Centreville, R. L., at the Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass., and at East Greenwich Methodist Seminary. He commenced the study of medicine with Doctors George and Charles W. Fabyan, at Providence, R. I., and was graduated from the University of the City of New York in 1846. He mar- ried Hannah A., daughter of Christopher and Sarah (Congdon) Allen, of North Kingstown, in 1846. He practised medicine in Fall River, Mass, and Little Compton, R. I., until 1852, when, on the decease of Doctor Keith, he removed to Portsmonth, R. I. Ile practised there for several years, when on account of his father's ill health, he removed to Centreville, R. I., where he became cashier of the Centreville Bank, afterward Centre-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
ville National Bank, and of the Warwick Institution for Savings, combining these financial duties with the practice of medicine, which he prosecutes with equal assiduity and interest. Although 64 years of age, he still enjoys good health. He has been a member of the R. I. Medical Society since 1855, and is a mem- ber of the American Medical Association.
Doctor Henry Collins Flagg was the son of Ebenezer and Mary (Ward) Flagg, who were married in Newport February Stlı, 1740. His grandfather, Richard Ward, was governor of Rhode Island from July, 1740, to May, 1743. Doctor Collins was born at Newport, at what date is not precisely known ; he was a brother of Major Ebenezer Flagg, of Col. Greene's R. I. Regiment of the continental line of the revolution, who was killed with his colonel on Croton river, New York. Doctor Collins was surgeon on General Greene's staff, in South Carolina, where he remained and married, and became prominent in his profession.
Doctor William Fletcher came to Newport in 1785, as surgeon in the British navy, but was transferred, while here, to the army. At the close of the war he retired on hall pay, and re- mained here and practised until his death, March 9th, 1788. Ile was born in Lancashire, England, in 1742. His epitaph says, " He lived like a gentleman and died like a philosopher."
Doctor Samuel Ward Francis, fourth son of Doctor John W. and Eliza M. (Cutler) Francis, was born in New York city, De- cember 26th, 1835. He acquired his preliminary education in Joshua Worth's school, in New York, and graduated A. B. at Columbia College in 1857, having received five or six prizes dur- ing his undergraduate course. He studied medicine in his father's office, and at the school of Doctors T. P. Thomas and William Rice Donaghe, and graduated in medicine at the New York University Medical College in 1860. He married June 16th, 1859, Harriet H., daughter of Judge M. H. McAllister, of the U. S. District Court of California. After graduation he commenced practice in New York, where he was physician to the Dispensary for diseases of head, abdomen and skin. He was in Newport from 1862 to 1864, again passed two years in New York, and in 1866 took up his permanent residence in Newport, where he remained until his decease, March 25th, 1886. The cause of his death was diabetes mellitus. On grad- uation in medicine, he took the Mott bronze medal for best
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
clinical report. Doctor Francis wrote voluminonsly for the medical journals and other periodicals, and was author of two novels. He was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and of the Victoria Institute of Great Britain, and of many other medical and scientific societies, and was vice-president of the Newport Medical Society. He was gifted with a remarkably inventive genins, and obtained several patents. He was the original inventor of the type writer. He was the founder of the Newport Society of Natural History. Doctor Francis was faithful and diligent in the performance of his professional duties, and was highly esteemed and deeply beloved by his em- ployers and his professional brethren ; he was a man of most amiable temper and charming social qualities, and his demise at the early age of 51 years, produced an impression of shock and sadness quite unusual ; he left five children.
Doctor Valentine Mott Francis, third son of Doctor John W. and Eliza M. (Cutler) Francis, was born in New York city April 25th, 1834. He attended the schools of Rev. Doctor Hawkes, and of R. T. Huddard of New York, and some others, and studied medicine with his father, and at the same school as his brother, that of Thomas & Donaghe, and took his degree of M. D. at New York University Medical College in March, 1859, and in June following received his diploma as practical analytical chemist. He also had a diploma for six months' attendance on wards in Bellevue Ilospital. He published the first work on hospital hygiene, and also a poem on the fight for the Union, and did much work as a newspaper correspondent. He practised in New York for two and one-quarter years, and then retired and re- moved to Newport, where he still lives, passing his summers at Conanicut. He was a member of the New York Sanitary Asso- ciation in 1861, and is a life member of the New York Historical Society. Doctor Francis married, first, Sarah Faulkner, eldest daughter of Charles Carville, Esq., April 16th, 1857. They had two sons, both dead. February 7th, 1865, he married Anna M., daughter of Doctor René de La Roche, of Philadelphia. She is still living. They had three sons, one of whom survives. Doctor Francis has not resumed practice since his removal to Newport, but has acquired a large number of attached friends by his sterling qualities.
Doctor Sylvester Gardiner was the son of William Gardiner, Esq., of South Kingstown, R. I., and was born there in 1707.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
He early developed studions inclinations, and under the direc- tion of Rev. Doctor MacSparran, who had married his sister, his bent was encouraged, and he was sent to Boston and studied medicine with Doctor Gibbons, an English physician, whose daughter he married. After two years he went to Europe, studied four years in Paris, and afterward spent two years in studying opthalmology in France. He returned and settled in Boston, where he became famous, and had a most extensive practice in medicine and operative surgery. He was reputed to have the most extensive obstetrical practice in New England. He acquired a large fortune, was largely engaged in purchases of land, and was a member of the Plympton Land Company. He was owner of an extensive tract, now Gardiner, Maine. He is reputed to have erected churches, and to have supported Episcopal clergymen from his own private means, but his pros- perity came to an end at the revolution. Being an active loyal- ist, he became a refugee, his property was confiscated, and he was impoverished. After the war he came to Newport, and practised his profession, and died here in 1786, aged 80 years.
Doctor William Gibson did not practice in Newport, except when visiting here in summer, when he occasionally performed operations. He was particularly distinguished as a surgeon. After his retirement he came to Newport, and made his resi- dence here in his latter years. He was born in Baltimore in 1788, and died at Savannah, Georgia, March 2d, 1868, aged 80 years. He was educated first at Annapolis, Md., then at Princeton, N. .l., and last at Edinburgh, where he attended the high school, and where he received the degree of M.D. in 1809. He was present at the battle of Corunna, and received a slight wound at Waterloo. He settled at Baltimore in 1810. He married, in 1810, Sarah Charlotte Hollingsworth. In 1812 he tied the com- mon Iliac artery. He was successively professor of surgery in the University of Maryland, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he officiated for many years, and was very much admired for his distinct and meid demonstrations, and for his marvelous skill in preparations and drawings for the illustration of his lectures. He was at Lundy's Lane, and extracted a bullet from General Winfield Scott. He performed the Casarian section twice on the same woman, who recovered both times, and both children were saved.
Doctor John Bernard Gilpin, son of John Bernard and Mary
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
(Miller) Gilpin, was born in Newport, R. I., September 4th, 1810. He was prepared for college at Judge Joslin's academy in Church Street, formerly noted as John Frazer's classical school. He took the degree of A. B. at Trinity College, Hart- ford, Conn., abont 1831, studied medicine in the office of Doctor T. C. Gunn, and graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1834. About this time his family had removed to Annapolis, Nova Scotia, where he settled, and practised for eight years, when he removed to Halifax. There he became a prominent practitioner until about ten years ago, when he re- tired from active practice, and returned to Annapolis, where he now resides. Doctor Gilpin is a younger brother of Hon. Wil- liam Gilpin of Newport.
Miss Gertrude Gooding, M. D., daughter of Joseph and Mary (Howland) Gooding, was born at Bristol. R. I., July 15th, 1855. She acquired her education in Bristol, graduating in the high school of that town in 1873, and afterward graduated at Mt. Holyoke Seminary in 1876. The five succeeding years she was employed in teaching the natural sciences in the Malden, Massa- chusetts, high school. She received the degree of M.D. from Boston University Medical School (Homeopathic) in 1884. She then practised in Philadelphia for two years, and was a resi- dent physician in West Philadelphia Hospital for infants, in Women's Homeopathic. Maternity and Surgical Hospital, West Philadelphia Presbyterian Home for Old Women, and Rosine Home for Girls. Miss Gooding came to Newport in 1886. and still practises here.
Dr. Ebenezer Gray practised medicine at Newport in 1752-3. of which the only evidence obtainable is a bill for services to the family of John Stevens, ancestor of the famous stonecutter family of Newport, from May, 1752, to February, 1753- £10 12s. od.
Doctor Benjamin Greene, son of Hon. Isaac and Eliza ( Kenyon; Greene, of Exeter, R. I., was born in that town October 30th, 1833. In 1856 he began the study of medicine under the tute- lage of his uncle, Doctor Job Kenyon, at Anthony, R. L., and in 1857 matriculated at the University Medical School, in the city of New York, where he graduated in 1859. He com- menced practice directly after at Portsmouth, R. I .. and has continued to practice there to the present time. In 1860 he he- came a member of the R. I. Medical Society. Besides his prac-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
tice he has been successfully and extensively engaged in real estate transactions in and about Fall River, which is eight miles from his home. Doctor Greene married November 26th. 1860, Eunice A .. daughter of Philip B. and Sarah E. (Cooke) Chase, of Portsmouth, R. I. He is an active member of the Methodist church, and of the order of Freemasons. lie enjoys the respect and confidence of the community in which he lives, and of his professional brethren.
Doctor Nathaniel Greene, the eldest son of Nathaniel Ray Greene, who was the eldest son of Major General Nathaniel Greene of the revolutionary army, was born at Dungeness, the patrimonial estate of his family, on Cumberland Island. Georgia, June 22d, 1809. His mother, who was born November 8th, 1784, died January 9th, 1886, at her residence in Middletown, R. I., at the extreme age of 102 years, was a daughter of Ethan and Anna (Ward ) Clarke. She was a very remarkable woman. She retained her mental faculties unimpaired until her decease, and those faculties were by no means of a common order. She delighted in literary pursuits, and her familiarity with the best class of English authors, of an earlier period especially. was phenominal to her last years ; she would converse in a wonder- fully intelligent manner on the productions and anthors of the golden period of English literature, as Addison, Johnson, Gokl- smith, Bolingbroke, etc. She spent some of her latter years, and until her eyesight failed, in reading Hume and other anthors of that stamp ; at the same time she kept up a vivid interest in current events, and was familiar with neighborhood incidents, and whatever concerned the interests of her friends. No effort of memory was ever evident. Her conversation flowed as easily as that of young persons. She was a very conscientious, judicions and wise person, and thoroughly kind- hearted. Very few persons are permitted to be as interesting at a time of life when they are regarded as monuments of by- gone days. Her husband, the father of the doctor, was a most amiable, genial and generous specimen of those " rara ares." the gentlemen of the old school ; his habits of reading were in harmony with those of his wife, who outlived him many years. Except the doctor their only child was Professor George Wash- ington Greene, who held professorships in Brown and Cornell Universities, and who holds high rank among American Literati. He left one son and three daughters. Doct r
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
Nathaniel Greene passed his boyhood in East Greenwich, R. I., which became the residence of his parents soon after his birth, and so remained until 1836, when they purchased a farm in Middletown, R. I., about five miles from Newport, on the west shore of Rhode Island, where his parents passed the remaining years of their life. and where he still resides. December 17th, 1827, he married Miss Mary Jane, eldest daughter of Col. Wil- liam and Harriet (Gibbs) Moore, of Newport. She still sur- vives. She have had no children. His school education was pursued chiefly at the academy at East Greenwich. In 1824 he entered the freshman class at Amherst College, and in 1825 the Sophomore class of Brown University, which being, at that time, in rather a languishing condition, it was not thought ex- pedient to complete his course there, and he accordingly left before the completion of his junior year. He then entered as a student of medicine the office of Doctors Peck and Clarke, one of whom, Doctor Welcome Clarke, was a relative, at Whites- town, Oneida county, New York, where he remained about a year; he afterward returned to East Greenwich, where he completed his professional education in the office of Doctor Charles Eldredge of that town. His family being large land- owners, he employed several years after the conclusion of his medical studies, in the congenial pursuit of farming, in which he has the reputation of being proficient, and which he has never entirely abandoned, but which became secondary and collateral after he had taken up the practice of medicine, which he did about 1848. He has prosecuted his profession with more or less vigor, to the present time, in the towns on Rhode Island, as a disciple of the School of Hahneman. As a physician among the people of those tenets, he has enjoyed a large prac- tice and great popularity, and in the whole community is looked upon with much respect as a man of high character and tone, and as a man of thoroughly gentlemanly instincts, and worthy his race and antecedents. Ilis great-grandmother was a daughter of Rest ( Perry ) Mott, wife of Jacob Mott of Portsmouth, and daughter of Edward Perry of Sandwich, who was the an- cestor of Commodores Oliver H. and Matthew C. Perry, thus de. riving from an identical source part of the blood of two of the prominent families of Rhode Island. In 1842 Doctor Greene com- manded a company of volunteers raised in Middletown and Portsmouth for the service of the state against the revolutionary
Nath, Gur
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ILSTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
organization called the Dorr government, and although no blood was shed, he proved his willingness and his capacity for the service which might have been required ; after this he was captain of a company of cavalry, organized at that time, on the state establishment, with the rank of colonel ; after a year or two this company was disbanded.
He was for several years president of the Aquidneck Agri- cultural Society.
Ile was in 1848-49-50 and 1851 senator in the general assembly of Rhode Island, and filled that position honorably and ac- ceptably. At the preliminary meeting, held at Providence, December 12th, 1877, for the rehabilitation of the Rhode Island Society of the Cincinnati, which had been in abeyance, from various canses. since 1835, he was nnanimonsly chosen its president pro tem., and at the annual meeting, on July 4th, 1878, its charter having meanwhile been recognized by the general assembly as having full force, he was unanimously elected its president, and has since, on every fourth of July, been re-elected. He has also been, every year, elected as one of the society's delegates to the meetings of the general society, which meetings are triennial, and has attended four of those meetings, and is very highly esteemed and regarded by the members of that organization.
Doctor John Haliburton came to this county, Doctor Parsons says, "in 1750," but as he died in 1807, aged 69 years, he was born in 1738, and was then only 12 years old. He probably came about 1760, as he married, January 4th, 1767, Susanna Brenton, daughter of Jahleel Brenton, Esq., of Newport. He had five children born in Newport, of whom John, the eldest, was an officer in the British navy ; Brenton, the fifth child, was an eminent jurist, chief justice of Nova Scotia for many years, was knighted in 1859, and died in 1860, aged 85 years. Doctor Haliburton took high rank in his profession, and being con- nected with the most influential families of Newport, then in its palmiest days, had a most brilliant and successful career, and is said to have accumulated a handsome fortune, but dur- ing the revolution. in 1780, becoming suspected of correspond- ence with the enemy, he retired to Halifax, where he passed the remainder of his days.
Doctor Castill O. Hamlin came to Portsmouth, R. L., in 1833, directly after Doctor James V. Turner had removed to New-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
port. He was from northern New England. He was a promis- ing man, but was ent off in a few months, dying April Sth, 1834, at the early age of 36 years.
Doctor George Alfred Hammett, son of Deacon Nathan and Mary (Billings) Hammett, was born in Newport, September 20th, 1809, was baptized December 17th, 1809, and died in New- port, February 6th, 1875, aged 65 years. Doctor Hammett, after leaving school, was clerk in a large grocery, at the south- east corner of Thames and Mill streets, but having a studious turn of mind, after a few years he entered Doctor T. C. Dunn's office as a student, and Doctor Dunn often said that the avidity with which he devoured medical books was perfectly phenome- nal. This was carried to such a degree that he once asked the doctor to allow him to occupy his office on Sundays : to this he did not accede. After the completion of his studies he offered his services to the public, but he never had any considerable practice, and afterward took charge of a lumber business which had been his father's. This he prosecuted with no great energy until his father died, leaving him a competence. He then re- tired, and thereafter devoted his entire time to the pursuit to which he had always been devoted, to omniverous reading. never of trashy books, but of substantial literature, with a de- cided preference for speculative subjects. In his later years he was a constant "habitue" of the Redwood library, to which he, from time to time, gave generous aid. Doctor Hammett married late in life, but had no children.
Doctor William Handy, son of Charles and Ann Brown Handy, was born at Newport, and was baptized in Trinity church, September 29th, 1766. He married in June or July, 1788, being then of Newport. Abby Saltonstall, daughter of Rosewell Saltonstall, Esq., merchant, of New London. He was for many years a prominent and successful practitioner at New London, Conn.
Doctor Enoch Hazard was born in Newport, January 2d, 1773, and died in Newport, May 7th, 1844. He was a son of Thomas and Mary (Easton) Hazard. Doetor Hazard married a daughter of Nicholas Easton and had an only son, General John Alfred Hazard, who bequeathed a large estate to the Newport Hospital. Doctor Hazard pursued his medical cal studies with his uncle, Doctor Jonathan Easton, attended lectures in the Philadelphia Medical School, and graduated
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
there. Although not a member of the Friends' Society, as his uncle had been, he had acquired by habit a close assimilation with their habits and modes of thought, and he always re- tained their favor. He did a large business until his death, at the ripe age of 73 years. He was a tall, hard favored man, angular not only in his appearance but in his methods, and very positive. Nevertheless, he was very popular, and inspired a high degree of affection and implicit confidence in his habitual employers. He was a very worthy man, but very decided in his prejudices. He represented, through his father and mother, two of the most important and influential of the original set- tlers of Rhode Island.
Doctor Jonathan Easton Hazard was the son of Godfrey and Ruth (Easton) Hazard. He was Doctor Enoch Hazard's first consin, their mothers being sisters, and also sisters of Doctor Jonathan Easton, and daughters of Jonathan Easton, the direct descendant of Governors Nicholas and John Easton. The doctor was always known as Doctor Easton Hazard, although he never practised, being engaged in other avocations. His wife was Mary, daughter of George Lawton. They had one daughter, who died in 1870, unmarried. Doctor J. E. Hazard had studied medicine in his youth, under the direction of his cousin, Doc- tor Enoch.
Doctor Rowland Robinson Hazard was a son of Thomas Hazard, of South Kingstown, R. L., distinguished as Little Neck Town. Ile was brought up, from early youth, in the family of Doctor William Turner, and educated as a physician, but never practised, except indoors, having established himself as a druggist, in the shop of Charles Feke, directly after his death, on the parade. Later he moved three doors east, and for many years he was a very industrions and highly esteemed citizen. He married Anna, daughter of Lieut .- Governor Charles Collins, but had no children. He was always known by his title as Doctor Rowland, in distinction from Doctor Enoch.
Doctor George Hazard, of South Kingstown, was a son of Carder Hazard of that town, who was a brother of George Hazard, the first mayor of Newport. Doctor Hazard began the study of medicine in Narragansett with Doctor Joshua Perry, an uncle of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, but soon went to Newport, where he completed his medical studies under the tuition of Doctor Jonathan Easton, and where he married in
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