History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 100

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Vermont > Chittenden County > History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 100

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Mr. Wright is conspicious among the citizens of Chittenden county as an energetic and reliable business man, and an active and public-spirited worker for the general bene- fit of the community.

CARPENTER, WALTER, M.D., was born in Walpole, New Hampshire, on the ) 12th of January, 1808, and is therefore at the present writing nearly seventy-nine years of age. The Carpenter patronymic is borne by many different families, and no date can be assigned for its origin. Dr. Carpenter springs from an English ancestry, the first member of it of whom there is authentic record being his grandfather, Davis Carpenter, of Woodstock, Conn., born about the year 1756, and removing at the age of thirty years with his family to Walpole, N. H., where he successfully established him- self in business as a farmer and tavern keeper. He died in 1823. Sylvester, the fifth of Davis Carpenter's family of children, was born in August, 1786, and passed his early days under the direction of his father, assuming sole control of the business upon the death of the latter until 1838, when he retired from the active pursuits of life, and passed the twelve remaining years of his life at the home of his son Walter, in East Randolph, Vt. His wife was Lydia, daughter of Benjamin Bowker, whom he married in 1807 and who attained the remarkable age of ninety years, and died in 1870.

Walter was the only child of Sylvester and Lydia Carpenter. He received his pre- paratory education at Allstaid, N. H., and afterwards studied, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years, at the academy in Chesterfield. Having fixed upon the practice of medicine he began his preliminary studies to that end in the office of his uncle, Dr. Davis Carpenter, of Brockport, N. Y., with whom he remained about one year and six months. He then attended one course of lectures at a medical college in Fairfield, N.

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

Y., after which he studied with Dr. Amos Twichell, of Keene, N. H., for more than a year, and passing through one private and one regular course in the medical department of Dartmouth College, he was graduated from that institution in 1829. Immediately after his graduation he settled in Bethel, Vt., where he remained in active practice for eighteen months, rapidly extending far and wide his reputation for skill and efficiency; so much so that the citizens of Randolph deputed a committee to wait upon him and solicit his removal to their community. Their invitation was at last accepted. His suc- cess in the new field was so complete and sudden that in little more than one year two competitors who had theretofore held undisputed possession of the territory were forced to emigrate to more profitable arenas. " Thenceforward," it has been well said, " for nearly twenty-eight years he was the Esculapian monarch of the entire territory. Never was beneficent potentate more assiduous in attention to responsible duty." The fall and winter of 1852-3 he passed in New York visiting hospitals, attending medical lect- ures, and extending his acquaintance with the latest discoveries in the science and art of medicine and surgery. All his acquisitions were now placed at the service of his own and neighboring States. With characteristic self-abnegation he took an active and leading part in the establishment of the medical school connected with the University of Vermont, and earned the lasting gratitude of the citizens of the State. The under- taking was of no mean magnitude. Pecuniary means were wholly insufficient. But sagacity and courage enabled himself and part of his associates to " pilot the enterprise through shoals and breakers into the deep waters of assured and permanent success." The balance left after the payment of the expenses of the first year, $7.25, constituted the only security of the six professors for remuneration. Three of them thereupon re- linquished the project for more lucrative employment. Doctors Thayer, Carpenter, and Smith, however, did not lose courage, but continued in their sublime determination to accomplish their purpose. Dr. Carpenter alone assumed all related pecuniary obligations and the new institution resumed operations. More than three times as many students were in attendance during the second year as in the first. Again expenditures consumed the income, and the pay of the professors was made up of honor and praise, which, how- ever acceptable, are not deemed valuable as legal tenders. In the third year the normal prosperity and growth were established by a fresh increase of students. Dr. Carpenter's services as professor of materia medica were so highly appreciated that in 1857 he was elected by the students to the chair of theory and practice in the stead of an inefficient acting professor. Notwithstanding he had delivered his own course of lectures he com- pleted, at considerable cost to himself, the course of the unacceptable professor, who retired with the emoluments of the office. Anxious to manifest their sense of the sac- rifice and their appreciation of the service rendered, the students presented a gold- headed cane to Dr. Carpenter, which now stands in a conspicuous place among the treasured ornaments of his parlor. This pleasing token of esteem was followed by an election to the chair of theory and practice by the trustees of the institution ; and from that date until 1872 the subject of this sketch discharged the duties of both professor- ships, delivering each term from one hundred to one hundred and thirty lectures, and receiving payment as the incumbent of one chair only. These severe, unremitting and rather unremunerative labors were all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Dr. Carpenter at the same time prosecuted his own regular and constantly widening practice.

Dr. Thayer resigned his position as dean of the faculty in 1871, and was absent from

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WALTER CARPENTER, M.D.

the city for several years. A heavy load of care was thus thrown upon the already over-burdened shoulders of Dr. Carpenter, the only resident professor remaining. But he was still punctilious in the performance of every duty. Before Dr. Thayer's de- parture they had a private class between the terms of the medical school, the scope of which was enlarged by Dr. Carpenter, with the co-operation of other physicians, until it included nearly all the courses of the medical department, and the numbers naturally increased in like proportion. This served as a feeder for the college, the students being transferred every year without reference to their proficiency. Thus through his efforts the course of instruction was practically continued the year round, and a lively interest sustained in an institution not yet able to stand alone. In the interests of this college Dr. Carpenter has therefore always displayed unexampled solicitude and gener- osity. The need of enlarged facilties drew from him in 1857 a liberal subscription to- wards providing them. Also, in co-operation with others, especially Dr. Thayer, he obtained $5,000 which was expended in the work of rebuilding. Again, in 1880, when the steady increase of students created the necessity of still larger accommodations, he raised more than $2,000 with which he enlarged the lecture-rooms, introduced water, and added a laboratory and private dissecting-room. " The college itself is Dr. Car- penter's proudest and most appropriate monument." Its catalogue is a splendid vista of progress. The number of students has grown from seven to nearly two hundred. From an insignificant beginning it has risen to the dignity of being one of the great medical schools of the United States, and is provided with all the modern appliances of professional instruction. Dr. Carpenter has been one of the most efficient agents of this singular growth. Twice at least he has interposed on critical occasions and saved the college from an untimely decease.

In 1881, owing to the increasing burdens imposed by an expanding practice and the admonitions of the fleeting years, Dr. Carpenter resigned the chair he had so long and honorably filled. But nothing could abate his affectionate interest in the school itself. Whether he had acceptably performed the arduous duties of dean of the faculty, which office he had held so many years, may be inferred from the following resolutions, adopted unanimously by the class of 1880 :

" Whereas, The graduating class of the medical department of the university of Ver- mont have learned with regret of the resignation of Professor Walter Carpenter as president of the faculty and professor of the theory and practice of medicine, to take effect at the close of the session of 188r; and

" Whereas, In consideration of his long and eminently successful services in behalf of the medical school, his pet and pride, we deem it not only our privilege but ous duty to offer the following resolutions:

" Resolved, That we consider Professor Carpenter's connection with the medical de- partment as most oportune and fortunate, and that to him belongs the credit of resur- recting the medical college and bringing it to its present most prosperous condition.

" Resolved, That his eminent ability as a practical teacher in our school is not only recognized and appreciated by us as students, but by the physicians throughout the State as well; and that we feel to offer him our gratitude for his courteous manners and kindly and continued interest in our welfare, as well as for his faithful and arduous labors as our teacher."

Dr. Carpenter's resignation also evoked the following resolutions from the Vermont Medical Society, which show the estimation in which he is held among his professional brethren :

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

" Resolved, That in the retirement of Dr. Walter Carpenter from active service in the medical department of the University of Vermont we fully realize that for more than a quarter of a century he has made its success the object of his constant care and great practical abilities.

" Resolved, That in him and his early associates in the medical department we owe the rise and progress of the institution to its present high position, and that in parting with him we feel that a strong man has left us, whose place will be hard to fill; but we hope that the college may yet for many years receive the benefit of his counsel."

His beneficent services have not, however, been confined to assuring the success of the medical school. He was the instrument in securing the magnificent donation which founded the Mary Fletcher Hospital; himself secured the charter, assisted in the prep- aration of the plans for the edifice, and since its completion has held the joint office of president and consulting physician of the institution. The dedication of the hospital in January, 1879, was by a propitious coincidence the semi-centennial of his own entrance into the medical profession. He celebrated the occasion by tendering a reception to the representatives of the three learned professions-law, medicine and theology. The Bur- lington Clipper justly declared it to be a " memorable occasion." The Free Press also re- ferred to it as the deserved honor to the " Nestor of his profession in this State." Dr. Holton, of Brattleboro, happily officiated as chairman and toast-master, and, after eulogizing Dr. Carpenter in his connection with the medical department of the University of Vermont, he added, that " his acquaintance with the lady who has so munificently endowed the hospital was most fortunate for the city," and that " while she may be truly called its mother, Dr. Carpenter is as truly the father of the Mary Fletcher Hospital. On his brow we place the laurel wreath, as having accomplished what no other member of the profession has done." He then proposed as the first toast, " Professor Walter Carpen- ter ! in his long life of high and successful devotion to his profession, to the relief of suffering and to the welfare of mankind, he has given us an example worthy to be imi- tated." Dr. Carpenter responded in retrospective vein, humorously described his earlier experiences, and pointed out the great changes that had occurred since his en- trance into professional life. Professor D. B. St. John Roosa, of New York, Rev. Dr. Atwell, of Burlington, President Buckham, of the University of Vermont, the Hon. E. J. Phelps, and others spoke to the topics of different toasts. Professor A. P. Grinnell, in closing his address, referred to one admirable characteristic of Dr. Carpenter in the words, "I am now convinced that my success and the success of the college de- pends upon his remaining among us. It gives me great pleasure in offering my con- gratulations to add the statement that Dr. Carpenter is, and always has been, a friend to young men." The Hon. Henry Ballard, in a brief and eloquent speech, exclaimed, " A half-century of work ! What a long career ! What a large and varied experience ! and yet we see him to-night! Though just on the wintry side of three score and ten years, we can say of him as we said of Moses on Pisgah's top, ' His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.' His long career illustrates how much an unflagging energy, enthusiasm, zeal, persistency, and effort, when rightly directed, can crowd into a life-work. Looking at his career we can all say that this community, our State, our people, have reason to be grateful for the example and influence of such a man as our distinguished host, Dr. Walter Carpenter." The pleasure of the evening was greatly enhanced by the distribution to his guests of photographs of himself as a country doctor of the olden time, seated on horseback and carrying well-filled saddle-bags.

Palin Whitcomb

BtiTriF Phi A.

811

WALTER CARPENTER, M.D .- JOHN WHITCOMB.

The contrast between past and present, between Dr. Carpenter of 1829 and Dr. Car- penter of 1879, was both humorous and instructive.

Dr. Carpenter having been all his life a man devoted exclusively to the advance- ments incident to his profession, has seldom traveled beyond the orbit of his medical activities. He has been a member of the Vermont State Medical Society since 1832, and officiated as its president for one year. He has also been a member of the Amer- ican Medical Association for the past thirty-seven years. Although he has ever been desirous of escaping from the labyrinths of politics and public office, he was placed by a peculiar conspiracy of affairs in 1870 in the position of a candidate for the representa- tion of Burlington in the Legislature. A majority of 354 votes in his favor, the largest ever given in the city, attested his standing with the masses of his fellow citizens. Leg- islative duties, however, he preferred to leave to men of legislative qualifications and predilections. The science and art of medicine are to him all-sufficient. Now, in his seventy-ninth year, in good health, and with the recollection of only fourteen days of sickness in more than half a century, he regularly attends to an extensive and re- munerative practice, and seems likely to continue doing good for years to come.

Walter Carpenter has been thrice married. In 1832 he was united to Olivia Chase Blodgett, by whom he became the father of a daughter and a son. She died in 1840. In 1844 he married Mrs. Ann (Brown) Troop, who died in April, 1869. In February, 1872, Dr. Carpenter again married, this time to Adeline Brown. His only surviving child, Dr. Benjamin W. Carpenter, was surgeon of the Ninth Vermont Volunteer mili- tia during the last war, and is now engaged in the drug business in Burlington.

W HITCOMB, JOHN, the eighth of fifteen children of Thomas and Anna (Ste- vens) Whitcomb, was born in Richmond, Vt., on the 13th of December, 1820. The family of his mother came to Vermont from Connecticut. His father was born in Swansea, Vt., in 1781, came to Richmond about the beginning of the present century, and at the age of twenty-six years married Anna Stevens. Their fifteen children, all natives of Richmond, were born in the following order : Wesley, April ro, 1808; Lou- isa, October 31, 1810; Sally, December 3, 1811; Erastus, February 21, 1813; Lo- renzo, January 30, 1815; Uzziel, January 21, 1817; Joshua, December 22, 1818; John, December 13, 1820; Lydia, November 22, 1822; James, October 19, 1824; Silas, April 6, 1827 ; Mary Ann, May 20, 1829; Electa, February 20, 1831. Two other children died in infancy. The following deaths, of father, mother and children, have occurred : Thomas Whitcomb died in Essex in 1871, nineteen years after the death of his wife ; Wesley, their eldest son, died in Richmond in 1829; Erastus died in Essex in 1862 ; Lorenzo in 1886, Lydia in Williston in 1853, Silas in California in 1869, and James in California July 18, 1886, whither he removed in 1849. Thomas Whitcomb removed to the town of Essex with his family in 1835, where the family of Erastus still reside.

Mr. Whitcomb's life is a good example of what industry and perseverance can do. He came of a family noted for their distinctive traits of character, recognizing no such word as fail in whatever they undertook. He received as good an education as could be obtained in the district schools of his native town, and removed to Essex with his father's family in 1835, where he passed his minority, and continued to work on the farm for his elder brother, for four years after attaining his majority, at twelve dollars a month. Then, with his brother Joshua, he bought a large farm in , Essex, where the latter still lives. They worked together four years, when, in 1852, John sold his inter-

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HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

est to his brother and went to California. For the first year he did not choose his bus- iness, though he did not remain idle because the wages did not suit him, but made ev- ery day count him something, and watched his chances for something better. As an experiment he bought and drove cattle across the plains at great risk of his life, as In- dians and wild beasts were then the terror of the emigrants. He encamped wherever night overtook him, often alone, as hiring devoured too much of the profit. This bus- iness paid well, but in the midst of his prosperity he was taken with small-pox and ty- phoid fever at the same time. He barely recovered, and was left in wretched health, which decided his return to Vermont. Here his health was gradually restored to him. Immediately after his marriage, in 1860, he removed to the farm in Williston now occu- pied by George Chapman and son, and about 1863 went from there to Bolton, whence after six months he returned to Williston, occupying a farm in that part of the township known as The Hollow. But the West was his ideal place for business. So in 1869 he visited Sacramento county, California, and soon after removed his family thither. There he bought a ranch of 4,200 acres, on the banks of the Sacramento River, about twelve miles from the city. This place was stocked with 600 cattle, sixty-five horses, and 4,200 sheep. He paid special attention to the dairy department, milking 300 cows the year round, making cheese in summer and butter in winter. He also raised considera- ble grain. Although he thus incurred a heavy debt, he paid it in a few years. After a residence here of six years he removed to his present farm in Williston, which he pur- chased of his brother-in-law, Hiram J. Fay. Since coming to this place he has gradu- ally added to his possessions, owning numerous wood-lots, a farm in Jericho, one in Essex, and another in Waterbury, besides a tract of 300 acres which he bought in 1885 of his wife's nephew, Alfred C. Fay, making the total number of his acres in Vermont about 1,250. In addition to these he owns 500 acres in Valcour Island, N. Y., well stocked, 2,400 acres in Kansas, also well stocked, and 2,000 head of cattle in Wyoming territory. His great pride in these accumulations is that they were honestly gotten.

Mr. Whitcomb does not confine his labors to any one department of agriculture, but endeavors, with marked success, to develop all the resources of his extensive posses- sions. Thus he is not dependent, as is too often the case among farmers, upon the fa- vorable fluctuations in value of any particular product, but is morally sure to reap profits from the very variety of his produce and stock. Notwithstanding the broad ex- tent of his domain, he understands the peculiar adaptations of every acre, and permits no jot of all his labors to be wasted.

Mr. Whitcomb always guides his political conduct with the compass, and under the regulations of the Republican party ; but, though always interested in the success of that great organization, and well abreast of it in his ideas of State and national econ- omy, he has never been ambitious to hold or control the disposition of political office, preferring rather to express his opinions by his votes. He is an attendant at the Uni- versalist Church, to the support of which he contributes.

He was united in marriage, on the 30th of April, 1860, with Edith, daughter of John Fay (a native of Richmond) and granddaughter of Nathan Fay, one of the first settlers and most prominent residents of Richmond. The family are closely related with the Fays of Burlington and Bennington, a partial genealogy of which reads as follows :

John Fay, the elder, emigrated from England and settled in Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Wilmington, by whom he had eight children ; Basheba married John

Joshua Whitcomb

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JOHN WHITCOMB. - JOSHUA WHITCOMB.

Pratt; Dinah married Daniel Goodenough ; John married Elizabeth Childs ; Eunice married Isaac Pratt ; James married Lydia Childs ; Benjamin married Patty Miles ; Mehitable married - Fletcher ; and Stephen Fay, the youngest, married Ruth Childs. Stephen Fay had eleven children - John Fay, who was killed in the battle of Benning- ton at the age of forty-three years; Jonas, secretary of the Council of Safety, and author of the declaration of independence for Vermont, who first married Sarah Fasset and afterwards Lydia Warren; Mary, who married Governor Moses Robinson and died in February, 1801 ; Beulah, who married Major Samuel Billings and died in the eighty- ninth year of her age; Elijah, who married Deborah Laurence and died in the eighty- eighth year of his age; Benjamin, who married Sarah Robinson, became the first sheriff in the State, and died in 1786; Joseph, who married Margaret, daughter of Rev. J. Dewey, and died in New York of yellow fever; Sarah, who married David Robinson and died January 25, 1801 ; David, who married Mary, daughter of John Stanniford, of Windham, Conn., and died at the age of sixty-seven years ; and two others.

John Fay, the one who was killed at the battle of Bennington, had five children, as follows : Susan, who married Timothy Follett and had five children ; Nathan, the early settler in Richmond, who married Mary, daughter of General Samuel Safford, of Ben- nington, and had eight children - John, Henry, Nathan, Polly, Safford, Hiram, Jonas and Truman ; John, who married Susan Fay, daughter of Jonas and niece of his father, and had two children ; Helen, who married Bissell Case and had five children ; and Henry, who married Betsey Talcott and had ten children.

John Fay, eldest son of Nathan, married Polly, daughter of Daniel Bishop, of Hinesburg, on the 15th of September, 1805, when she was sixteen years of age, and had eight children - Roswell B., Electa, Roxana, Daniel B., Ransom, Julius, Edith and Hiram J. Of these Daniel B., Ransom and Julius are deceased. The father, John Fay, died on the old place in Williston November 27, 1871, aged eighty-nine years, and was followed by his wife, Polly, September 6, 1881, aged ninety-two years, one month and six days. Edith, as has been stated, became the wife of the subject of this sketch. She was born on the 23d of February, 1828.

Mr. and Mrs. Whitcomb have one child, Marcia Fay, who was born on the 4th of May, 1861, and upon whom they have spared no pains to bestow the graces and ac- complishments of a good education and the experience of two years in the Old World.

W' HITCOMB, JOSHUA. The subject of this sketch, the fifth son and seventh child of Thomas and Anna (Stevens) Whitcomb, who have been mentioned more in detail in the preceding sketch, was born in Richmond, Vt., on the 22d of December, 1818. He received a common school education in his native town and in the town of Underhill, where he first worked out for himself. The next few years he passed in the employment of Charles Huntington, proprietor of a large tavern in the village of Rich- mond. Thence he went to Montpelier and engaged his services as commercial traveler for the large mercantile house of Cross & Hyde, and for about six years drove a cracker team 'for them. In this employment he received a business training which has stood him in good stead in all his after years. On the Ist of April, 1848, he purchased the old Captain Joe Sinclair farm in Essex, upon which he has ever since resided. The farm originally consisted of about 300 acres, but by steady and successful diligence Mr. Whitcomb has enlarged its boundaries to such an extent that it now contains about 600 acres. It is one of the best farms in the town or, indeed, in the county, being adapted

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History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 100

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.) Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054