History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895, Part 86

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co
Number of Pages: 840

USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 86

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Stubborn prejudice in some members of her own profession had to be met and overcome. To her honor be it said this was soon effected. She was early established as one of the consulting physi- cians at St. Mary's Hospital, Passavant Hospital, the Orphan Asylums, St. John's Home for Aged Women, Temporary Home for Women, Industrial School for Girls, and the Convent of Notre Dame, having besides a large private practice, in which she was unusually successful. Among the poor she often found occasion to render the comfort and consolation of advice and womanly sympathy, together with the blessing of healing physical ills. Her services as physician were often rendered without fee, and throughout the whole term of her professional activity, she made her dedication to it votive, not speculative or commercial.

In this laborious activity she found time to par- ticipate in the great questions of the day. The agitation for equal rights, which marked the close of the Civil War, was followed in 1869 by the question of woman's suffrage. This question was so unpopular and provoked such warm discussion that its advocacy brought almost discredit. Through her efforts the first woman's suffrage convention held in this state was convened by courtesy of the mayor, Hon. Edward O'Neill, in the City Hall of Milwaukee, in the winter of 1869. At this convention, for which she made all the arrangements and bore the entire expense, as well as at the one which immediately followed in the senate chamber in the state capitol at Mad- ison, granted for the purpose by Gov. Lucius Fairchild at Mrs. Wolcott's request, were present . Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Mary A. Livermore.

She was the first to report and expose the con- dition of the county poor-house, and of the county jail, where she went to minister to the bodily and mental needs of the incarcerated women. She worked with counsel and advice in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and another association, formed in the interest of in- dustrial education and aid for women, which cul-

minated in the "Woman's Exchange," held the first meetings for organization, upon her call, in the parlors of her residence. Of the Wisconsin branch of the Humane Society, and the State Academy of Arts, Science, and Letters, she was one of the earliest members ; and without going further in their enumeration, she has been con- spicuous, if not foremost, in every progressive and humane initiative of general public character which has arisen during her long residence in this citv.

Before her marriage she had visited Paris with the object of making special clinical studies. Letters of introduction from the late Archbishop Henni, the late Father Lalumiere, S. J., and Sister Mary Vincent, of St. Mary's Hospital, procured her admission to the Maison de Sante supported by the Empress Eugenie. Upon knowing of the presence of the young American doctor, the em- press graciously interested herself; made her known to the wife of the Minister of Public In- struction, through whose mediation she enjoyed the privileges of the Sorbonne, and unusual ad- vantages of hospital practice and study.

Upon her marriage in 1869 with the distin- guished surgeon, Dr. Erastus B. Wolcott, began a singularly happy and congenial domestic life.

Since her husband's death, Mrs. Wolcott has gradually relinquished general practice. In the semester of 1887-88 at Cambridge University, England, she attended lectures and made vivisec- tion and laboratory studies of special interest.

During her now frequent sojourns in Europe she retains the old zest for study. At Paris and Vienna is an assiduous attendant at lectures, and at Rome, one of the richest fields of archaeology, she has spent two seasons in active study.

In personal appearance Mrs. Wolcott is tall in stature to that point which is felt to be expressed in the word commanding. Force and dignity softened and enveloped by a marked kindness and womanly grace are the distinguishing traits of her character. As a hostess her graceful and sincere hospitality will long be remembered by those fortunate enough to be her guests.

She has a rare appreciation of home life and to the fulfillment of its duties she gives the same thoroughness that characterized her professional work. Wisdom, courage, self-forgetfulness and devotion to principle and purpose have been fully exemplified in her life.

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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.

JAMES H. THOMPSON, M. D., was born September 4, 1835, at Foxcroft, Maine, and re- ceived his early education in a somewhat noted academy of his native town. After teaching school for a time he entered Bowdoin College and was graduated from the medical department of that institution in 1859. Immediately after his graduation he began the practice of his profession at Orono, Maine, as an associate of Dr. W. H. Allen, one of the leading physicians in Penobscot county. A year later he went to New York city where he took a post graduate course in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, giving special attention to surgery and spending much time in the hospitals of that city. Returning home, he was married in 1861 to Miss Mary E. Mayo, only daughter of Hon. John G. Mayo of Dover, Maine, and in the fall of the same year entered upon his career as a war surgeon.

Having passed an examination which evoked the warm commendation of the government ex- amining surgeon, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Twelfth Regiment Volunteer In- fantry of Maine in November of 1861, and be- came surgeon of the regiment the following De- cember. In this capacity he served with the regiment in the first Red River expedition of Gen. Banks, at Port Hudson, and in the hospitals at New Orleans and Baton Rouge until August of 1863, when his health failed and he was compelled to accept a leave of absence. He had already taken passage on the steamer at New Orleans en route north on sick leave when the news of a re- pulse of the Union forces at Port Hudson reached him, but he at once changed his plans and pro- ceeded to the front instead of going home. On reaching Baton Rouge he found that all the wounded had been brought there and that the hospital accommodations were entirely inade- quate.

Although his own health was sadly shattered and demanded the care he was bravely bestowing upon others, Surgeon Thompson organized the Church Hospital and took an important part in caring for the sick and wounded, relieving suffer- ing by his surgical skill and contributing to the comfort of his patients in every way possible. His services during the early part of the war were highly commended by his superior officers, medi- cal director Surgeon Reed, nnder whom he served for some time, mentioning him in one of his re-

ports as follows: "Whether in charge of his regiment on the field or in charge of the general hospital he has thoroughly performed his work. Entirely capable and reliable, cool, prudent and ' energetic, I regard Dr. Thompson as one of the ablest men it has been my fortune to meet." Brigadier-General Shipley, military governor of Louisiana, speaking of Dr. Thompson's services in this connection, says: "I cannot speak too highly of his judgment and skill in his profession, and his constant and unremitting devotion to every duty. It is not too much to say that he always had the best regimental hospital to be found in the command to which his regiment was at- tached."

Proceeding to his home as soon as he felt he had discharged his duty at Port Hudson, and had obtained another leave of absence, he sought to build up his impaired and broken health as rapidly as possible, but his condition continued to be such that it was thought unadvisable for him to rejoin his regiment. Being earnestly desirous, however, of remaining in the service until the close of the war, he accepted an invitation of the surgeon-gen- eral at Washington to appear before the Examin- ing Board in that city, and as a result of a very rigid examination he was again commissioned sur- geon by President Lincoln and assigned to duty at Point Lookout, Maryland, as medical officer in charge of prisoners of war in camp and hospital. In 1864 he was made surgeon in charge of Dis- trict St. Mary's, on the staff of Gen. James Barnes, and served at Point Lookout until the close of the war. He was brevetted lieutenant- colonel in 1865, and mustered out of the service at his own request, in September of that year.

In 1867 he was appointed surgeon to the Na- tional Soldiers' Home of this city and thus became identified with the medical profession in Wiscon- sin. In 1870 he retired from the position of sur- geon of the home to engage in private practice in this city, receiving from the officials of that . famous institution the same earnest commendation for services rendered, that had uniformly come to him from government officials under whom he had served.

Coming from the home to Milwaukee he turned his attention to private practice and the success to which his broad and varied experience. compre- hensive knowledge and skill entitled him was speedily assured in the new field. For twenty-one

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years thereafter he stood in the front rank of Western physicians and when he passed away on the 21st of June, 1891, the medical profession and the general public felt that the community had been bereft of an able and conscientious practi- tioner, a high-minded gentleman and a useful and honorable citizen.

RICHARD BAXTER BROWN, M.D., came to Milwaukee soon after the close of the Civil War and up to the time of his death, in the fall of 1894, was prominently identified with the medi- cal profession in this city. He was born in Han- over, New Hampshire, April 1, 1834, and was the son of Seneca and Sarah (Gould) Brown, both of whom were natives of the "Granite State." His father was a prosperous and intelligent New England farmer, and the son was brought up in the midst of rural environments, receiving the thorough industrial and economic training which has always been a conspicuous feature of the edu- cation of New England youth. Until he was eighteen years of age he divided his time between farm work and the country schools, but at that age he left home and entered Phillips' Academy at Andover, where he was fitted for college. From Andover he went to Yale College and was graduated from that institution in the class of 1860. Soon after his graduation he went to Mississippi and engaged in school teaching on the plantation of John Henderson, twenty miles below Vicksburg, and near the town of Warren- ton. Henderson was a prosperous planter of the ante-war period, somewhat noted locally as a duellest, and a typical Mississippian in his man- ners and methods of doing business. His sons, who were approaching manhood, were being fitted to enter the University of Mississippi, and the young "Northerner," who had just taken his diploma from Yale College, was deemed specially well qualified to give them the necessary instruc- tion. Although he found himself in an atmos- phere very different from that in which he had spent all the earlier years of his life, and found it necessary to exercise a good deal of tact in dealing with pupils who came to school wearing their pistols after the Mississippi fashion of that day, he conducted the plantation school success- fully until the breaking out of the war. Soon after the state of Mississippi seceded from the Union, some of his pupils entered the Confederate army and military drill became one of the features

of life on the Henderson plantation. When hos- tilities actually began, young Brown was in- formed by his Southern friends that for the time being communication with the Northern states would be cut off, and he would find it impossible to return to his home in New Hampshire. He was assured, however, that the Confederates would soon be in possession of the national capital, that an adjustment of differences would most likely speedily follow, and that his enforced exile from his native state was not likely to be of long dura- tion.

President Lincoln's call for three hundred thou- sand troops, had the effect, however, of impressing upon the Southerners the fact that the govern- ment at Washington did not propose to be dis- solved without a struggle, and the position of the young teacher became decidedly more uncomfort- able than it had been when they were confident of an easy victory.

Immediately after the first battle of Bull Run, he determined to make an effort to get out of the Confederate domain, and just before the lines were closed he succeeded in making his way north as far as Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he saw the stars and stripes for the first time in many months. Reaching his home in New Hampshire in the summer of 1861, he resumed the study of medicine-which he had begun while teaching school in Mississippi-and in the fall of that year entered the medical department of Harvard Col- lege. In 1862-63 he attended a course of lectures in the medical department of Dartmouth College, and in 1864 was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York city.

Immediately after he received his degree as a Doctor of Medicine, he entered the army as assist- ant surgeon, and was assigned to duty, first at McDougal general hospital located near Fort Schuyler, in New York. While on duty there he passed the examinations necessary to entitle him to his commission as assistant surgeon, and was sent to Newbern, North Carolina, to take charge of the Post Hospital at that place. After serving in this capacity for a time, he was appointed surgeon-in-chief of the district of Beaufort and continued to hold this important and responsible position until mustered out of the service, with the rank of captain, in February of 1866.

In the summer of that year, the class in which Dr. Brown had graduated from Yale College held

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its first reunion. and among those whom he met on that occasion, was Prof. Bristol, at that time connected with the public schools of Milwaukee. From that gentleman he obtained a favorable im- pression of this city, and the result was that in August of the same year, he opened an office here and began the practice of his profession.

Admirably equipped by nature and education for the general practice of medicine, his kindly sympathy, skillful treatment and watchful care of patients, commended him to the public and brought to him a large measure of patronage. For nearly thirty years he was a conspicuous figure among the physicians of the city, and few of the practi- tioners of that era enjoyed to a greater extent the confidence and respect of the public or were more kindly regarded by professional associates and contemporaries.

In 1855 Dr. Brown was married to Miss Alice Howard, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, who died in 1871. He was married a second time in 1880, to Miss Helen E. Howard of Napcleon, Ohio, who survives him.

WILLIAM MACKIE, M. D., came to Mil- waukee, in 1881, fresh from one of the great med- ical training schools of England, and although still a young man, has become one of the noted practitioners of Wisconsin. Born in Aberdeen- shire, Scotland, June 29, 1855, and coming of good family, his environments in early life were' of a kind favorable to the development of high character and first class ability. Obtaining his rudimentary education in the parish schools of his native village, he then took a course in the Grammar school at Keith, and at fifteen years of age entered the University of Aberdeen, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of Master of Arts in 1875. He then en- tered the Medical Department of the University, and at the end of a four years' course of study was awarded the affiliated degrees of M. B., C. M.

The high standard of the university required, however, a supplementary course of two years devoted to the practical work of the profession in one of the British hospitals or in some other field of practice before his title to the university degrees became absolute, and to conform to this requirement he was appointed house surgeon to the Stockport Infirmary at Manchester, England. In this capacity he had broad opportunities for further study and observation, as well as for the

practical application of the knowledge and skill which he had acquired.

That he had a genius for surgery became ap- parent early in his practice and his record at the hospital gave promise of the distinction which he has since achieved. Receiving his final degree in 1881, he came at once to this country, and in the spring of the same year began the practice of bis profession in Milwaukee. Almost immediately after coming here he became assistant to Dr. Nicho- las Senn-whose fame as a surgeon is almost world wide-at the Milwaukee Hospital. Entering upon the practice of medicine, admirably equipped, physically, mentally and by education for the work in hand, his associations here afforded scope and opportunity for the demonstration of that fact, and public recognition followed as a natural con- sequence. Within two years after he came here he was appointed surgeon of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company, and has ever since retained that position. Associated with Dr. Senn as assistant surgeon of Milwaukee Hos- pital, he succeeded that eminent surgeon as sur- geon-in chief of the hospital, when Dr. Senn re- moved to Chicago. He has also served as a mem- ber of the medical staff of the Milwaukee County Insane Asylum, and was surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital until other exacting professional duties compelled him to relinquish this practice.

In 1889 he was made president of the Brainerd Medical Society, and the same year served as vice- president of the State Medical Society of Wiscon- sin. In addition to holding memberships in the state and local medical societies, in which he has been conspicuous for his efforts to elevate the character and standing of the profession, he is a member also of the American Medical Association and of the British Medical Association.

While engaged to a large extent in general practice, Dr. Mackie has given special attention to surgery, and among the younger physicians of the state there arefew who have been more uniformly successful in this branch of practice, and none has made a more creditable record. Conscientious and honorable in his methods of practice, his rela- tions to his professional brethren have been of a most pleasing character, and a profound regard for the duties and responsibilities of the profession has been one of his distinguishing characteristics. Adhering strictly to the most approved code of medical ethics, he has allowed no selfish consider-

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ations to influence his professional action, and his intercourse with patients has been marked by a candor and fairness no less praiseworthy than his skill and ability as physician and surgeon. To extend the usefulness of the profession and to maintain its dignity and honor, has been with him an ambition cherished equally with the ambi- tion to achieve success as an individual practi- tioner, and his standing among the physicians of Milwaukee attests the fact that he has labored to good purpose.

Dr. Mackie was married in 1881 to Miss Bella Mitchell, who was a niece of the late Hon. Alex- ander Mitchell.

SAMUEL W. FRENCH, M. D., was born in Rock Island, Canada, very near the Northern boundary of Vermont, in 1850, the son of Samuel L. and Sophia Clark French. His paternal ances- tors settled in new England long before the Revolutionary War and his great grandfather, Samuel French, who was a native of Hardwick Massachusetts, removed from there to La Moille county, Vermont, founding in the green mountain state, the town of Hardwick. A son of this Samuel French, who was also named Samuel, married Tabitha Dow, a sister of the famous preacher, Lorenzo Dow, and Samuel L. French, the father of Dr. French, was one of the children born of this union.

Dr. French's father was a well-known merchant who was in business at different times in Randolph and Montpelier, Vermont, and in Rock Island, Canada, and later was a wholesale grocer in Boston. The son obtained his early education in the public schools of Boston and then entered Har- vard College from which institution he was graduated in the class of 1873. Immediately after his graduation he spent a year in foreign travel and upon his return matriculated in the medical department of Harvard College from which he was graduated at the end of a three years' course of study, in 1878. He was appointed House Sur- geon of the Boston City Hospital in 1877, and was connected with that institution two years.

In 1879 he came to Milwaukee, a scholarly and accomplished young physician and has ever since practiced his profession with marked success in this city. His attention has largely been given to surgery although he has a large general prac- tice and has become one of the widely known physicians of the city and state. He has taken

an active interest in all movements designed to ele- vate the character of his profession, and to provide for the higher education of those who engage in the practice of medicine, and has labored earnestly and effectively also to supply Milwaukee with ample hospital facilities. In the upbuilding of the local medical society, the founding of the Wiscon- sin General Hospital, the Wisconsin Training School for Nurses, and in the establishment of the Emergency Hospital he has been a conspicuous figure, and his professional services have been freely given to numerous charitable and bene- volent institutions.

HARRY L. HORTON .- As a training school for business men Milwaukee has hardly a peer among Western cities, if one may judge of this from the results achieved by some of those who, beginning their business careers here, have since distinguished themselves in broader fields of enterprise. Elsewhere in this History mention is made of Phillip D. Armour, Charles L. Colby and others, who at one time and another have been identified with the trade and commerce of Mil- waukee, and who have since achieved national distinction by reason of the magnitude of their operations and the success of their enterprises. In the same connection it is of interest to note what has been accomplished by H. L. Horton, now a noted banker and broker of New York city, who came here a young man and may be said to have begun life for himself in this city.

Mr. Horton was born in Bradford county, Penn- sylvania, July 17, 1832, and received an ordinary English education in the schools of that region. Brought up on a farm his physical culture and in- dustrial training were of that character which for some reason or other seems to develop the best type of American manhood, and when he left home at seventeen years of age, he went out into the world a strong, self-reliant, well balanced youth, energetic, ambitious and hopeful, with confidence in his own resources and a fixed deter- mination to make the best of his opportunities for advancement in life.

The bent of his mind was toward commercial pursuits and when he left the farm he engaged as clerk in a store in Towanda, Pennsylvania. What he found to do in this capacity, he did well, serv- ing his employers faithfully and at the same time schooling himself for a broader field of action. After remaining in Towanda several years he

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came to Milwaukee in 1854, and began business here as a member of the firm of Cole & Horton, produce and commission merchants. This firm · was succeeded by that of Cole, Horton & Com- pany, and at the end of two or three years he organized the firm of Horton & Fowler, which soon built up a grain and commission business of large proportions.

When he first came to this city Mr. Horton was but twenty-two years of age, and the impression which he made upon the business community with which he became identified at that time was that of a young man of wonderful energy, great fer- tility of resources and a tenacity of purpose which recognized no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle. As he became better known it de- veloped that he was a close student of trade con- ditions, apt in the solution of commercial prob- lems and thoroughly familiar with the laws gov- erning trade and commerce. His perceptions were keen, his judgments accurate, his methods systematic, his action prompt, vigorous and force- ful, and in a comparatively short time he had become recognized as an able and sagacious man of affairs. Prominently identified with the Board of Trade, his diplomacy and a genius for analyz- ing business situations made him an unusually successful operator, and for almost a decade he was conspicuous among the members of this fa- mous body of traders

In 1865 certain interests with which he had be- come identified prompted him to remove to New York city, and soon after locating in that city he connected himself with the stock and other cx- changes, and established a banking and brokerage business which has been among the most successful in the great metropolis for nearly thirty years. At present he is the senior member of the firm of II. L. Horton & Company, known to financiers and tra- dersin stocks, both in this country and abroad, as one of the soundest and most successful firms of its kind in the United States. With a broad grasp of affairs and boldness of action when his judg- ment led him to believe such action expedient, he has combined a conservatism which kept him clear of financial shoals and quicksands, as evi- denced by the fact that he has weathered the financial storms of the past twenty-five years in which scores of his contemporaries have met dis- aster. His operations within the past quarter of a century have covered a wide range of interests,

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History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895, Part 86

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co Number of Pages: 840

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co
Number of Pages: 840