USA > Wyoming > Pioneer physicians of Wyoming Valley [1711-1825] : an address before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society > Part 1
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GENEALOGY 974.801 L97JOHF
Pioneer Physicians of Wyoming Valley,
AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE
WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
By FREDERICK C. JOHNSON, M. D.,
WILKES-BARRE, PA.
MEMBER OF WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, MORAVIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, ETC.
Author of Pioneer Women of Wyoming Valley, Count Zinzendorf and the Moravian and Indian occupancy of Wyoming Valley, etc.
Reprinted from Vol. IX of the Transactions.
WILKES-BARRE, PA.
1906.
PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY, 1771-1825.
BY
FREDERICK C. JOHNSON, M. D.
READ BEFORE THE WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
[In this paper no attempt has been made to distinguish between men who were educated physicians and those picturesque characters who, in one crude form or another, ministered to the ills of suffering humanity. To have passed as doctors is sufficient warrant for including them in the present narrative.]
To-day there is a practicing physician for every 700 inhab- itants of Luzerne County and perhaps every square mile will average a disciple of the healing art. To-day, with a busy population of a quarter of a million souls, it is with difficulty that we can picture this same portion of Pennsyl- vania as it was in the half century up to 1825, the period with which this paper has particularly to deal.
As originally erected in 1786, Luzerne County stretched along the Susquehanna River from the mouth of the Nesco- peck Creek, opposite Berwick, northward to the New York State line, a distance of 150 miles by the rough bridle paths of that day, whose trails are now occupied by our modern iron highways, or 120 miles as the bird flies.
Of this vast wilderness, covering the northeastern quarter of Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barré (or Wyoming, as it was called), was the centre, and here lived the doctors, here were the courts, here was the capital of old Westmoreland (belonging to Connecticut, though geographically separated from it), and here were contested the rival claims of Penn- sylvania and Connecticut for a fair valley whose tragic history is known wherever the English language is spoken.
So far as the records show there was no physician with
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
the first adventurers from Connecticut to Wyoming in 1763. True to their New England instincts every attempt at settle- ment witnessed the presence of a school teacher and a min- ister of the gospel, but no special inducements were held out to followers of Esculapius.
But such were not slow in coming and some of them left a marked impression upon a community which had already received a baptism of blood and which was to be wasted by internecine strife for a period of 30 years.
True there was little opportunity in a vast wilderness like Westmoreland for the practice of medicine in the earlier days. The population was widely scattered and-what was a greater obstacle to doctors than all else-hardy. The sturdy life of the pioneer had few emergencies which called for medical interference. Under these circumstances the doctors who came had necessarily to identify themselves with other callings in order to earn a living. Like other settlers they took up tracts of land, or "pitches" as spoken in the language of that day. Sometimes it was for making homes for themselves, but as often it was for speculation.
EARLY DISEASES.
Probably the same causes which in our day produce febrile disorders of a malarial type have always been operative. "At all events, fever and ague," says Pearce, "has raged at various periods along the Susquehanna, ever since the white man lived on its banks, and even earlier, for Shikellimus, the viceroy of the Six Nations, died at Shamokin (now Sunbury) from this malady in 1749."
The most dreaded malady of that day was small-pox. The first epidemic which swept over the settlement at Wyoming was in 1777, in which year the infection was brought from Philadelphia.
Vaccination being then unknown, the only means for com- bating the disease was inocculation. Great alarm prevailed, but a town meeting was held and measures were taken to
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
fight the disease with the utmost vigor, the result being to allay the public fear and to keep the disease within bounds. Persons desiring this protection could not receive the virus at their own homes, but were compelled to resort to a pest house, one of which was established in each township, half a mile from a traveled road. As far as possible these rude hospitals were quarantined.
Small-pox was a great terror to the Indians and well it may have been, for the red man has never been able to with- stand its ravages, and it is the disease, which more than all others combined, has wasted his tribes, generation after gen- eration, and which will not long hence complete the work of extermination.
Pearce says that when the Indians entered Forty Fort on the day of the massacre, the women cried out "Small- pox," with a view of frightening away the savages, but with- out success, the latter understanding the ruse and going on with their work of plunder. Pearce mentions the presence of typhus fever in 1778. Miner says that in 1780 there was an endemic fever, widespread in extent, and distressing in its severity. An unusually hot summer was followed by an autumn of unprecedented sickness. The prevailing malady was fever-remittent and intermittent-of a particularly severe type on the Kingston side of the river. "Dr. Wm. Hooker Smith skillfully dispensed calomel, tartar emetic and Jesuit bark, and the number of deaths, though considerable, bore a very small proportion to the great number afflicted."
The next year (1781) was also very sickly, typhus being added to remittent and intermittent fever. Among the vic- tims was Lydia, the wife of Col. Zebulon Butler, who was the daughter of Rev. Jacob Johnson. A servant of Capt. Mitchell fell dead at the fort. A son of Capt. Durkee died of nose bleed.
The spring before the massacre was memorable by reason of what was called "putrid fever," a malignant and conta-
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
gious disease, which claimed among its victims the wife of Dr. William Hooker Smith, and his daughter Mrs. Dr. Gustin.
The first medical man to visit Wyoming Valley, was Dr. J. M. Otto, of Bethlehem, who was sent for to attend Chris- tian Frederick Post, the Moravian missionary among the Indians. This was in the summer of 1755, prior to the settlement of the valley by the whites.
DR. JOSEPH SPRAGUE.
The first to locate and practice medicine in old Wyoming was Dr. Joseph Sprague, who came with his family from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., between 1770 and 1772. In an original "List of Settlers on Susquehanna River, October, 1771," his name appears. Where and when he was born and when and where he died the present chronicler cannot say. "The prospective profits from land speculation probably contrib- uted more," says Hollister, "to bringing him hither than any expectation of professional emolument or advantage in a wilderness."
Shortly after his coming to Wyoming the Wilkes-Barré people offered him a settling right in the township. Like every other settler he was required, under the rules of the Susquehanna Company, to give bonds for the discharge of whatever responsibilities he assumed as a settler. Here is the minute of his admission, by the people in town meet- ing assembled :
"At a meeting of the inhabitants of Wyoming, legally warned and held at Wilkes-Barré, January 21st, 1772, it was Resolved, That Dr. Joseph Sprague shall have a settling right in the Township of Wilkes-Barre provided he give bond for Fifty Dollars to Capt. Butler and the rest of the Committee for the use of the Company."
He was prompt in executing his bond, for the record is as follows :
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
Feb. 1772. "Joseph Sprague, late of Poughkeepsie Duchess County, N. Y., executes to Z. Butler, Stephen Fuller and Timothy Smith, Committee of settlers from Wilkes-Barré township, bond for £30-to pay £15, with in- terest, on or before July 1, 1773, for settling right in Wilkes- Barré."
A still earlier vote to admit him reads as follows :
"Wilksbury, Sept. 30, 1771. Voted in town meeting that Doctor Joseph Sprague shall have a settling in one of ye five towns."
On Dec. 17, 1771, town meeting at Wilkes-Barre "voted that Joseph Sprague (and others named) have each a set- tling right in ye township of Lackaworna."
Miner says Dr. Sprague was here as early as 1770, and says this may be regarded as the date of the first permanent settlement of Wyoming. When Dr. Sprague came the town plot was covered with pitch pines and scrub oak. The inhabitants occupied the stockade at Mill Creek. There were but five white women in Wilkes-Barre Township be- sides his family. Miner also says :
"The Mill Creek stockade covered perhaps an acre, a ditch was dug around the area ; logs 12 or 14 feet high, split, were placed perpendicularly in double rows, to break joints, so as to enclose it. Loop holes to fire through with mus- ketry were provided. There was one cannon in the fort, the only one in the settlement, but it was useless, except as an alarm gun, having no ball. Within this enclosure the whole settlement was congregated, the men generally armed, going out to their farms to work during the day, and re- turning at night. The houses, store and sheds were placed around against the wall of timbers. Matthias Hollenback, then about twenty, full of life and enterprise, had just come up the river with a boat load of needed goods and opened a store. On the left was the house of Capt. Zebulon Butler. Next on the right was the building of Dr. Sprague, the
8
PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
physician of the settlement, who added to his scant income by keeping a boarding-house, the largest building in the stockade. Here Mr. Hollenback and Nathan Denison, then twenty-three, had their quarters. Having seen near 40 years afterwards, their venerable forms wrapped in their cloaks, as associate judges of Pennsylvania, we could not repress an allusion to the contrast. Capt. Rezin Geer, who fell in the battle, was here.
"For bread they used corn meal, as the only mill in the settlement was a samp mortar for pounding grain. Dr. Sprague would take his horse with as much wheat as he could carry and go out to Coshutunk (Cochecton) on the Delaware to have it ground. A bridle path was the only road, and 70 or 80 miles to mill was no trifling distance. While at the Delaware settlement having his grist ground he would buy a few spices and a runlet (small cask) of Antigua rum. The cakes baked from the flour, and the liquor, were kept as dainties for some special occasion, or when emigrants of note came in from Connecticut.
"No furniture, except home-made, was yet in the settle- ment. Venison and shad were plenty, but salt was a treas- ure. All were elate with hope and the people, for a time, were never happier.
"But soon work came for Dr. Sprague: Zebulon, a son of Capt. Zebulon Butler, died, also two daughters of Rev. Jacob Johnson, and Peregrine Gardner and Thomas Rob- inson. Lazarus Young was drowned in bringing up mill- irons for the Hollenback mill. At this time the Indians were numerous about the settlement, some of them very friendly, belonging to the Moravian Society. For about two years the people made their headquarters at the fort, then became numerous and feeling secure, they scattered over the valley."
There were no Indians resident in the valley at this time, though occasional visits were made by the Christian Indians
9
PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
of Friedenshütten (present Wyalusing), in search of game, or fish, or wild hemp. The Indian occupancy of Wyoming Valley as a place of residence, ceased soon after the tragic death of Teedyuscung in 1763.
A great deal of light is thrown upon the values of those early days, as well as upon the modes of living, by the account books of Elisha Blackman, a farmer of Wilkes- Barré, now Hanover Township. These are in the posses- sion of his great-grandson, Henry Blackman Plumb, Esq., author of the "History of Hanover Township." Here is an account with old Dr. Sprague, the amounts being carried out in Connecticut currency, 6 shillings being equivalent to a silver dollar. After 1786 and the establishment of the Pennsylvania claim to the soil, the Connecticut reckoning gave way to Pennsylvania reckoning-7 shillings and 6 pence making a dollar. The reckoning of accounts in pounds, shillings and pence continued in Wyoming Valley considerably after 1800. (Plumb 212.)
Wilkes-Barré, June 1, 1772.
Doctor Joseph Sprague,
To Elisha Blackman, Senior, Dr.
£. S. d.
To Cash, Lawful money.
0 8 8
" Work with two men and two horses, plowing an acre of land. 0
" Plowing two acres between corn. .
O 3 0
" One day's work. O 3 O
" Plowing two acres of corn
O
3 O
To Cash, one dollar
0
6 0
To One acre of stalks. O
To I Bushel and half peck of corn .
O
3 7
To ferry to fetch one bushel of corn
0
0
8
To A turn with Mr. Porter O
2
6
6 0
1773, To One quart bottle
O
I 6
4 0
IO
PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
1774, July-To the three boys a day (Elisha, £. S. d. Ichabod, Eleazer) 0 3 0
To Eleazer, half a day 0 0 6
To Ichabod, one day. O I 0
To 20 pumpkins.
0 I 8
To the three boys one day stripping to- bacco
0
3 0
To one boy a day
0
I 0
To one pig
0
2 0
1775, January 10-To 12 a bushel of potatoes To I bushel of potatoes
0
I 0
O
2
0
To 10 bushels of corn.
O
IO
O
1775, June ye 26-Settled with Mr. Joseph Sprague and found due to him ..
0
2
O
[No date]-To payment for doctoring. . . ..
I
I 9
To 212 bushels of corn for Douglas Davison
O
7
6
To 3 bushels of corn.
O
9
O
To 112 bushels of corn
0
4
6
To I bushel of corn
O
3
6
To 4 bushels of corn
0
14
O
This pioneer doctor does not seem to have had permanent residence in Wilkes-Barré. Hollister says, page 150: "Of the yet uninhabited forest, called in the ancient records 'Ye Town of Lackaworna,' Dr. Sprague was one of the original proprietors. His first land sale was for meadow lot No. 13 in Lackawanna Township, sold to Jeremiah Blanchard in May 1772. For a period of 13 years [1772 to 1785], with the exception of the summer of 1778, Dr. Sprague lived near the Lackawanna, between Spring Brook and Pittston, in happy seclusion, practicing medicine when opportunity offered, and in fishing, hunting and farming, until, with the other Yankee settlers, he was driven from the valley in 1784 by the Pennamites. He died in Con- necticut." Miner says he died in Virginia. As shown else- where he was living in Wilkes-Barre in 1774 and 1776.
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
Dr. Sprague was twice married. Prior to his joining the Wyoming colony he had married for his second wife Eunice Chapman, who was born at Colchester, Conn., in 1732. He had several children by his first wife. A son fell in the battle of 1778. At the erection of Luzerne County, in 1787, there was a Joseph Sprague, who was chosen court crier. Whether he was a son or not, I have not learned.
The following from unpublished records is furnished by Oscar J. Harvey, Esq. :
May 27, 1772. Joseph Sprague of Wilkes-Barre con- veys to Jeremiah Blanchard of Coventry, Kent Co., Rhode Island, for £50, one settling right "in township of Lacka- wanna, so called.
In April or May, 1772, when there was a final distribution of lots to the proprietors of Wilkes-Barre, Joseph Sprague drew :
Lot No. 46, Ist Division (on Jacob's Plains).
Lot No. 45, 2nd Division (town plot).
Lot No. 30, 3rd Division (back lots).
Lot No. 31, 4th Division (5-acre lots).
About 1773, or 1774, he disposed of lot No. 45, 2nd Divis- ion-evidently to the town of Wilkes-Barre-and it ulti- mately became the public grave-yard where the City Hall now stands. It extended from the present corner of Wash- ington and Market Streets to corner of Market and Canal, and along Canal and Washington Streets, each, 332 feet. The lot contained three acres and 136 perches.
In March, 1774, Dr. Sprague was living on lot No. 30, 3rd Division of Wilkes-Barré. He was still there in Octo- ber, 1776, when, for £110, 10 sh., he sold to Darius Spofford "the whole of said lot on which I now dwell-to extend from the Centre Street (now Main Street) eastward." This lot lay at the corner of the present Ash Street and South Main Street.
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
March 9, 1774, Dr. Joseph Sprague of Wilkes-Barré deeded to Dr. Samuel Cook of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., for £52, 8 sh., Lot No. 46, Ist Division, or Meadow Lots- 35 acres at Jacob's Plains. This lot lay along the river and was about where Port Bowkley now is. This sale must have fallen through, for on July 28, 1774, Dr. Sprague conveys the same lot to Dr. Wm. Hooker Smith, for £100.
Under date, Wyoming, November 25, 1786 (just after the passage of the Act erecting Luzerne County), Dr. Sprague writes to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania relative to the strife between the adherents of Pennsylvania rule and its opponents :
"The present Surcomstances of this Place Stops the mouth of Every one that is a friend to government ; Know one Dare to say one word in behalf of government, or mutch more to inform government, as he would amedely fall a Sacrifice to Lawles and arbartary Power ; for this Reseon thar is many good Sitezens in this place that Dare not apeare in the be- half of government but are obliged to be Silent and mute. The true State of afares here at Wyoming is in fact a total Rejection of government, and are at this time forming and modeling a new form of government among them Selves."
Sometime subsequent to 1786, and prior to 1790, Eunice Sprague of Wilkes-Barré, filed in the Luzerne County Court a libel in divorce against "Joseph Sprague of sd. Wilkes- Barré, Practitioner of Physic." The prayer of the libellant was addressed to "the Hon. Thos. Mckean, Doctor of Laws, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Penna., and his Associate Justices of the same Court," and set forth that in the year 1769 she was lawfully joined in holy bonds of matri- mony with Dr. Sprague. The grounds alleged were: "bar- barous and cruel treatment," etc. The divorce was granted.
Dr. Sprague's widow did not long remain in Connecticut after the expulsion by the Pennamites, but she returned to
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
Wyoming and joined with her old friends and neighbors in renewing a home in the wilderness. The influence of her husband's medical skill was not lost on the wife, and when thrown on her own resources she engaged in midwifery, and practice among children, for which by nature she was well fitted. Dr. Hollister says of her:
"Dr. Sprague's widow, known through the settlement as Granny Sprague, returned to Wyoming in 1785 and lived in a small log house then standing in Wilkes-Barre on the southwest corner of Main and Union Streets. She was a worthy old lady, prompt, cheerful and successful, and at this time the sole accoucheur in all the wide domain now em- braced by Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming Counties. Although of great age, her obstetrical practice as late as 1810, surpassed that of any physician in this portion of Pennsylvania. For attending a case of accouchement, no matter how distant the journey, how long or fatiguing the detention, this sturdy and faithful woman invariably charged one dollar for services rendered, although a larger fee was never turned away if anyone was able or rash enough to pay more."
Previous to her marriage to Dr. Sprague, Eunice Chapman had been married to a Mr. Poiner at Sharon Nine Partners, N. Y.
After a long and useful life she died in Wilkes-Barré April 12, 1814. In accordance with the usual brevity with which the newspapers of that day disposed of interesting hap- penings, the Wilkes-Barre Advertiser of April 15, 1814, says :
"Died in this town on Tuesday evening last, Mrs. Eunice Sprague, aged 82 years. She was one of the first settlers of this place."
What a thrilling story could have been written then of the life of a good woman, who may most fittingly be included in the pioneer practitioners of medicine. She was 46 years old
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
at the time of the battle and her recollections of early times were largely utilized by the earlier historians of the valley.
One of her children by her first husband, Phoebe Young, died in 1845, aged 89 years, was 22 years old at the time of the battle, and was the last of the survivors of the infant colony which occupied the stockade at Mill Creek. Charles Miner gives a sketch of Mrs. Young in the appendix of his History of Wyoming, and pays her a deserved tribute. Her husband was in the battle of Wyoming but escaped. She, with Mrs. Col. Lazarus Denison, Mrs. Jonathan Fitch, Mrs. Betsey Shoemaker and their children, escaped down the Susquehanna in a canoe and made their way in safety to Harrisburg.
The following concerning Mrs. Sprague, is from the pen of Wesley Johnson, Esq., in the Historical Record, Vol. 3, page 165:
"Mrs. Eunice Sprague, was in all probability the first woman to practice medicine in these parts. I do not myself remember her, but often, when I was a small boy, heard the old people speak of "Granny Sprague" as a successful prac- titioner of midwifery and of the healing art among children. Mrs. Dr. Sprague's residence and office, which I well remem- ber, was a one-story log house on the corner of Main and Union Streets, then known as Granny Sprague's corner, where the Kessler block now stands. The old log house was demolished long years ago, but the cellar was plainly to be seen up to the time of erecting the present block of brick buildings. Mrs. Sprague, if I am not mistaken, was the mother of "Aunt Young," who lived in a small, one-story frame house on Canal Street, still standing, a short distance below Union Street, who used to tell us boys how she often listened to the cry of wild cats and wolves in the swamp in front of her place, about where the line of several railroads pass up the valley. I remember that in going to Mrs. Young's place, out Union near the Van Zeek house, we had
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
to pass a water course about where Fell Street joins Union, which at times, after heavy rains, would be quite a formida- ble stream for children to ford. It was here, as I have heard said, that old Zimri, the town fiddler, was drowned on a dark night as he was on his way home, perhaps slightly boozy, after having delighted the boys and girls during the first part of the night with the exciting dancing music of 'Money Musk' and 'The Devil's Dream,' drawn from his miraculous violin."
DR. WILLIAM HOOKER SMITH.
Soon after the arrival of Dr. Sprague came an interesting personage who figured, not only as a physician, but as a par- ticipant in public affairs generally, and whose influence upon the community was marked-Dr. William Hooker Smith.
Dr. Smith, who was born in 1724, located in Wilkes-Barré as early as 1772, his father, Rev. John Smith, who died at White Plains, N. Y., before the Revolutionary War, hav- ing been a Presbyterian clergyman in the city of New York. Rev. John Smith was the only Presbyterian clergyman in New York City in 1732; and such was the feebleness of his congregation, that he preached one-third of his time at White Plains. (Hist. Coll. N. Y.)
Soon after Dr. Smith's coming to Wyoming Valley he purchased land and made settlement. A purchase was made by him and his son-in-law, James Sutton, who had come form North Castle, Westchester Co., N. Y., Feburary I, 1773, of three tracts of land, meadow lot No. 32 in "Kings- ton," containing about 46 acres, also house lot No. 29, con- taining 5 acres, and also lot No. 7, 3rd Division, 86 acres, in Kingston Township. Mr. Sutton had settled at what is now Plains, then called Jacob's Plains. Afterwards he moved to Exeter where he built a grist-mill and saw-mill.
In 1772 he was the only physician, except Dr. Sprague, in a territory of 150 miles in extent, from Cochecton on the Delaware to Sunbury. He is thus described by Dr. Hol-
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PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF WYOMING VALLEY.
lister in his History of Lackawanna Valley : "The doctor was a plain, practical man, a firm adherent to the theory of medicine as taught and practiced by our sturdy ancestors of those early days. He was an unwavering phlebotomist. Armed with huge saddle-bags, rattling with gallipots and vials and thirsty lance, he sallied forth on horseback over the rough country calling for his services and many were the cures issuing from the unloosed vein. No matter what the nature or location of the disease, bleeding promptly and largely, with a system of diet, drink and rest, was enforced on the patient with an earnestness and a success that gave him a widespread reputation as a physician.
"Though the doctor was a Yankee by birth, habit and education, such confidence was reposed in his capacity and integrity that he was chosen the first justice in the Fifth Dis- trict of the new county of Luzerne. His commission, signed by Benjamin Franklin, then President of the Su- preme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, bears date May II, 1787."
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