CHAPTER XXVIII.
The house in North street occupied by Dr. Brown, stands on the site of a house, which in my youth, was owned and occupied by Stephen Marcy. The old house was during the revolution kept as an Inn by Thomas Southworth Howland, and there on December 22, 1769, the Old Colony Club for the first time celebrated the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. On that occasion at half-past two a dinner composed of the following dishes was served: “A large baked Indian whortleberry pudding, a dish of sauquetach, a dish of clams, a dish of oysters, and a dish of cod fish, a haunch of venison, a dish of sea fowl, a dish of frost fish and eels, an apple pie, a course of cranberry tarts and cheese.”
The pudding alone preceded the meat, and the dessert was as now the last course. This custom went out before my day, but it was no more strange than that now in vogue, of beginning a breakfast with fruit and oatmeal.
I remember the house well with a front door near its westerly end, and an office door near its easterly end opening into a room which in its last days was occupied by Dr. Robert Capen. In 1833 Jacob Covington bought the estate and built the house now standing.
The Covington family was not one of the old Plymouth families. Thomas Covington came to Plymouth a few years before the revolution, and married in 1771 Sarah, daughter of Joseph Tribble. Jacob Covington, son of Thomas, was no doubt a shipmaster in early life. He was evidently trained in a business school, and was repeatedly placed in positions of trust by his fellow-citizens. He was the first President of the Old Colony Insurance Company, and of the Old Colony Bank, holding both positions until his death. He was among the first to enter the business of the whale fishery, and was among its most energetic and competent managers. The enterprise of building Long Wharf, and putting the steamboat General Lafayette on the line between Plymouth and Boston, was chiefly due to him and James Bartlett. He married in 1816, Patty, daughter of Gideon Holbrook, and had Elam, 1817, who died in California; Mary Holbrook, 1820, who died in East Orange; Martha Ann, 1822, who died in Plymouth; Edwin, 1825, who died in Boston; Harriet, 1827, who died in Plymouth; Helen, 1830, still living; Jacob, 1832, who died in Providence, and Leonard, 1834, who died in Dorchester.
Mary Holbrook Covington married George H. Bates, a native of Farmington, Maine, and the wife of Rev. Dr. Mann, the present rector of Trinity church in Boston, is her granddaughter. Capt. Covington died May 28, 1835, at the age of forty-four. After the death of Capt. Covington the house in question came into the occupancy of Josiah Robbins, who has already been noticed, and later of Thomas Prince, who occupied it as a boarding house. The next occupant was Peter Holmes, who was the son of Peter and Sally (Harlow) Holmes, and was born in 1804. Mr. Holmes was engaged many years in Boston in the cork manufacture, returning to Plymouth and becoming the owner of the house under consideration. He died October 14, 1880, and the house came into the possession of Nathaniel Morton in 1881, who owned and occupied it until Dr. W. G. Brown not many years since came into its possession. Mr. Morton moved into a new house which he built on Union street, and died July 18, 1902, at the age of seventy-one years, one month and twenty-one days.
The lot next below the Covington house was all through my boyhood, as late as 1830, an outlying barn yard, belonging to Henry Warren, who lived on the corner of North street. I remember well the large barn on the rear of the lot, and the extensive hog sty and hog yard on its easterly side. In 1830 the widow of Henry Warren sold the lot to Rev. Frederick Freeman, who built the house now occupied by Dr. Helen Pierce. Mr. Freeman was descended from early Plymouth Colony ancestors, who for many generations lived in Sandwich, where Mr. Freeman’s grandfather was born. His father, George W. Freeman, settled in North Carolina and married Ann Yates Ghobson, and was for a time an instructor in Raleigh, where he became rector of Christ Church, later accepting the position of Rector of Emanuel Church in Newcastle, Delaware. He received in 1839 the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of North Carolina, and October 26, 1844, was consecrated Bishop of the southwestern diocese, including Texas, Arkansas and the Indian Territory. He died at Little Rock, Arkansas, April 29, 1858.
Rev. Frederick Freeman, son of George Ward and Ann Yates (Ghobson) Freeman, was born in Raleigh, December 1, 1799, and was there ordained as an evangelist. He was settled in 1824 over the Third Church of Plymouth, whose place of worship was on the corner of Pleasant and Franklin streets, and built the house in question in 1830. In 1830 some disaffection arose in his church, which resulted in the secession of a considerable number of its members, and the establishment of the Robinson Congregational church in 1831, and the erection of its place of worship on the corner of Pleasant street, and a street which has since been laid out and named Robinson street. No hint is given so far as I know by any historian as to the cause of the dissension in the church, but there are reasons to believe that, brought up in the Episcopal church, he was never a full fledged Calvinist, and that the secession above referred to and his final resignation in 1833 were due to this fact. The visit of his father to Plymouth in 1832, and his holding an Episcopal service for only the second time in the history of the town, tends to confirm this view of the case. My impression is very strong that sooner or later after he left Plymouth he became a member in full standing of the Episcopal church. He afterwards became a citizen of Sandwich, his ancestral town, and devoted some years to the preparation and publication of a history of Cape Cod, which is a valuable contribution to Old Colony Historical literature. I have a distinct recollection of his personality, a strongly built man with black hair and a Websterian type of head and face, who could not pass in a crowd without observation. He married December 26, 1821, Elizabeth, daughter of George Nichols of Raleigh, who died in Plymouth March 12, 1833. He married second, April 20, 1834, Hannah, daughter of Frederick W. Wolcott of Litchfield, Conn., and third, November, 1841, Isabella, daughter of Hartwell Williams of Augusta, Maine, but I do not know the date of his death. A sister of his married Weston R. Gales, mayor of Raleigh, and hence the name of our late townsman, Weston Gales Freeman of Summer street.
In 1833 Mr. Freeman sold the house to Daniel Jackson, who has already been noticed in these memories. After the death of Mr. Jackson and the removal of his widow to Boston, Dr. Alexander Jackson became the occupant of the house in 1860, and was succeeded by Dr. Edgar D. Hill in 1880, whose occupancy last year gave way to that of Dr. Pierce, the present occupant.
Dr. Alexander Jackson was a descendant in the fifth generation from John Jackson, who came from England and died in 1731. He was the son of Isaac and Sarah (Thomas) Jackson, and was born in Winthrop, Maine, May 18, 1819. His father moved to Boston when he was a boy, and Alexander was educated at the Boston Latin School, where he fitted for college. He graduated at Amherst in 1840, and took his medical degree from the Harvard Medical School in 1843, having been associated during his three years’ course with the Boston Dispensary, and the Boston Eye and Ear Infirmary. Not long after receiving his degree he began the practice of his profession in Chiltonville, where he remained until October, 1858, when he moved to Main street, Plymouth, and occupied the house where the Plymouth Savings Bank now stands. In May, 1860, he moved to the house under consideration on North street, which he occupied until October, 1880, when he bought the house on Court street, now occupied by Father Buckley. In October, 1890, he retired from professional business, and moved to Boston. He married, June 14, 1849, Cordelia A., daughter of Nathaniel Reeves of Wayland, and had Isaac, 1850, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Parrish of Philadelphia; Alexander, 1853, who married Abby Warren, daughter of William T. Davis of Plymouth; and Nathaniel Reeves, 1857, who married Hannah M., widow of George W. Brown, and daughter of Lyman Shaw. Dr. Jackson died in Boston, December 12, 1901.
Passing now to the house of Arthur Lord on the lower corner of Rope Walk lane, as it was called, its occupant in my boyhood was Mrs. William Sturtevant, the widow of William Sturtevant, who died December 15, 1819. She was the daughter of Benjamin and Jane (Sturtevant) Warren, and was born in Plymouth in 1769, and died December 5, 1838. Her husband was the son of William and Jemima (Shaw) Sturtevant, and was born in that part of Plympton, which is now Carver, in 1761. I have no means of learning what his business was, as I am unable to associate him with any enterprise, industry or profession. He was a member of the Board of Selectmen in 1817, but I find him in no other office. The inscription on his gravestone calls him William Sturtevant, Esq., and as it is certain that he was not a shipmaster or a lawyer, I am inclined to the opinion that he was a merchant, and like George Watson, who died in 1800, and William Jackson, who died in 1837, was called Esquire. Mr. Sturtevant was married in 1791, and had the following children, who survived infancy: Jane, 1794; Hannah, 1796; Sarah, 1799; Lucy, 1802; Rebecca W., 1805; and William, 1809. Hannah married Thomas J. Lobdell, a banker in Boston and died October 3, 1818; William was for a time a partner with William S. Russell in the dry goods jobbing business in Central street, Boston, and later a stock broker; Sarah died July 1, 1833; Lucy died August 7, 1807, and Jane died November 8, 1832. Rebecca W. married in 1831 Rev. Josiah Moore of Duxbury, and died April 7, 1838. Mrs. Moore makes the tenth Plymouth lady whom I remember who married husbands who came to the town to teach school. These were Nathaniel Bradstreet, who married Anna Crombie; Charles Burton, who married Sarah Stephens; George Washington Hosmer, who married Hannah Poor Kendall; William H. Lord, who married Persis Kendall; William Parsons Lunt, who married Ellen Hobart Hedge; Josiah Moore, who married Rebecca W. Sturtevant; Horace H. Rolfe, who married Mary T. Marcy; Benjamin Shurtleff, who married Sally Shaw, Isaac Nelson Stoddard, who married Martha Thomas, and William Whiting, who married Lydia Cushing Russell. Another might have been added to the list if a letter of which I was the innocent bearer, had received a favorable reply. I had no right to know the contents of the letter, but little pitchers have great ears, and mine were uncommonly great when I overheard the letter discussed. The marriage of another teacher, Charles Field to Elizabeth Hayward, was prevented by his death, August 22, 1838.
In 1839 the house in question was sold to Dr. Timothy Gordon, who occupied it until his death. Dr. Gordon came to Plymouth in 1837, but where he lived until he moved into the Sturtevant house, I am not able to say. His ancestor, Alexander Gordon, a Scotchman, came to New England in 1651, and settled in New Hampshire. The Doctor was the son of Timothy and Lydia Whitmore Gordon, and was born in Newbury, N. H., March 10, 1795, and made several voyages as supercargo.
In 1823 he entered the office of his brother William in Hingham, and completed his studies at the Bowdoin College medical school, where he received a degree in 1825, and first settled in Weymouth. In 1837 he came to Plymouth, and in 1839 moved into the house in question. He was bold and successful as a practitioner, and skilful as a surgeon. For many years he was one of the chief supporters of the Third Church, and a liberal contributor to its funds, and both he and his wife made large gifts for the support of foreign missions. He was a trustee of the Pilgrim Society, and Vice President from 1872 to 1877; a Director of the Plymouth Bank and Plymouth National Bank from 1845 to 1877, and the recipient of the degree of Master of Arts from Amherst College in 1868. He married May 12, 1825, Jane Binney, daughter of Solomon and Sarah Jones, and had two children, Solomon Jones, September 21, 1826, and Timothy, April 19, 1836, the latter of whom died young. Dr. Gordon was a shrewd man, and would have made a good detective, as the following incident shows. He believed that the methods pursued in New York and Boston in detecting criminals by the aid of newspaper reporters was like hunting ducks with a brass band, and acted accordingly. He had a famous peach tree in his garden laden with luscious fruit, of which one night he was robbed. Neither he nor his wife mentioned the loss even to their servant, and no one knew of the robbery besides themselves and the thief. One day as the Doctor was sweeping his sidewalk a man came along and entered into conversation. Just as he turned to leave he said, “by the way, Doctor, did you ever find out who stole your peaches.” “Yes, you rascal,” the Doctor replied. “You stole them, and if you don’t pay me five dollars instantly I will have you put in jail.” The man confessed at once, and paid the money down.
Solomon Jones Gordon, the son of Dr. Gordon, was born in Weymouth, September 24, 1826, and graduated at Harvard in 1847. He studied law with Jacob H. Loud in Plymouth, and in the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar October 18, 1850. He soon after became associated with Orlando B. Potter, who was interested in sewing machine patents, and removed his office to New York, where he accumulated a handsome fortune. He married Rebecca, daughter of David Ames of Springfield, in which city he made his home until his death in 1890.
After Dr. Gordon, the house under consideration was successively occupied by Rev. A. H. Sweetser, pastor of the Universalist Society, and by Dr. Parker, and the last occupant before Mr. Lord, its present occupant, was Dr. Warren Pierce.
Perhaps I ought to offer an excuse, for the continuance of these personal reminiscences which may have become wearisome to some of my readers. There is a legend that myriads of sombre birds have periodically flown from the Black Sea to the beautiful sea of Marmora, and after hovering over the cypress shades of the cemetery at Scutari have retraced their flight without food or drink, never touching the earth. The Turks are said to believe that they are condemned souls denied the peaceful quiet of the grave, visiting the tombs of others. I trust that my wanderings among the scenes of the past will not be attributed to the restlessness of a condemned soul, but rather to a love of my native town, and of those in whose footsteps I am daily walking, and in whose vacant homes I recall blessed memories.
The house on North street, now owned by John Russell, the occupants of which have been only incidentally alluded to, was built by Samuel Jackson soon after the revolution and passed from him to John Russell, who married his daughter Mary. From John Russell it passed to his son, John, who owned and occupied it through my boyhood until his death in 1857, from whom after his widow’s death it passed to his son, John Jackson Russell, the father of the present owner. John Russell, whom I remember as the occupant of the house, was the son of John and Mary (Jackson) Russell, and was born in 1786. In early life he followed the sea, and soon became master. He sailed some years in the employ of my grandfather, Wm. Davis, and I have seen many letters from him in various ports in the North of Europe, which show him to have been a skilful navigator, and an intelligent, shrewd business man. He gave up the sea before my day, and jointly with Thomas Davis of Plymouth, and Wm. Perkins and Sydney Bartlett of Boston, owned the ships Massasoit, Sydney, Granada and Hampden, of which he was manager. As far as I know his masters were Robert Cowen, Nathaniel Spooner, Wm. Sylvester, and Henry Whiting, the latter making a single voyage to California in the Hampden in 1849. Not long after giving up the sea he became interested in town affairs, and could always be relied on to oppose extravagant measures. He was a member of the Board of Selectmen from 1841 to 1844 inclusive, and in the years 1846, 1851, 1853 and 1854. He was also one of the corporators of the Plymouth Cordage Company in 1824, and a director I think until his death. It was during his service as shipmaster that the political lines began to be drawn between the advocates and opponents of a protective tariff, the manufacturers asking for protection, and the ship owners opposing any measures tending to check importations. His attitude on this question carried him into the ranks of the Democratic party a constant opponent of a tariff which, drawn chiefly for protection purposes, he believed to be unconstitutional. In 1844 the ship Hampden was in New Orleans loading cotton for Amsterdam, and either for the benefit of his health or the relief of Capt. Cowen, he concluded to take command of her for the voyage. Sending for his son John, who was teaching school in Barnstable to be his companion, they joined the ship and made the voyage to Amsterdam and back to Boston or New York, I think with a load of iron.
Captain Russell married in 1816 Deborah, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary (Holmes) Spooner, and had Mary Spooner, who married James T. Hodge, John Jackson, Helen, who married Wm. Davis and Wm. H. Whitman, and Laura. He died February 6, 1857.
John Jackson Russell, son of the above, who became the next occupant of the house in question, was born July 27, 1823, and graduated at Harvard in 1843. After teaching school in Barnstable and making a voyage to Amsterdam with his father in the ship Hampden in 1844, he studied law with Jacob H. Loud in Plymouth, and Allen Crocker Spooner in Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1848. Returning to Plymouth in 1850, after practising law for a time, he was appointed Assistant Treasurer of the Plymouth Savings Bank, and after the death of Allen Danforth in 1872 treasurer, which position he held until his death. He was also a director of the Plymouth National Bank, and in 1878, a short time its President. He married in 1855 Mary A., daughter of Allen Danforth, and had Helen, 1857, John, 1860, and Lydia, 1863. He died November 10, 1897. The house in question in my judgment illustrates those admirable qualities in architecture, symmetry and proportion, which are rarely found in the works of architects of the present day. It illustrates also the importance of retaining the original color of a house intended by the architect to be built of brick in order to preserve its symmetry, for it must be apparent that since the house was painted red the symmetry has been restored, which a light color had previously disturbed.
Until within five or six years a house stood on the easterly side of the Russell house, which during my boyhood was occupied by Daniel Jackson until 1834, and by Isaac Tribble until 1846, both of whom have already been noticed. In 1846 it was bought by Anthony Morse, who occupied it until his death. Mr. Morse was born in Gloucester in 1795, and was the son of Humphrey and Lydia (Parsons) Morse of that city. He came to Plymouth when a young man, and learned the trade of rope making, working a number of years in the rope walk extending from the gardens of the North street houses along the rear of the Court street lots to Howland street, and afterwards in the works of the Robbins Cordage Company. At a later time he was an assistant in the store of Samuel Robbins on Market street, and still later he kept a grocery store a short time on his own account. He was an ardent whig, and during political campaigns he rendered valuable service to his party by setting up a reading room, collecting campaign funds, and making sure of the appearance of whig voters at the polls. Colonel John B. Thomas was the general adviser of the party, and no measures were adopted without his approval. One election morning Col. Thomas was awaked before daylight by a loud rapping at his door. Opening the window and asking what was the matter, Morse appeared out of the darkness and called out, “C-Co-Colonel, rains like h-hell, shall I engage all the h-horses?” The Colonel said Yes, and went back to bed. As a reward for his party services he was appointed Deputy Collector in 1841. Mr. Morse married in 1837 Nancy, widow of Branch Johnson, and daughter of William Atwood, and had Charles P., 1830, who kept an apothecary’s shop some years at the corner of Court and North streets, and later in the house of his father, to which he succeeded.
Mr. Morse was a man of the strictest integrity, and conscientiousness was the most marked feature in his character. He possessed a morbid conscience which kept him in constant fear that he might be suspected of dishonesty. He was a director of the Plymouth Bank from 1844 to 1858, and he told me once that on one occasion when the cashier left him during a temporary absence to keep the Bank he found a twenty dollar bill behind a chair on the floor. I found it impossible to convince him that it had not been placed there to test his honesty. The morbid state of his mind intensified with age, and he committed suicide April 19, 1858.
Passing now to the house standing in the angle of Winslow street, I am led to speak of its occupants for the purpose of making appropriate mention of Dr. Charles T. Jackson, a distinguished son of Plymouth, who was there born June 21, 1805. His father, Charles Jackson, married Lucy, daughter of John Cotton, in 1794, and his children, whom I remember, were Lucy, born, 1798, who married Charles Brown, Lydia, 1802, who married Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Thomas. Mr. Brown, the husband of Lucy, lived many years in Constantinople, and rendered laborious and self-sacrificing service to the sick during a visitation of the plague in that city. Dr. Jackson studied medicine with Dr. James Jackson and Dr. Walter Channing of Boston, and graduated at the Harvard Medical school in 1829. In the same year he went to Europe, where he remained three years studying in Paris, and returned in 1832. For his scientific labors and researches he was made a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1836 he was appointed geologist of Maine, and was also appointed by Massachusetts to survey her Maine lands. In 1839 he was appointed geologist of Rhode Island, and in 1840 of New Hampshire. In 1844 and 1845, explored the southern shores of Lake Superior, and opened mines of copper. In 1847 he superintended for a time a survey of mineral lands of the United States in Michigan. When Professor S. F. B. Morse secured a patent for the telegraph in 1840, Dr. Jackson claimed that on board the ship Sully in 1832, in which he and Morse were passengers, he suggested the possibility of correspondence by means of electricity, and explained to Mr. Morse the method of applying electricity to telegraphic use. It is in my power to furnish to a certain extent a confirmation of Dr. Jackson’s claim, which, as far as I know, has not found its way into the literature of the telegraph. In 1846 I was a passenger from New York to Liverpool in the ship Liverpool, in which a man by the name of Blithen was mate, who was also mate of the ship Sully, in which Jackson and Morse were passengers in 1832. He told me that he remembered well when Dr. Jackson made the suggestion of the possibility of an electric telegraph, at the dinner table, and the interest with which Mr. Morse listened, and his questionings concerning a possible use of electricity in the manner proposed. Mr. Blithen said that it was evident that the subject was a new one to Mr. Morse, bearing on matters entirely outside of the profession of painter to which he belonged. The controversy upon the respective claims of Morse and Jackson never reached a definite settlement, except sub-silentia by public opinion in favor of Morse.
Dr. Jackson made another claim, resting on a more substantial basis, on which both scientific and general opinion have been and probably always will be divided. The question whether he or Dr. W. T. G. Morton was the real discoverer of anasthesia, will never be settled, and perhaps the only solution it will reach is that which gives both jointly the credit of the great discovery. A memorial was presented to Congress in 1852, signed by one hundred and forty-three physicians of Boston and vicinity, ascribing the discovery exclusively to Dr. Jackson. The French Academy of Science decreed a Montyon prize of 2,500 francs to Jackson for the discovery of etherization, and one of the same amount to Morton for the application of the discovery to surgical operations. Dr. Jackson received orders and decorations from the governments of France, Sweden, Prussia, Turkey and Sardinia, but what the final verdict of history, the court of last resort, will be, it is too early to say.
Dr. Jackson was a man of broad and deep scientific learning, and in exploring the mysteries lying in the field of science he found so much that his frank and open nature would not permit him to conceal, that those who knew him were not surprised at the disputed claims which marked his career. He knew too much, and too many things for him to develop, and by his own labors to apply to practical use. His mind was like a garden so crowded with vegetation of his own planting that none or few reached perfect bloom and seed. But the passerby attracted by one or another, though ignorant of botany, would pluck a slip or a root, and setting it in his own grounds, by unremitting care nurse it into vigorous growth and a perfected life. Without the garden which the gardener had planted, the passerby would never have found the plant, and without the act of the passerby the plant would have died and the labors of the gardener would have been in vain. Thus it is true that one soweth another reapeth. Dr. Jackson married Susan Bridge of Charlestown, and died in 1880.
At the time the controversy between Jackson and Morton was going on, Horace Wells, a dentist in Hartford, made a claim that prior to the use of ether he had used in his profession nitrous oxide gas to prevent pain. In the autumn of 1846 he went to Europe to lay his discovery before the medical profession in Paris, and in March, 1847, on his return, he was my fellow passenger on board the steamship Hibernia, and shared my stateroom. He was a landsman, unfamiliar with the sea, and easily frightened by the noises of the ship. He was especially frightened on a dark night in a northwest gale surrounded by broken ice off the Flemish cap, the northeast edge of the grand banks. As we entered the field ice Capt. Harrison deemed it prudent to stand to the southward and escape it. We were constantly feeling the huge blocks of ice, thumping against us, and with the windows of the dining saloon which was on the main deck, well shuttered, it was about as dismal a prospect as passengers not yet fully satisfied of the seaworthiness of sidewheel ocean steamships had ever experienced. In those days the trumpet was used by the officers on the deck in giving orders at night or in a storm to the men at the wheel, and about ten o’clock the few of us who were not sick, sitting in the saloon, heard the order, “hard a port.” Of course we ran to the door, but before reaching it heard the order, “hard a starboard.” I saw on the port side perhaps a quarter of a mile distant the glisten of an iceberg, and those on the starboard side saw the glisten of another about the same distance away, and as we went wallowing along in the trough of the sea we sailed between them. We turned in soon after, but there was not much sleep for the poor Doctor after the fright he had received.
About midnight we were awakened by the crash on our decks of a gigantic wave, which enveloped the ship, filling the dining saloon sill deep, and pouring down into the cabin, endangering the lives of several passengers whose stateroom doors were broken open, and who were washed out of their berths. The Doctor was out and off in an instant, returning in about ten minutes telling me to get up as the ship was sinking. As I never was easily rattled, I remained in my berth, either taking no stock in his outcry, or thinking that a speedy death in my stateroom would be better than a lingering one among floating cakes of ice. In the morning we were clear of the ice, and once more on our course. The troubles to which Dr. Wells was subjected in endeavoring to substantiate his claim, affected his brain, and he committed suicide in New York, January 24, 1848. A statue has been erected to his memory in the park at Hartford, his native city.
Another distinguished Plymouthean was a resident on North street. Dr. James Thacher lived from 1817 to 1827 in what is now called the old part of the Samoset House, which he named Lagrange in honor of Lafayette, and moved from there into the Winslow house on North street, which he occupied until he built the house until recently occupied by Dr. Thomas B. Drew in or about 1832. I remember him in the Winslow house, but it was chiefly in the house built by him which he occupied until his death that I knew him intimately. His family and my mother were close friends, and I made frequent visits to his house to talk with him and learn from him tales and incidents of the past. I always found him sitting at his desk in the northwest corner of the westerly parlor ready to talk with a young man who was sufficiently interested in early days to visit an old man. He was as long ago as I knew him very deaf, and sometimes, though not always, I talked with him through an ear trumpet. Like all deaf persons, his hearing depended much on the tone in which he was addressed, not necessarily a loud one, but distinct, clear cut, and from the throat rather than the lips. His wife, whose voice was low and soft, but clear, conversed with him with ease. He was a short man, stoutly built, though not fleshy, and always as long as I knew him, walked with a cane. He was a jovial man, ready to laugh at a good story, or at a joke on a friend or on himself. He was an ardent friend of temperance, full of religious sentiment, but owing to his deafness he was while I knew him, a rare attendant on church worship. Before my day he had abandoned the practice of his profession, and was devoted to literary pursuits.
Dr. Thacher was born in Barnstable, February 14, 1754, and was the son of John and Content (Norton) Thacher of that town. He attended the public schools until he was eighteen years of age, when he was apprenticed to Dr. Abner Hersey for the study of medicine, completing his apprenticeship at the age of twenty-one soon after the battle of Bunker Hill. He at once presented himself for examination for medical service in the army, and being accepted was appointed surgeon’s mate in the hospital at Cambridge, under Dr. John Warren. In February, 1776, after another examination, he was assigned to Col. Asa Whitcomb’s regiment as mate to Dr. David Townsend, and went with his regiment on the expedition to Ticonderoga. In November, 1778, he was appointed surgeon of the First Virginia State Regiment, and in 1779 he exchanged into the First Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Col. Henry Jackson, and was present at the execution of Andre. In July, 1781, he was appointed surgeon in the Regiment, commanded by Col. Alexander Scammel, and was present at the siege of Yorktown, and the surrender of Cornwallis. Retiring from service in January, 1783, he settled in the following March in Plymouth, where he resided until his death. His large experience in the army, and his well known skill as a surgeon, gave him a large and lucrative practice, from which he would have acquired a handsome property, had not his investments and ventures been disastrous. He established with his brother-in-law, Dr. Nathan Hayward in 1796, the first stage line between Plymouth and Boston, which with other enterprises, no more successful, wasted the savings from his practice. While carrying on his practice he had in his office a number of students, among whom were Dr. Perry of Keene, N. H., Dr. Nathaniel Bradstreet of Newburyport, and Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff of Carver and Boston. In many things he was always a little in advance of his generation, and was inclined to adopt new ideas before they were sufficiently tried, though in others he was the successful pioneer. He introduced the tomato into Plymouth, and with my mother, was the first to set up a coal grate, and use anthracite coal for domestic purpose.
In 1810 Dr. Thacher published “The American Dispensatory,” and in 1812 “Observations on Hydrophobia.” In 1817 he published “The Modern Practice of Physic,” in 1822 the “American Orchardist,” and in 1823 “A Military Journal during the Revolutionary War,” in 1828 “American Medical Biography,” in 1829, “A Practical Treatise on the Management of Bees,” in 1831, “An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts, Apparitions and Popular Superstitions,” and in 1832 a “History of the Town of Plymouth.” Of some of these books second editions have been published; some are standard works, and all are rare. The suggestion I have made that he was in advance of his time is confirmed by his work on hydrophobia, in which more than a hint is given that methods of prevention or cure might be successfully adopted, such as Pasteur has in recent years advocated. In that work the following passage may be found:
“Experiments made upon the canine poison in brutes might be considered as an arduous and hazardous undertaking, but it is not to be deemed altogether impracticable, and I will suggest the following project for the purpose. In the first place dogs when affected with madness, instead of being killed, should be confined and secured that the disease may run its course, and for the ascertainment of many useful facts connected with its several stages. If experiments on dogs should be deemed too hazardous let other animals of little value be selected, provided a sufficient number can be procured. Having provided for their security in some proper enclosure, let them be inoculated with the saliva of the mad dog. With some the inoculated part might be cut out at different stages to ascertain the latest period at which it may be done successfully. To others, various counter poisons and specific remedies might be applied to the wound and administered internally. In fact it would be difficult to determine a priori, the extent of the advantages of this novel plan if judiciously conducted. You may smile at my project, but however chimerical and visionary it may appear, I would rejoice to be the Jenner of the proposed institution; though I might fail in realizing my thousands I could pride myself in being the candidate for the honor, and the author of an attempt to mitigate the horrors attending one of the greatest of all human calamities.”
Dr. Thacher received from Harvard the honorary degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Medicine in 1810, and from Dartmouth in the same year, and was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He married Susanna, daughter of Nathan Hayward of Bridgewater, and sister of Dr. Nathan Hayward of Plymouth, and had Betsey Hayward, 1785, who married Daniel Robert Elliott of Savannah, Georgia, and Michael Hodge of Newburyport; Susan, 1788, who died in infancy; James, 1790, who also died in infancy; James Hersey, 1792, who died in 1793; Susan, 1794, who married Wm. Bartlett, and Catherine, 1797, who died in 1800. Dr. Thacher died May 26, 1844, and his wife died May 17, 1842.