Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

Dr. Francis B. Brewer had in 1850 an office at the corner of Main and Middle streets, but I do not know whether he was engaged in general practise or exclusively in that of dentistry. He was succeeded in the same year by Dr. Robert D. Foster, who advertised himself as having had “the most ample experience in operative surgery, both in England and the United States.”

In September, 1855, Dr. James L. Hunt occupied the office which Dr. Brewer and Dr. Foster had occupied, but I know neither his specialty nor the length of his service in Plymouth.

Dr. Andrew Mackie, son of Dr. Andrew of Wareham, was born in 1799, and graduated at Brown in 1814. He came to Plymouth in 1829, and lived on the corner of Market and Leyden streets, and in the house next below the rooms of Mr. Beaman on Middle street. He removed to New Bedford soon after 1832.

Dr. John Flavel Gaylord, son of Ebenezer and Jane (Phelps) Gaylord, was born in Amherst, Mass., March 22, 1852. He fitted for college at the Hopkin’s Grammar school and graduated at Yale in 1876. He took his degree from the Yale Medical school in 1878, and completed his studies in 1879 and 1880 at the University of Berlin, and at Heilbronn. On his return home he practised a few years in Cincinnati, and settled in Plymouth in 1889, where he married Susan, daughter of William Rider Drew, and died April 14, 1903.

Dr. Charles James Wood came to Plymouth in 1866 and settled in Chiltonville. He was son of Leonard Wood, and was born in Leicester, Mass., February 18, 1827, and was educated at the Leicester Academy. He practised in Barre, Chiltonville, Sandwich and Pocasset, in which latter place he died August 25, 1880. I remember him as attending with Dr. Alexander Jackson in Manomet Ponds, the sailors who were wrecked in the bark Velma in 1867. He was the father of General Leonard Wood, now in the Philippines, who attended school in Chiltonville.

Dr. John C. Bennett appeared in Plymouth in 1835, and advertised himself an eclectic physician “formerly professor of obstetric medicine and surgery.” The various medicines prepared by him were claimed to be infallible ones for many diseases; and of a tooth extractor invented by him, it was said by an enthusiastic friend that it made the extraction of a tooth an operation of pleasure instead of pain. He married Sally, daughter of Job Rider of Plymouth, and lived and had his office on Summer street. The introduction by him of the Plymouth Rock breed of fowls gave him a reputation of a more substantial character than his medicines. In 1842 he published “The History of the Saints,” an expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism.

Dr. John Bachelder, son of John and Mary Bachelder, was born in Mason, N. H., March 23, 1818, and graduated at Dartmouth in 1841. He began to practice in Monument in 1844, and married Martha Swift Keene of Sandwich, September 30, 1846, afterwards removing to Plymouth, where he died October 28, 1876.

Of Dr. Benjamin Hubbard I make an exception among the living physicians, and include in these memories a notice due to his age and long practice in Plymouth. He was born in Holden, Mass., November 25, 1817, the son of Benjamin and Polly (Walker) Hubbard. He came to Plymouth in 1840 and studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Levi Hubbard, and after attending one term at the college at Woodstock, Vt., graduated at the Pittsfield Medical college in 1844. After receiving his degree he practiced six months in South Weymouth, and then came to Plymouth, succeeding his brother, who removed in the autumn of 1844 to New Bedford. Aside from his practice he has been assiduous in his devotion to the welfare of the Baptist Society, which owes him a debt which it gratefully acknowledges, but can never repay. He married June 29, 1844, Ellen Maria, daughter of Elisha Perry of Sandwich, and is enjoying in a serene old age the love and respect of the community, whom for more than sixty years he has faithfully served.

William Davis, son of Nathaniel Morton and Harriet Lazell (Mitchell) Davis, was born in Plymouth May 12, 1818. He fitted for college at the Boston Latin school, and graduated at Harvard in 1837. He studied law with his father, and at the Harvard Law school, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar January 18, 1841. In those days it was the custom in the Harvard Law school to hold a moot court once each winter for which the jury was drawn from the senior class in college, and lots were drawn among the senior law students for the positions of senior and junior counsel on each side. William M. Evarts was in the law school, and having come from Yale college with a high reputation for eloquence, it was taken for granted that if unsuccessful in the drawing, one of the successful ones would surrender his place to him. Mr. Davis, one of the successful ones, declined to give up his position as senior counsel for the defendant, but a place was given to Mr. Evarts as senior counsel for the plaintiff. As Mr. Davis lived in Boston with his grandmother, he was little known by his fellow students, and when the trial came on the lecture room of the school was crowded with law students and undergraduates to hear the eloquent man from Yale. I was one of the jury, and I remember well the astonishment with which the masterly speech of Mr. Davis was received. Some years afterwards Mr. Richard H. Dana, who was a member of the law school at the time, told me that the unanimous verdict of the school was that Mr. Davis was the star of the occasion. Mr. Evarts was eloquent, but Mr. Davis possessed a grace of gesture and speech which caused his hearers to ask who the man was who had overmatched the eloquence of the man from Yale.

Mr. Evarts lost his eloquence as his practice at the bar increased, and he became addicted to the use of long sentences, which made his hearers wonder how he could escape from his labyrinth of words without forgetting his nominative. He said to a friend who criticized this defect in his rhetoric that in his long experience at the bar the prisoner in the dock was the only person who objected to long sentences. He was a man of humor, and while secretary of state in the cabinet of President Hayes, who never had wine on his table no matter who were his guests, he said one day to a lady sitting next to him at the state dinner, when the Roman punch was served—“Ah, we have reached the life saving station.” The next day when a friend asked him how the dinner went off he said, “Splendidly, water flowed like champagne.”