3**te*&fr)
  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
       OK THE

DECEASED PHYSICIANS 
 
     BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES



                    OP TBB




DECEASED    PHYSICIANS


                     OF



    WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N. Y.



BEING THE ANNUAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE WESTCHESTER COUNTY MEDICAL
   SOCIKTY, AT ITS SESSION HELD IN WHITE PLAINS, JUNE 1, 1858.

                      /

                     r
       By GEORGE J. rflSHER, A.M., M.D.,

1'bisideot of the we3tchs3ter county medical society; permanent member of thb americas
   Medical Association; Permanent Member of the Medical Society of the State oi
     New York; Fellow of thb New York Academy of Medicine; Member of
           thb New York Lyceum or Natural History, &c.





        Published by Order of the Society.





                NEW YORK:

     HALL, CLAYTON & CO., PRINTERS, 46 PINE STREET.

                   1861. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.
Gentlemen—Members of  the Westchester County Medical  So-
   ciety:
   I propose as the subject of my address on the present occasion, a
few brief and imperfect Biographical Sketches "of the Deceased Mem-
bers of the Medical Profession of Westchester County.
   Although medicine, iu its history, its ethics, its relations to other and
collateral sciences, oners a wide range from which to select a subject,
the task of choosing one which has not already been treated upon has
not been easy.
   Having at last determined on that which I have just announced, as
being one never before attempted in this County,  I have hoped to be
able to interest you for a brief hour, and at the same time, to place on
record "the plain, unvarnished tale" of the character, merits, trials,
and experience of those medical men who have previously been the in-
cumbents of the field which  we now occupy.
   How frequently are we reminded, when called to the families of the
older  inhabitants, of those  who, years long passed,  visited the same
houses upon a like errand of mercy as ourselves!  How many hours
have we spent in  listening to detailed accounts  of the many  virtues
and the wonderful skill of those good old  doctors, who were  always
looked to for aid in the day  of anxiety, tribulation, or peril I   We have
been told how they rode on horseback, with their apothecary-shop
smigly packed in  huge  leathern  saddle-bags, which hung  over their
horse's back behind them; how promptly  they responded  to  a call,
though  " in  the dead waste and middle of the night;"  how cheerfully
they came; how patiently they remained,  to watch their patients  and
witness the effects of their remedies.
   As  we have listened to these kind reminiscences of our elder breth-
ren, who has not felt a strong desire to know more of their birth, edu-
cation, and medical pupilage, as well as their social, moral, intellectual 
4
and professional character?   But, alas!  how little is known of them
They have expended their days, their talents and skill, quietly and un-
ostentatiously among those who doubtless appreciated  their services
while living, and sincerely mourned their loss when dead.

              " Far from the madd'ning  crowd's ignoble strife,
                Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
               Along the cool sequestered vale of life,
                They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

  Their mortal  remains and  biography have been  consigned to one
common  grave.  Of many, not even  the place of their interment is
known; while in a few instances,

           -----------" these bones from insult to protect,
              Some frail  memorial still, erected nigh,
           With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
              Implores the tribute of a sigh."

          " Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered muse,
           The place  of fame and elegy supply."

  Their memories are treasured for a brief period by their kind patrons,
but the second generation barely remember their names, and soon they
pass into oblivion.
  While it becomes  our duty  to be ever  contending with disease, and
ever vigilant to avert the shafts of death, so thickly strewn on  every
hand, all along the voyage of life—from the cradle to  the grave—yet
all, patient  and physician, sooner or later, must  yield to the uncon-
quered, and "depart alike to the inevitable grave."

              " Who, to  dumb forgctfulness a prey,
                 This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned;
               Left the warm precincts  of the cheerful day,
                Nor cast  one longing, lingering look behind ?"

  I hope we are all inspired by  an  ambition  so to live, to improve
ourselves, and benefit our  race, that our memories may be  thought
worthy of record and preservation.
  I entered upon  the present undertaking, which, at the  commence-
ment, was supposed  to  be an  easy one, but which  soon  proved to be
quite the reverse, both  from a long-cherished pleasure which the biog-
raphy of  medical men has afforded me, and  still  more, as  a  labor of
love towards  those who have resigned their  responsibilities and their
places into our hands, that we may continue where their labor ceased, 
5
and in turn, transmit to a succeeding generation the accumulated stores
of past experience.
   Gladly would I have had  another perform this task; yet as  none
up to the present time have found either the leisure or inclination to
undertake and accomplish a biographical memoir of the deceased phy-
sicians of our county, I felt it almost a duty to  be thus " mindful of
the unhonored dead."
   I have not been able to find a single sketch of a member of our So-
ciety  among its  records, nor even in any  medical journal, book, or
pamphlet, notwithstanding it is more than sixty years  since our  organi-
zation;  yet  it cannot  be supposed that so many years could have roll-
ed away without some worthy members of the profession having been
called from  their earthly spheres of usefulness, whose character, devo-
tion,  and skill merited a brief memoir.   Our county—one of the oldest
and most honorable in the State, famous for its localities of interest, ren-
dering it classic ground to every American, and boasting of such men
as Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart, John Jay, Daniel D. Tompkins,
Washington  Irving,  and  other  celebrities—certainly should  have
possessed some physicians  worthy  of mention.   True,  the life  of  a
medical  man is in  a measure  obscure; he is  not brought before
the masses; there is no forum or pulpit for  our  profession to develop
and  display the talents of  its votaries;  they quietly and unobserved
pursue the objects of their calling, minister to the afflicted,  from  birth
to extreme old age, explore all nature in search of still better remedial
agents, exhaust all art  with the same great purpose in view,  investi-
gate  untiringly the occult  and secret nature and sources of the thou-
sand  ills that our poor mortality is heir to, and yet—
                     " Far off the public stage,
                       Pass away their silent age."

   There have been in our  county medical men whose education,  char-
acter, and skill, and whose devotion to the cause of science and the in-
terests of humanity, though perhaps exercised in a more humble  sphere,
nevertheless deserve at our hands "some frail memorial" of commen-
dation and pei'petuation.
   We should  remember that  our whole duty is not performed when
the dead are "each iu their narrow cells forever laid;" obligations still
rest upon us; the living owe a duty to those  who  have waived  them a
final  adieu,  as they left the shores of time,  as well  as to the genera-
tions  yet unborn.
   Id  preparing the following sketches, I have endeavored to apply to 
6
reliable sources for information, involving no trifling  amount  of corre-
spondence, and I desire here to acknowledge my obligations and return
my sincere thanks to all who  have interested themselves in this work
of fraternal affection, by responding to the circular of inquiries address-
ed to them; while I regret that many, from whom much was expected,
have failed to answer;  yet they must be  charitably excused, as the
multifarious duties, both professional and domestic,  and the difficulties
of obtaining the required information, would deter most men from the
undertaking, unless impelled by a spirit of enthusiasm.
  Meagre and unsatisfactory  as many of the sketches are, yet it is
hoped that, at least to every physician  of  our own county, these brief
memoirs  will  be of interest.   Should any  be able to add material of
interest to any or all of them, I hope he will not delay nor hesitate to
do so;  or what would be still better, to commence the work de  novo.
In many  cases the words of the correspondents have been employed, as
nothing additional could be obtained,  or the sketches in any way im-
proved.
  Unfortunately the records of the Westchester County Medical Socie-
ty, from  its  organization, May 8th, 1797,  to June, 1830, have  been
lost or destroyed, on which account,  doubtless, many of the  names of
its earlier members have not come  to the knowledge of the writer;
and perhaps,  for  the  same reason, many interesting professional facts
connected with the lives of those that are included in these memoirs.
  What  has  here been  attempted for ours, has been  ably done for
Albany County, by my friend Dr. S. D. Willard, in an address before
the Medical Society of that county, which was subsequently  communi-
cated  by it  to the State  Medical Society, in the  Transactions of
which, for 1857, it was published.   The same thing has been clone by
Dr. S.  H. French, for Broome County, in  an address in 1854, publish-
ed by that County Medical Society.   The biographical sketches of Dr.
French, however, included those who were then engaged in practice in
Broome County, an undertaking of too delicate a character  to justify
many in the attempt.
   "The  life of a good physician," says  Dr. Delafield, in his sketch of
the late Dr. J. Kearney Rodgers, "does not always  furnish materials
most available to the biographer.   He may have practiced lono-   H
successfully;  may have formed a large  circle of deeply attached fri  a
and patients;  may have been  beloved and honored by the poor- ]
gained the respect and esteem of every member of his own pr0f  ....
have added his fair proportion to the improvements of the day, jt  ,"'
science and his art;  and in dying, left a whole community to 0eDl  *S 
7
his  loss, and feel, for the  time, that his place could not be supplied;
and yet leave  behind him no materials from which a biography could
be drawn up of deep interest beyond his own profession, and the circle
of patients among whom he moved."
  " It is men of this stamp who leave behind them the regret that they
have left no written memorial of what they have learned and what
they have accomplished.   And it always must be so.  The practicing
physician who moves most among the sick, and is most esteemed during
his lifetime,  has  little leisure  to  write.  The  labors  of a long day in
country or town, with the cares and anxieties caused by attendance on
numerous cases involving danger  and often death,  are no good prepara-
tion for the  use of the pen at night.   And  every day do such men see
and learn many things they would be glad to contribute to  the  com-
mon stock  of their  profession's  knowledge; but it cannot be.  They
go on, day after day, and year after year, learning more and knowing
more, until  they begin  to feel that they have somewhat mastered the
difficulties of  their science; have somewhat  learned what to discard
among rules of art handed down from ages, and  what to retain;  have
even felt that they themselves have added something to the great pro-
fessional treasury; they drop into the  grave, and  carry all with them."
  Dr.  ARCHIBALD  MACDONALD, of White Plains, will first
claim our attention, as being  one of the most distinguished  of  the
earlier physicians of our county, of whom we have been able to obtain
any satisfactory account; but more especially from the fact of his having
been prominent among the founders of this Medical Society, now in the
sixty-first year of its age.
  In  the first volume of the Medical Repository, which was  the first
medical journal  ever published in America, under date of June 25th,
1797, may be found the following notice:
  " On the 8th of May, at the White Plains, there was a meeting of
respectable physicians of the County of Westchester, who formed them-
selves into a society, to be known and called by  the name and style of
' The  Medical Society  of the County of Westchester:  Dr. Archibald
Macdonald was elected President, and Dr. Matson Smith, of New Ro-
chelle, Secretary.  The  principal views of their formation appear to be
a harmonious establishment  of a regular practice of physic through-
out the county, and an immediate compliance of  the law of the Legis-
lature of the State, made at the last session." 
8
  Dr. Archibald Macdonald (not McDonald) was a native of Inver-
ness, in Scotland, and  belonged to what was  called the  Glengarry
branch of the Macdonalds.  The  Glengarries write their name Mac-
donell, but the Dr., in the latter part of his life, adopted the orthography
generally used by the other Macdonald families.
  When the Stuarts, in 1745, made their last attempt to recover the
crown, the doctor's father joined Charles Edward, the prentender, with
enthusiasm, and during that or the following year perished in battle,
when his son Archibald was but a few weeks old; so the parent  and
his youngest child never saw each other.
  Archibald  came to this country at the age of twelve years,.being
about  the year 1757.   He lived for a while in  Canada, and received
his medical education in Philadelphia,  to which  place he was sent by
his brother, an officer in the British  service.   For a number of years
he practiced his profession in North Carolina; he also served several
years as a surgeon in the British army.
  In the year 1787, he married in Dutchess County, in this State, and
continued to reside there for several years, and finally, in the year 1795,
settled at White Plains, where he practiced his profession down to the
time of his death, which occurred on the  21st day of December, 1813.
The place of his sepulchre is designated by a  tombstone in the cemetery
of the Presbyterian Church in that village.
  He died after three or four  days' illness, of what was then usually
termed "the winter  fever," an  epidemic  said at the time  to be fatal
among persons advanced in life, being, at the time of his decease, sixty-
eight years of age.
  From a genealogical manuscript in the handwriting of his brother,
it appears that he was  a descendant of  Robert de Bruce; one of his
ancestors having married a daughter of that monarch.
   His manner  and disposition were  hearty, frank and joyous,  but his
temper was quick and irritable; it is proper to add, that he was a man
of remarkable personal courage.
   Of his professional reputation, we are informed that he occupied a
high standing,  both with  the people and his brethren.  His practice
was extensive, and he was often called on consultations or otherwise,
to great distances.   Like most physicians,  in his  own family he gave
very little medicine, and even in his general practice he employed much
less medicine than physicians usually did in those days; frequently pre-
scribing gentle remedies, more for the encouragement of  the patient,
than what he deemed the necessity of the case.  Long after his death, 
9
his  old patients would  remark that  his cheerful  and assuring  words
seemed at once to bring relief, and half to perform the cure.
  His son, James  Macdonald, studied medicine first with  Dr.  David
Palmer, of White Plains, and afterwards with the celebrated Dr.  David
Hosack, of New York.   Dr. James Macdonald  turned his attention
chiefly to the study of insanity;  visited Europe, and  all its establish-
ments for the cure of the insane,  and returning to  this country, became
one of the founders  and proprietors of the Sanford  Hall Asylum, at
Flushing, L. I.  He died, much  lamented, in the  year 1849.  Several
biographical sketches of him have been published;, one of considerable
length in the American Journal of Insanity, in the July number for
1849; and also a sermon by Rev. Dr. Ogilby, on his funeral occasion.
His brother, Allen Macdonald, to whom I am indebted for many of the
above facts, continues the charge of the asylum alluded to.
  Dr. SAMUEL ADAMS, of Mount Pleasant, was born in Scotland;
he came to this country about  the time of the American Revolution,
having,been a surgeon in the British army.  In a communication from
Mr. Allen  Macdonald, he  states that his "brother  remembered to
have heard both his father  and the late  Col. Rutgers, of New York,
speak of him  as a surgeon  in the American Revolutionary army,  and
say that he was  present  as such at the  memorable battle  of White
Plains."  Also that his father, Dr. Archibald Macdonald, spoke of him
as a good Latin scholar, having been a classical teacher before coming to
this country, and that he  had read extensively on anatomy and surgery.
He is spoken  of as a small, thin person,  of rather a severe  aspect;  a
man of great energy, indomitable will, and  unflinching  perseverance,
highly passionate and profane,  having no regard for the Christian re-
ligion.
  Soon after the war, he settled about one and a half miles east of the
upper cross-roads, where  he cultivated a farm and practiced his profes-
sion for nearly or quite a half-century.
  His medical education  was doubtless superior for the period in which
he lived.   His habits, which he probably acquired while in  the army
and in war, gave him the sobriquet  of "the rough old surgeonP
  Such was his  supposed skill  in surgery, that if  a broken  bone was
to be set, or any  operation to be performed, he must necessarily be  sent
for, from all  parts of the  county;  and when  sent for, tradition  says,
however well the work may have been done previous to his arrival, he 
10
would find some deficiency, and if  possible do it over again, secundum
artem, readjusting a fractured bone, or  opening afresh a  wound, and
generally do it with the emphasis of an oath.
  He was a bold, rough, yet successful surgeon.   It  is said that espe-
cially in the latter part  of his practice, his instruments, like  himself,
becoming  old, were rusty and dull, and though he seldom  followed
Bible precepts, he was obliged to  adopt the  advice  of Solomon, viz.:
" That if the tool be dull, lay on the more strength."  Undoubtedly
most of his cutting operations would be  properly denominated  " heroic
practice."   So he lived and rode over the country, and over his cotem-
poraries, swaying his sceptre over the heads of all with whom he came
in contact.   He was sent at least for  one term  to the Legislature  of
the State, and died about the year 1828, aged over ninety years.
  The late Dr. Joseph  Scribner was  in the habit of relating the cir-
cumstance  of his first  interview with Dr. Adams, as being perfectly
characteristic of the man.   Overtaking him  on  horseback, one  day,
after mutual salutation,  and making himself known as Dr. Scribner, the
eccentric Dr. Adams scanned him with  a penetrating glance, and said
with a sneer, " Young man, do you intend to practice medicine ?  Well—
you'll find it a dom mean business;"  and putting spurs to his horse,
rode rapidly away.
  Dr.  Adams was very erect and sprightly; when  90 years old, he
rode on  horseback as gracefully as a youth.   He lived without  God
in the world, and it is to be feared died without reconciliation to that
God whom he had neglected, if not despised,  in his life.
  Dr. WILLIAM F. ARNOLD, of White Plains, was born in Chat-
ham, Rensselaer Co., N. Y., June 1st, 1809.  He was the son of a very
respectable Methodist minister, whose brother, Samuel G. Arnold, was
for a number of years editor and proprietor of " The Westchester Spy,"
published at White Plains.
  William's early opportunities for education  were very limited and
irregular, in consequence of the itinerant character of his father's pro-
fession;  at  the age of fourteen he removed to Rhinebeck, where, by the
special efforts of his sister and friends, he enjoyed the advantages for a
time of a good classical school.  Soon after he entered the drug-store
of Drs. Piatt and Nelson of that place.   By attention to business, and
the interest he manifested in  the articles of the Materia Medica  with
which he was surrounded, he gained the respect and esteem of his em- 
11
ployers, and was taken into their office as a medical student.   In 1829,
through the kindness  and aid of his friends, he was enabled to attend
a course of lectures in the Rutgers Medical College of the City of New
York.   During  this term, it is said, he  devoted his entire time and
energies  to the prosecution of his studies.  It is not  known to  us
whether he afterwards graduated,  or became a licentiate of the State,
or some county medical society.
   About this time (1829) he located in White Plains, almost penni-
less; he soon, however, entered into a fair practice.  In May, 1832, he
married a Miss Williams, of  Rhinebeck.  A few months after, while
apparently in the glow of health, and full of ambitious schemes and
bright hopes, he was attacked with haemoptysis, which recurring again
and again as winter  approached,- induced him  to remove to  the  City
of New York, with the hope that the duties of his profession could be
performed with  less  physical exertion and exposure.   Finding his ex-
pectations not realized, and being oppressed by debt, he returned to
White Plains  and resumed an  office  practice in connection with  an
apothecary-shop, with his brother.  This was a more successful enter-
prise; his health  and finances were both improved thereby.   In  the
 autumn of 1834 his disease had so far returned or progressed, that it
became apparent, unless a change of climate might stay its development,
 consumption was inevitable.  He accordingly embarked for St. Thomas,
 W. I., where he safely arrived, and entered into the practice of den-
 tistry, being unable to practice  medicine.  In the course of a year or
 two his  disease had so far advanced that he resolved to return again
 to his native land and home.   He died on the voyage;  his grave is
the mighty deep.
   His disposition was remarkably social and confiding;  his character
and life  that of a devout and humble Christian; thus he lived and
 died.   Dr. Arnold was devoted to his profession, and from all we can
 learn  of his talents and acquirements, under  anything like  favorable
 circumstances, he would have become eminent.
  Dr. FRANCIS FOWLER practiced in White Plains and vicinity
about fifty or sixty  years  ago.  He came from Newburgh, Orange
County, N. Y., and soon after his arrival married a sister of ex-Sheriff
Amos W. Hatfield, of White Plains.   His talents and practice are
said to have been respectable, and gave promise of good success; but
in a few years after  settling in White  Plains (from four  to six) he
died, leaving a widow, but no children. 
12
  Dr.  BREWSTER, also, practiced in White Plains previous to or
about the time of Dr. Fowler, but I have been unable to obtain any
special information relating to his life and character.
  Dr.  WILLIAM BALDWIN, late  of New York  City,  lies be-
neath a large, plain, but handsome monument, in the yard of the first
or old Methodist Church, of White Plains.   He was born in North-
ford, Connecticut.  Commenced practice about the year  1800.  Mar-
ried  Elizabeth  Falconer, daughter  of John Falconer,  a prominent
citizen of White Plains, where he practiced with considerable success
and acceptance  for a period of about fifteen years.  He then removed
to the City of New York, and located himself in East Broadway; be-
came a prominent and successful practitioner in  that section of the
city, and gained a more than ordinary practice and honorable position
among his professional brethren.  He  died of a chronic organic  dis-
ease of the stomach.  He left a widow, but no children.  She  is yet
living,  and finds  a pleasant  home  with Dr. Jared  Linsly,  of New
York,  who was an adopted son of Dr. Baldwin.
  Dr. LIVINGSTON ROE, of White Plains, was born  at  or  near
Flushing, Long Island, N. Y., in the year 1811.  He was the son of
Thomas Roe.   Dr. L. Roe  was  carefully  educated by  a German
teacher; he pursued his medical studies with Dr. John Graham, a re-
spectable physician in the City of New York.   Dr.  G.  was known to
the profession of his day  as the first, or at least among the first, sub-
jects of successful extirpation of the parotid gland.  Dr. Roe attend-
ed lectures principally at the "Rutgers Medical College," which, not
obtaining a charter, was  unable to confer degrees; it therefore had a
brief existence.  Dr. R.  then attended courses of private lectures
under Drs. Bedford, Pendleton, Bush, &c.   Subsequently he attended
the medical lectures at the College  of Physicians and Surgeons, where
it is said, he graduated.   He  married in New York, soon after which
he went to White Plains, and established himself as a copartner of
Dr. David  Palmer, the only physician then practicing in that village
He practiced all branches of the  profession  for a  period of thirteen
years, with great  ability and  success.   He  at the same time carried
on the business of an apothecary. 
13
  He died of  ship fever, contracted while in attendance upon a num-
ber of emigrant vagrants in the alms-house of the county.  He was
also at the time attending  upon a professional brother, Dr. Joseph
Scribner, of Tarry town, who also died of the same disease, contracted
at the same place.  There  is no doubt that  his indefatigable  and anx-
ious care of Dr. Scribner materially increased the exciting causes of
the  attack.  Congestion of  the brain supervened, and on Tuesday,
January 11th,  1848, he  died, having  been ill but seven days.   Dr.
Roe left a  wife, a son and two daughters, to mourn his loss.
  The  doctor was  emphatically a self-made man; he enjoyed but few
early advantages, but  being endowed liberally with  superior mental
qualities, with great industry and force of character, he was enabled
to rise superior to time and place.  Opposing  circumstances were met
with a  determination to overcome  them, adequate  to the nature and
character of the obstacle.   The doctor was actuated  by a very lauda-
ble  ambition to excel in his medical acquirements, and  determined, in
the outset  of his career,  to devote all his energies to attain an honora-
ble  professional eminence, and up to the time  of his death  he had not
striven  in vain for distinction.
  He possessed, naturally, a frail  constitution; he was tall  and slen-
der, predisposed, perhaps, to consumption, having a light complexion,
very light, fine, straight hair;  in student life very pale, so much so,
indeed, that he was called  in college "the walking spook."  His mind
was exceedingly active,  with a most vigorous mental  appetite.   He
was not insensible to the danger of over-exertion of the brain, and not
unfrequently alluded to  it  as an  apprehended cause of his premature
death.
  His friend, Dr. Hudson, of White Plains, to whom I am  indebted
for  all the  facts aud many of the expressions in this sketch, as well as
those of Drs.  Arnold,  Adams, and  others, says:  "To Dr. Roe it was
indeed a painful self-denial  to keep from close study and deep thought.
We seldom met him, or spent the latest hours of the night with him,
(a  privilege we  availed ourselves of as frequently as circumstances
would permit, for  our own profit,) but he had some new idea,  some
new train of thought,  some new theory, or practical suggestion or ex-
perience;  it was impossible to be with him an hour without learning
something new and useful.   It was his delight both to elicit  and com-
municate facts and observations, the results of experience."
  In the commencement of his  practice he  was not wrell received, ow-
ing partly to  the popularity of  his  respectable partner; perhaps, also,
to  the circumstance of his unprepossessing address, and want of knowl- 
14
edge of all the little amenities that pertain to  the social circle.   But
observation and a brief experience soon put him in the vantage-ground,
when he enjoyed the  unlimited confidence and esteem of the whole
community in which he lived and labored.
  Dr. Roe's case-books, and  the marginal and foot  notes in all  the
works  he read, attest  his diligence and good sense.   At one time  he
conceived the idea, laid his plans, and commenced the work of writing
a treatise on the practice of medicine; the cares of an increasing fam-
ily and an extensive practice so  completely engrossed his time that he
abandoned the project.
  He almost envied the city physicians the great opportunities which
they can enjoy; but his health forbade his removal from the country.
  For many years he availed himself of the practice of the county alms-
house, as a school of observation.  The miserable and otherwise home-
less and hapless patients of that institution felt  that in him they had a
faithful, skillful, and kind physician and friend.   He was  eminently
accurate in diagnosis, and happy in the adaptation of means to ends.
His mechanical resources, as applied to surgery, are well exemplified in
the construction of a fracture apparatus, which was a decided improve-
ment on Amesbury's splint, in the opinion of those who have made use
of it.   The following resolutions were unanimously passed at the annual
meeting of this Society, June 6th, 1848, on motion of Dr. P.  Stewart:
  "  Whereas, since our last Annual Meeting, there have been removed
from us by the hand of a wise, yet mysterious Providence, in the vigor
of manhood and  professional usefulness,  two of our most worthy  and
esteemed professional brethren:  therefore,
   " Resolved,  That  with  feelings of  the profoundest  sorrow,  we
record the death of Drs. Livingston Roe and Joseph M. Scribner; and
that their absence from our meeting to day recalls to our minds their
cheerful and manly countenances, as they have met with us on former
occasions like this, and boldly maintained the dignity and honor of our
profession by discountenancing all forms of empiricism on the one hand,
and by their efficient advocacy of established principles of practice on
the other, and by the liberal spirit of improvement which they mani-
fested in all the departments of medical science, and which led Dr. Roe
to invent a most valuable  surgical splint, for  which  he deserves the
thanks  of the profession."
   As an evidence of  the  extent  to which Dr. Roe's splint had been
used, and the favorable opinion  entertained of it by  the profession, I
have extracted from the minutes of the meeting of this Society, held in 
15
Sing Sing, June 6th, 1843, the following resolution, which was, on mo-
tion of Dr. James Fountain, unanimously adopted:
   "Resolved, That the mass of the members of the Medical Society of
this county, having used the apparatus for fractures of the extremities,
invented (or materially improved) and presented to the profession by
Dr. L. Roe, consider it as decidedly  superior to anything of the kind
ever offered to the public; this resolution to be signed by the President
and  Secretary of this Society,  and presented  to Dr. Roe, for  his
disposal."
   Dr. Roe's literary character was  respectable;  he delivered several
well-composed public addresses.  On  one occasion he delivered a Fourth
of July oration, which was  so highly appreciated as to merit publica-
tion.   His remains were deposited in the yard of the Episcopal Church
in White Plains.
   A  few days after his death a public meeting was  convened, at which
resolutions were passed and addresses made, expressive of the bereave-
ment of the community.
   His was an example worthy of the imitation of every member of this
or any other medical society.
  Dr.  ELISHA BELCHER, a former  practitioner  of this county,
though  not a resident of it, was born in the town of Preston,  (now
Lebanon,)  New London  County,  Ct., in the year 1757.  He received
a good  classical  education, after which he  engaged in the  study of
medicine and surgery.  His preceptor's name I have been unable to ob-
tain.  Before he had finished his medical education, he joined the Conti-
nental  Army, and soon received the. appointment of surgeon's mate;
after two- years' service in this capacity, he was  promoted to the rank
of surgeon, and stationed  at Greenwich, Fairfield Co., Ct.,  near the
New York State line, where he continued to practice  his profession
until within one year of his death.   He died of hydrothorax, in Decem-
ber, 1825, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
  Dr. Belcher  was  eminent in his profession; he was frequently called
as counsel to remote towns as far north as Poughkeepsie.  His opinion
was valued  by both patients and physicians;  he was  a man of few
words, but they were well  considered.  He was a man below the me-
dium stature and  size.  He was present  at the battle of Brooklyn
Heights,  at the burning of Danbury,  and  at  the battle of  White
Plains. 
16
  His practice was full three-fourths in Westchester County; he resided
within  a mile or two of the State line.  He educated  not less than
twelve  or fourteen young men to the medical profession, including his
two sons, Dr. Elisha R. Belcher, of New York City, and Dr. William
N. Belcher, of Sing Sing, N. Y.
  Dr. Belcher had two sons and seven daughters, who seemed to have
had a strong inclination for the medical profession, or at least for  its
members.  His third daughter married  Dr. Darius Mead, of Green-
wich, Conn., a former student of Dr. Belcher.  His fourth daughter
married  Dr. Stephen  Fowler, of North Castle, and, after  his  death,
married Dr. Henry White, of Yorktown.  His fifth daughter married
Dr. David  Palmer,  of White Plains.  His seventh daughter married
Dr. Bartow F. White,  son of Dr. Ebenezer White, of  Somers, and
grandson of Dr. Ebenezer White, of Yorktown.
  Dr.  CLARK  SANFORD, of  Greenwich, Conn.,  also  deserves
mention, although, like Dr. Belcher, he was not a resident of our county;
yet the  greater part of his practice was on this side of the Connecticut
State line, living within one mile of Westchester County.
  Dr. Sanford was a native of Vermont; he practiced in this county
for  thirty years.   He was  extensively known to the profession of his
day as the manufacturer of pulverized Peruvian Bark, which  was con-
sidered to be a superior  article, and sold under the name of "Sanford's
Bark," for one dollar  per pound, while the ordinary bark brought only
one-half this price.  It was neatly put up in paper boxes, in quantities
from one-half a pound to five or more pounds.
  His  mill for  grinding medicines was located at  "Byrom Mills" a
place now known as Glenville; his sons greatly increased the business
of grinding medicines  after the death of their father.  This was nearly
the first establishment for the purpose in this country, and proved very
lucrative to  his son John, who continued the business.
  Dr. Sanford was a bold practitioner of both medicine  and surgery
He enjoyed  a much more than ordinary reputation  as a surgeon, being
discreet and conservative, yet decided, prompt, and skillful.   He edu-
cated his eldest son, Josephus, to the profession, who was a young man
of great promise;  he  settled at the  South, and died after a few years'
residence there.   His third son, Henry, is a very respectable apothe-
cary in  New York City. 
17
  Dr. Sanford was afflicted with a very peculiar idiosyncrasy.   An in-
finitesimal quantity of  pulverized ipecacuanha would  affect him  seri-
ously;  he could not carry it about him, or in his saddle-bags, even with
every precaution to prevent  its escape into the  air.   It produced an
asthmatic affection, analogous to the hay asthma of English medical
writers.  His susceptibility was so delicate  that he could detect its
presence by  the slightest particles that were  floating in  the  atmos-
phere, although imperceptible to the  senses of all others; he of course
avoided its presence with peculiar care.  He was a very eccentric man,
an inveterate smoker, and hadthe habit  of  always carrying his long
tobacco-pipe  either in his mouth  or in his  boot-leg.   His hair was
always dressed in a cue.  He is said to have been, like too many medical
men of his day, the especial terror of all children.   Even in our own days,
the doctor is not unfrequently made the object of dread to  all juvenile
evil-doers; a threat to send  for him is  often equivalent to "calling
spirits from  the vasty deep."
  Dr. Sanford died about the year 1820, aged over sixty years, hav-
ing had three sons and two daughters.
   Dr. JOHN  INGERSOLL, of Yonkers, was born about the  year
 1745; the exact place of his nativity or the precise time of his settle
 ment in the  town of Yonkers  cannot be determined.   Mr. Ebenezer
 Baldwin, an  old resident of the town, says he knew Dr. Ingersoll in
 1804, when he (Mr. B.) first moved into Yonkers.   At that date there
 were but fourteen or fifteen families within what are  now the corpo-
 rate limits  of the village;  there  was a scattered farming population
 throughout the township,  whose borders were the same as at present.
 Dr. ingersoll lived then, and until he died  in 1828, on a place about
 three miles northeast of the village.  When he first knew him, he was
 " a big, portly, good-looking man," and " a fine social man," free  from
 bad habits, a good neighbor and -excellent citizen; at  this  time he
 seemed to be about forty years old.  He was then the only physician
 in the town, and rode from King's Bridge to Chatterton's Hill, in the
 outskirts of White Plains;  he enjoyed the reputation of " a goodfamilv
doctor,  but no  surgeon."   "Didn't  want, and  wouldn't attend sur-
gical cases, if he could help it."  Mr.  Baldwin says he has seen many
cases of very  bad surgery come from  under the  care of Dr. Ingersoll.
His  obstetrical practice was very extensive.  He was a man who in-
variably discountenanced consultations, and  generally avoided inter-
           2 
18
course with his  professional brethren.  He is said to have  been ver>
attentive to his patients; the darkest night, the most  pitiless storm,
was never used as an excuse for not attending to the wants of suffering
humanity.  About the year 1815 he unfortunately became addicted to
habits of insobriety, which increased upon him until his  death in 1828.
He was  an American, and,  with his wife, came from  the  vicinity of
Horseneck.  They had no children.  As is too frequently the case with
physicians, he was careless in charging and " easy » in collecting his
accounts, consequently left very little property, except the mere  "place"
on which he lived so many years.
  After  Dr. Gates settled in Yonkers, Dr. Ingersoll's practice  was
very much abridged, which,  it  is said, rendered Dr. G.  no  special
favorite of Dr. Ingersoll.
  Dr. Gates says, that when  he came to Yonkers, in the year 1824,
he found Dr. Ingersoll  an old man, being nearly seventy years of  age.
He thinks  it would be difficult to establish for him the fact of having
ever received a good  professional education.   He was  " a bungling
surgeon and a poor bleeder."  He, however, enjoyed  a good  reputa-
tion in the treatment of typhoid pneumonia, which prevailed epidemi-
cally in 1813-14: his practice was not to bleed, or in  any  way to de-
plete, but to sustain the vital powers by tonics, stimulants, and  diet.
He probably published nothing of his long experience  and  observa-
tion.   He died  in  August,  1827, of delirium  tremens,  and  was be-
lieved to be about seventy-three years old.   Dr. Ingersoll and his wife
were  both buried in the church-yard of St. John's Chapel  at Tuckahoe;
not even the rudest headstone marks the place of their interment.
   Dr. J. Foster Jenkins, of Yonkers, kindly obtained above facts.
  Dr. DAVID ROGERS, Jr., of Mammaroneck, was the son of Dr.
David Rogers, (not Rodgers,) of Fairfield, Conn., and had descended
from a long line of distinguished physicians of that name in Connecticut.
  Dr. David Rogers, Jr., commenced practice in Mammaroneck before
the year 1800.   His brother, Dr. Charles Rogers, settled in Savannah,
Georgia, about the same time, or shortly after.   I have been unable to
obtain much exact information in relation to his life;  he is reported to
have been a physician of eminence, and enjoyed an extensive practice.
He  was famous  as  an exterminator of worms,  and treated all  the
verminous children in the region;  what special anthelmintics he admin-
istered has not been left to the knowledge of posterity.   Dr. JVloulton
 states, that when inquiry was made of Dr. Rogers as to the  peculiar 
19
article or combination he employed so  successfully as a vermifuge, he
replied, in his  characteristic style—"Pink and  damnable  doses  of
physic."
  His father, Dr. David Rogers, moved from  Fairfield, where he had
practiced  for many years, into  Rye, about the year 1810, where he
spent the remainder of his days, but never engaged in the practice  of
his profession.
  Dr. David Rogers, Jr., had  two sons, whom he educated for the
profession of medicine—Drs. David L. and James Rogers, of New York
City.   The doctor was President of the Westchester County Medical
Society for several years, from  1817  to  1820, about which time he
removed to the City  of New York.  While in the country, it  is said
he was a Presbyterian, but  soon after  his removal to  the city he
adopted the plain garb of the Quaker,  attended "meeting" instead of
" church," and, as a result of his change of faith and garments, he soon
found many " friends," who  became likewise  his  patients.   He died
about the year 1843  or '44, aged nearly seventy.
   Dr. ISAAC GILBERT GRAHAM, of Mount Pleasaut, was a son
of Dr. Audrewr Graham, and  born in  Southbury Parish, Woodbury,
Conn., September 10th, 1760.  He studied medicine under the guid-
ance of his father, who was a physician in good standing, and son of
the Rev. John Graham, A.M., a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, a de-
scendant of the Duke of Montrose, and a graduate of the University
of Glasgow.
   Dr. Isaac G. Graham, the  subject of  this sketch, was  at an early
age appointed assistant surgeon in the  American Revolutionary  army,
under General Washington, at West Point, whose warm regard he pos-
sessed, for his  medical knowledge and patriotic devotion to the great
cause which engaged their united energies.  He was present at several
important engagements with the  enemy.  When he retired from  the
army, it is said he received from his superior  officers the highest proof
of their respect and esteem for his alacrity and fidelity in the perform-
ance of his military duties.
  At the age of twenty-four  years he married Auley Bancker, and
settled at Unionville, where he commenced the practice of medicine in
this county, which he successfully prosecuted for nearly half a century,
and until the infirmities of  old age compelled him to relinquish all ac-
tive duties. 
20
   After the passage of the Pension Act by Congress, he received the
sum of $440 per annum, for his services in the army.   His business in
the earlier part of his life was extended over a large tract of country,
which he  was always  ready and prompt  to  attend, being considered
very skillful in the treatment of what was then called the winter fever
and small-pox;  he was much respected by the poor, towards whom he
ever manifested a spirit of benevolence and charity.
   During  some seasons  he practiced inoculation for small-pox to a
great extent, and  made  it quite a lucrative business.   It  is said he
made $1,400 in one season from this practice alone;  he of course had
but little or no  confidence in the prophylactic virtues of vaccination.
   With steadiness of purpose and regularity of life  he  combined  an
incorruptible  integrity, which  secured for him  through life unlimited
confidence and  an unblemished fame.  He died as he had lived, a sin-
cere and humble believer in the Christian faith, on the first of Septem-
ber, 1848, aged eighty-eight years.
   In his personal appearance he is said to have been a little above the
medium stature, rather slender, his  countenance strikingly intellectual,
with rather  sharp features.  He educated his son Frederick  to  the
medical profession, who is now in practice in Indiana.*
  Dr.  STEPHEN FOWLER, of New Castle, was born in Orange
County, N. Y.;  he practiced in New Castle, in this county, about eight
years;  his popular  and professional  reputation were extremely good.
His practice was very extensive, and he was  one of the few who have
been able to accumulate money by an honest practice of medicine
especially in the rural districts.  But he was not permitted to live to
enjoy the benefits of his earnings; he died about the year 1814 at the
early age of thirty-five years.
  Dr. Joshua W. Bowron was a student of his, and, after the death of
his preceptor, located himself in the immediate vicinity of Dr. Fowler's
office.
  Dr. Stephen  Fowler died of typhoid pneumonia, which was prevail-
ing  epidemically at the  time.  I regret my inability to procure  any
further information of the subject of this brief sketch.
  * I am under obligations to my friend, Dr. Haight, of Pleasantville, for thi
interesting sketch. 
21
   Dr. JOSHUA W. BO WRON, of New Castle, was the son of William
 and Mary Bowron, who emigrated from England and settled in this
 country soon after the Revolutionary war.
   Dr. Bowron was born in the town of Washington, Dutchess County,
 in April,  1788.   He pursued his medical studies under the care of the
 late Dr. Stephen Fowler, of this  county.   He attended  the medical
 and surgical lectures  of the Barclay Street College, where he also re-
 ceived the degree of Doctor in Medicine.   At that time  the Barclay
 Street Medical College was the only medical institution in the State of
 New York, and  enjoyed a high and deserved reputation.   Dr. Bowron
 commenced the  practice of his profession about two  miles and a half
 southeast of the village of Sing Sing, residing on a farm  now owned
 by Peter  Titler.
   He had not practiced in this place but two or  three years  before
 his preceptor, Dr. Stephen Fowler, died, and by the request  of many
 of the most respectable citizens of New Castle, he was induced to lo-
 cate in the neighborhood, and occupy the field of  practice left  vacant
 by the death of Dr. Fowler, in which place he  continued  to  practice
 until disease compelled him to abandon his labors.
   When about sixty-two years old  he had an attack of apoplexy,
 which left him with a partial paralysis of one side of the body.  Six
 months after this attack he gave up his practice, which he had unre-
 mittingly  followed for nearly forty years.   The apoplectic  seizures re-
 curring frequently,  were followed by a deplorable state of weakness of
 both body and mind.   He  was reduced to  a complete  mental  wreck,
 unable to even feed or dress himself; he was dependent upon the con-
 stant care of his excellent and devoted wife, who is still living to mourn
 his loss, and the melancholy termination of his useful career.
   Dr. Bowron was elected  President of the Westchester County Medi-
 cal Society in 1848, and re-elected  in 1849, but  was not present at
 the meetings of the Society at either session.  I am not aware that he
 ever contributed anything to medical literature.
   No private practitioner ever enjoyed a wider field of  practice, or a
 longer list of ardent,  admiring,  and  confiding friends.  His  practice
 was only limited by his Herculean powers of endurance, which  at last
gave wav under the severe  demands of so extensive and so arduous a
 practice.   A love for his profession, with the soul of the good Samari-
tan, and unbounded kindness, were his incentives to action.  Long will
his memory live, cherished  by his numerous  living friends,  and the
 simple history of his life be transmitted to the  rising generation as a
 beautiful example of a benevolent gentleman and a kind physician. 
22
  Though engaged  in  a very  arduous  country practice, Dr. Bowron
found time to read the current  literature of the profession.   He pos-
sessed a very good medical library, which exhibited evidence of exten-
sive use; he also received and read one or more medical journals.  He
accumulated a competency by his practice,  and carried on the various
branches of agriculture upon the beautiful farm which he possessed in
New Castle, at which place he died, on Friday, the 20th day of Feb-
ruary, 1857, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.   His brother, Dr. John
S. Bowron, is a very respectable physician in New York City.
  I have not learned the number of students of medicine he had under his
charge, or the names of  any  except Dr.  Joshua Fowler, of Pleasant-
ville, Dr. James Woolsey, of North Castle, and his brother, Dr. John
S. Bowron, of New  York City.
  Dr.  JOSEPH M.  SCRIBNER, of Tarrytown, was born in Bed-
ford, in this county, May 11th, 1793.
  He pursued his  medical studies with Dr. William H. Sackett, of
that place.   He attended the lectures of what was styled " The Medi-
cal  Institution of the State of New York."  A parchment certificate
of his attendance I find, dated Session of 1815-16, and signed by Drs.
John Watts, Archibald Bruce, Alexander H.  Stevens, Thomas Cock,
John Griscom, and Robert Bayard.
  During this session he also attended the clinical lectures of the New
York City Hospital, as his certificate shows.   He received a  diploma
as licentiate of the Westchester County Medical Society,  dated April,
1817, and signed by Dr.  David Rogers, Jr., President, and Dr. Wil-
liam H. Sackett, Secretary.
  Dr. Scribner commenced practice about two and a half miles south-
east of Sing Sing, near the place  where Dr. Bowron first settled; he
remained there but one year, married a Miss Ward, and removed to
Bedford, where he remained but one year;  he  then changed his loca-
tion to within one and a half miles of Tarrytown.  He  continued to
practice in this place  for  about  fifteen years.  In 1835 he removed
into the village of Tarrytown, where he  continued to reside and attend
to the duties of his profession up  to the time of his death, which oc-
curred December 28th, 1847.
  He died of typhoid  fever, contracted at the Aims-House, where he
was in attendance upon a number of severe cases, in  connection with 
23
Dr. Roe, of White Plains, who also fell a victim to the same disease a
few days after the death of Dr. Scribner.
  Dr. Scribner died at the age of fifty-four.  His mortal remains find
a resting-place in the cemetery connected with the  celebrated  "Old
Dutch Church" of Tarrytown.
  He educated his eldest son, James  W.  Scribner, to the profession.
He was a highly  respectable practitioner, but probably never contrib-
uted anything to  the  medical periodicals of his day.   The  resolutions
passed by the County Society, as a tribute to his memory, jointly with
that of Dr. Roe,  will  be found in the sketch of the latter.
   Dr. SETH MILLER, of Sing Sing, was born in April, 1766.   He
was originally from Lower Salem, from whence he settled in New Cas-
tle, where he practiced several years, after which, and before the year
1790, he settled in Sing Sing, being the first physician that ever lo-
cated in that village.  I have not been able  to  obtain much informa-
tion of him except from an old lady, long  a resident of  Sing Sing,
Mrs. John Miller, aged eighty-six years.  She informed me that Dr.
Miller  attended her  husband, who was  sick with yellow fever, being
the first and only case, up to that time, that had ever occurred  in the
place.  It was prevailing in New York  City at that time.   Mr. Mil-
ler had been exposed a  few days previous, while  in  the city on busi-
ness.  The disease did not spread, his being the only  case.
   Dr. Miller  designed to educate his only son to  medicine, but he
soon evinced his entire disinclination for  the healing art; therefore he
" threw physic to the dogs," and directed his attention to some me-
chanical pursuit.  The doctor's eldest  daughter married Dr.  Kissam,
of New York; his second daughter, who  is said to have been extremely
beautiful and highly accomplished, married Dr. Wallace, of Troy, N.
Y.   She is said to have undertaken to  continue her husband's prac-
tice after his death, having devoted much  time  to the  study of medi-
cine.
   Dr. Stephen  Silleck, of Sing Sing, was a  student of Dr.  Miller for
one year  and a half.
   Dr. Miller was a man who was highly esteemed as a physician, and
universally beloved as a kind friend and good citizen.   He was gentle-
manly and courteous in his manners, and  extremely neat and genteel in
his dress and personal appearance.   He wore his hair done up in a club,
according to the custom of the times, especially in vogue among pro- 
24
fessional men.   He is said to have been very skillful, and enjoyed the
confidence of a large circle of friends and patients.   While engaged m
practice in New  Castle, a wealthy and influential family of Quakers in
his neighborhood had  never called  upon him  professionally, from an
erroneous impression that he was  haughty and  proud.  One  day, m
passing their house, he stopped to ask for a drink of water, and seeing
some very fine loaves of rye bread, warm from the oven, he very court-
eously begged them to present him a loaf, at the same  time express-
ing his fondness for that kind of bread.   Of course, his  request  was
cheerfully complied with, and this little incident and simple  act of fa-
miliarity forever  after secured the friendship  as well as  patronage and
influence of this excellent family.
   Dr. Miller's health began to fail several years before his death, and
being unable to  attend to his extensive  practice, he  invited Dr. Jere-
miah Drake Fowler to  settle in Sing Sing, and participate  in, and
eventually succeed  him in his practice.  Dr. Miller died two or three
years after the arrival of Dr. Fowler.  This event occurred  November
23, 1808, in the forty-second year of his age,  his disease being jaun-
dice.  He was interred in the cemetery at Sparta,  below Sing  Sing.
  Dr. HOWARD LEE, of Sing Sing, son of the Dr. Lee famous as
the compounder of the celebrated "Lee's Anti-bilious Pills," practiced
in that place  previous to the year 1838.   Little is known of him, ex-
cept that he is said to have been very intemperate.
  Dr. JEREMIAH DRAKE FOWLER, of Sing Sing, was the son
of Reuben Fowler and  Martha Drake, who were  among the pioneer
settlers  of Westchester  County.  He was born the 28th  day of De-
cember, 1785, in  the village of Peekskill, where  his  parents resided
during the Revolutionary war.  His father was about the last to flee
from the village on  that memorable  occasion, when the British, hav-
ing landed at Verplanck's Point, marched into the town,  and after hav-
ing driven out the inhabitants  and destroyed some Continental stores,
departed, having spent a few hours in sacking the place.  Dr. Fowler's
parents  left Peekskill in 1788, and resided in East Chester until 1798
when they removed to Fishkill.   At an early age they  gave him the
best  classical training  of the  day,  with a view  to his entering the 
25
medical profession, which he did in the twenty-second year of his age,
being the year 1806; having  pursued his  studies with the elder Dr.
Drake, of Peekskill, and attended full courses of lectures at the Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York City, under J. Augus-
tine Smith, David Hosack, John Griscom, and others.
  He  settled in Sing Sing (says his  son, Dr. Theodore  Fowler,  to
whom  I am indebted for the greater  portion of this sketch,) immedi-
ately after receiving his degree, at the  suggestion of Capt. Hunter, a
connection of his residing there, where he labored most successfully
until his death, which occurred in the  forty-third year of his age,  on
the  28th  of October, 1828.   He died of congestion of the brain.
During that period none ranked higher in his  profession; he is spoken
of by the few friends who remain living, as an eminent and skillful
physician.    He was the intimate friend and cotemporary of Hosack,
Post, Kissam, and the other shining  lights of medicine in New  York
in that day.  He was a prominent  member of this Medical Society,
and several times represented it as its delegate to the State Society.
   He was a practical surveyor, and frequently acted in that capacity,
making most of the surveys in his immediate vicinity.
   He was elected  Justice of  the  Peace, which  was considered   an
honor in those days, and officiated in that capacity during the  years
1817, '18, and '19;  but his clemency  in granting the limits,  and  being
security, &c, well-nigh ruined him, financially.
   He was a man of fine physical proportions and noble bearing;  his
disposition was amiable to a fault.   It is said he had no enemies; the
truth was, no man  could quarrel with him, for if any came  to him  in
ill-humor, a half  dozen words from him sufficed to change  their feel-
ings.  In the social circle  he was peculiarly happy, in diffusing  at  all
times a rich fund of humor and story, which so strongly characterized
the social intercourse of the day in which he lived.
   Dr.  Fowler's universal  amenity of manner,  his professional skill,
his social  humor, all  combined to endear him to a large circle of  ad-
miring friends, and render his loss in the meridian of life universally
deplored.
   Dr. Fowler educated to the profession his brother, Peter D. Fowler,
who settled in Fishkill, N. Y., with whom his son, Theodore Fowler,
now of the same place, pursued the study of the medical sciences. 
26
  Dr.  DONAL,  of  Colaburg,  now Croton  Station, on the Hudson
River,  was a young man who engaged in the practice of medicine in
that place, at  the time of the prevalence of epidemic typhoid pneu-
monia,  in  1814, and  gained for himself an extensive reputation,  by
adopting the stimulating plan of treatment in that disease, with great
success.  Soon after he removed to New York, and died.  The par-
ticulars of his life  and character I have been unable to obtain.
  Dr. LYMAN COOK, of Cortlandtown, was an eminent and  suc-
cessful physician.  He is worthy of especial notice by us, having been
chosen the delegate of this Society, which he represented by attending
the first meeting of the State Medical Society in the year 1807.
  He engaged somewhat in politics, and was once elected to the office
of High Sheriff of the county.  He  removed  to one of the Western
States, where he located as a physician.
  Dr. NATHANIEL DRAKE, of Peekskill, was born in the town
of Yorktown, Westchester  County, N. Y., on the  27th of August,
1763.  He was a son of Judge Gilbert Drake, of that town, a  de-
scendant of John Drake, of the Council of Plymouth, who was one of
the original company established  by King James, in  1606, for the
settling of New England.
  Dr. James Fountain informed me that he studied medicine under the
guidance of Dr. Peter  Hugeford, of the  same  town; while Dr. P.
Stewart  writes  me, that he studied  with  Dr.  Ebenezer  White,
of Yorktown, a physician of great  distinction in  his  day;  perhaps
they are both correct, as he may have studied with each.  He attend-
ed medical lectures and dissections  in New York City, and was one of
the medical students who were obliged to flee for their  lives from  the
mob which  attacked the dissecting apartments, with a full determina-
tion to  break  up the  school by  violence.  He commenced practice
quite early in life, in his native town; in a few years, however, he removed
to the Village of Peekskill, where he continued to practice his profession
until within about four months of his death, which occurred  on the 1st
of February, 1850, being in the eighty-seventh year of his age.   Dr.
Drake was a respectable practitioner for almost seventy years, under 
27
various reverses  of fortune, and at last died  poor, and in rather an
obscure manner.
  He was a tall  and well-proportioned man, of a decided bilious tem-
perament, good-natured, and gentlemanly;  it is said that no man rode
more gracefully and elegantly on horseback than Dr.  Drake, even in
his  extreme old age.  With him expired the former splendor of the
ancient family, not one being left to perpetuate even the name.
  While in general practice Dr. Drake always  had his fair proportion,
it was in the obstetrical  department that he  especially bore off the
palm.  His  natural kindness of heart and  urbanity of manner secured
to him the friendship and confidence of that class  of  patients,  in the
hour  of their  most imminent peril.   Dr. Stewart writes,  that "no
physician in this region of  country has probably ever  had so large an
experience in this department of our profession;" his manner was mild
and courteous almost to a fault, and where he failed to win by his pro-
found knowledge and acquirements, he succeeded by these most excel-
lent traits.
   Dr. SAMUEL STRANG, of Peekskill, was another of the physi-
cians of the olden time.  He was the son of Major Joseph Strang, a
Revolutionary hero.   The true family name is  L'Estrange, which has
been corrupted  to Strang.  They  sprang from  one of the French
Huguenot families, whose descendants are now numerous in Yorktown,
and comprise the most respectable and wealthy farmers of the town.
   From  Bolton's  History of Westchester County I extract the fol-
lowing:
   "From the genealogical table  in possession of the Strangs, of  Put-
nam, it  appears that Daniel L'Estrange, and Charlotte,  his  wife,
(daughter of Francis Herbert,)  being Protestants, fled from the  City
of  Paris, in the  year of our Lord 1685,  during the persecutions under
Louis the XIV., and  came  to the  City of London.   He obtained a
lieutenancy in the guards of James the Second, King of Great Britain,
and continued there until  the year 1688, when with his wife he em-
barked for America, in company with a number of French Protestants,
and arrived at the City of New York.   From thence he went to New
Rochelle, and subsequently removed to Rye.  Daniel L'Estrange, who
was bom A.D. 1656, died at Rye, in this  county, A.D. 1706.   His will
bears date the same year.  The late Major Joseph Strang greatly dis-
tinguished himself in the batteaux service, during the old French war."
  Dr.  Strang was born in  Yorktown, in the year 1766.   He was a 
28
student of Dr. Ebenezer White, of Yorktown, from whom he not only
obtained his professional  education, but also  the hand of his only
daughter.
  He practiced his  profession in the vicinity of Yorktown for a few
years;  he then located himself in Peekskill, where he  spent  the  re-
mainder  of  his days.   He was a reputable physician, and a man of
scrupulous honesty and unwavering integrity; he was tall and slender,
of a sanguineous temperament, with a very piercing blue eye and ex-
tremely fair skin; he was  not taciturn, but a man of quiet demeanor.
  He had twelve children, six sons  and a half-dozen daughters.  One
of his  sons, Eugene J. Strang, he carefully educated  to the medical
profession;  he practiced but  one  year, and died at the age of twenty-
seven years, of cardiac disease.  He was a young man of promise, being
possessed of brilliant talents  and extensive acquirements.
  The second daughter of Dr. Strang married Dr. William N. Belcher,
of Sing Sing.
  Dr. Samuel Strang died of typhoid pneumonia,  in December, 1831,
at the age of sixty-five years.
   Dr. PETER HUGEFORD, of Cortlandtown, was probably the first
regular physician in the northwestern portion of  Westchester County.
   He was an Englishman by birth and education, and was unquestion-
ably an accomplished medical practitioner.  He was  certainly a gen-
tleman of the decided English stamp, as can be seen by his full-length
portrait which now hangs in an ancient parlor of his  grand-daughter,
Mrs.  Betsey Field, a  widow of over eighty years, residing near the
village  of Peekskill.  In the same antiquated apartment hang  the
portraits of two or three of his brothers, haughty-looking, red-faced
British officers, with their massive powdered wigs hanging over their
shoulders.  A doctor  in those days was an important-looking person-
age.  But, alas!  the day  of ruffled shirts, breeches, and knee-buckles of
silver and gold,  and shoe-buckles bedecked with precious stones, and
huge curled and  powdered  wigs, and cues which would vie  in length
and beauty with those of  China, has long since passed away;  and now,
in these modern days of degeneracy, not even the gold-headed cane is
tolerated, and doctors, as well as professional men generally, are placed
"in the  roll of  common men," and  obliged to  dress in threadbare
broadcloths, in place of silken gowns.   O ! spirit of Hippocrates, Cel- 
29
sus, and  Galen, when shall thy votaries  be restored to their ancient
glory ?
  Dr. Hugeford had many students of medicine; he was an honorable
and successful practitioner previous to the Revolution. Being a royalist,
he retired to the British army when war was declared.  His  fine farm
of two hundred acres was confiscated, and subsequently given by gov-
ernment  to John Paulding, for his service as one of the three distin-
guished  captors of Major Andre, the British spy.
  A cherry-tree brought by Dr. Hugeford from England, and which
he planted in his garden, is still standing on the premises, now owned
by Jacob Strang; the tree  bears a delicate, white, saccharine cherry,
which by grafts, &c, have been widely disseminated.
  This, says Dr. Jas. Fountain, from whom I obtained the material*
of this, as well as several other sketches,  is a kind of service that every
physician can do, and thus confer a benefit on posterity, who  can reap
the fruit of his  industry, which,  as in this instance, may long outlive
his name.
   Dr. Hugeford was probably the most  accomplished physician of his
day in this country.  Except the meagre sketch which has been given
above, his  biography, as far as can be ascertained, is lost.
  Dr. STANLY, of Cortlandtown, was cotemporary with Dr. Huge-
ford.  He  emigrated from Connecticut, and  settled  in Cortlandtown,
at precisely what date is not known.   His history is almost entirely
lost.  He was celebrated for his great caution;  he  carried with him
his scale and weights, and at all times weighed carefully every dose of
medicine he administered.
  He had one son, whom he educated thoroughly to the medical pro-
fession.   Young Dr. Stanly married the only child of Richard Currie,
a wealthy farmer of this county.  They united under the most auspi-
cious  and flattering  circumstances.  He died prematurely of brandy;
his wife, of opium; leaving a large family, most of whom are in indigent
circumstances.  How often does the sun usher in a clear and beautiful
morning, and set  in a dark and lowering sky!  Such was the morning
of life of the accomplished young Dr. Stanly and  his tenderly-bred
wife, and such their  sad fate,  even before life's  day had run half its
allotted course. 
30
    Dr. ELIAS  QUEREAU, of Yorktown, was born  in the City of
 New York; the precise date of his birth, however, I have been unable
 to learn.  He pursued his medical studies under the care of Dr. Huge-
 ford, of Cortlandtown.  During the early period of the Revolutionary
 war, he married in the City of New York,  where he engaged in prac-
 tice for a short time.
    Owing to the unsettled state of the country, it is said he frequently
 changed his residence and field of practice.   Being a royalist, he em-
 barked for St. Johns, Ca., with other royal refugees; he  soon returned
 to his native State, in consequence  of the extreme inclemency of the
 Canadian climate.  Dr. Quereau  finally settled in Yorktown, in this
 county, which was the native place of his wife, where he continued to
 reside during the remainder of his life.  We are informed that the
 doctor changed his location fourteen times.
   In Yorktown he seems  to have commenced anew.  He joined the
 Baptist  denomination, and became an active member.   With  a few
 others he built a church, which, under the  charge of  Elder E. Foun-
 tain, was a prosperous society, and it was  kept  together forty years
 by their united aid, and  continues to the  present time.  During all
 this long period Dr. Quereau practiced medicine successfully, and with
 much credit to himself.
   He  was a modest, quiet, and unassuming man, and  a  pious, con-
 sistent, and benevolent Christian.   His Sunday earnings  he invariably
 set apart for the benefit of the Church, believing that, as his duties on
 that sacred  day were labors of love and necessity, he had no right to
 appropriate  the avails thereof to  the  common purposes of life.   He
 argued  that, as they were obtained by the use of the  Lord's  time,
 they must, of necessity, be devoted to the advancement  of His  king-
 dom.   A most noble example, which it would doubtless be well for
 more of his professional brethren to follow.
   His  life as a physician, though  laborious, was truly a happy  one;
so calm, so mild, so obliging, that he had no enemies.   The venerable
Dr. James Fountain says, although living in his neighborhood many
years, he never heard a word uttered by any man  against Dr. Quereau!

              " In misery's darkest cavern known,
                  His useful care was ever nigh,
               Where hopeless Anguish pour'd  his groan ;
                  And lonely Want retir'd to die.

              "No summons mock'd by chill delay,
                 No petty gain disdain'd by pride,
               The modest wants of ev'ry day
                 The toil of ev'ry day supplied. 
31
              " His virtues walk'd their narrow round,
                  Nor made a pause, nor left a void ;
                And sure th' Eternal Master found
                  The single talent well employ'd."

  He died in his eighty-sixth year, leaving several children and many
friends to lament his loss.
  In the  simple narrative of this man we  have  an example  as  im-
pressive and as worthy of imitation as any handed down to us  by  his-
tory.   Living in an  humble sphere, and in a somewhat obscure local-
ity, his many virtues, and the  esteem with which  he was regarded
throughout a long life,  are as worthy of record, and the example as
impressive to the  rising generation,  as  that of an individual  in the
most  elevated position  within the gift of a multitude.   Our country
and our profession may  well feel proud of a character like that of Dr.
Quereau.
  Dr.  EBENEZER WHITE, of Yorktown, was the son of Rev.
Ebenezer White, of Southampton, L. I.  He was  born in the  lower
part of Westchester County, in the year 1744.   He settled in York-
town a short time before the Revolutionary war, and took a deep in-
terest  in that important struggle.   He was also much interested in
politics and religion, doubtless at  a sacrifice of progress in the  study
of medical science.  He carried his library mainly in his head  and
saddle-bags, and practiced only a routine course through life.  In politics
he was so successful as to be elected State Senator" for  one term.   In
religion he  also figured  conspicuously.   Belonging to  the Old School
Presbyterian Church, he, with the pastor, one Silas Constant, a shrewd
Yankee,  undertook to change the government to the  Congregational
form, but failing in this,  they retired, carrying off  the  records of the
old church; they erected a new house,  about half a mile  from the old
one; this little offshoot is still in existence.*
   Dr.  White died  March  8th, 1825, aged eighty-one years, leaving a
large family of sons and daughters.
   " Dr.  White, of Yorktown," says Mr. Bolton,  in his  History of this
county,  "through  the  whole course of the Revolution sustained the
character of a patriot, with that devotion and firmness which charac-
terized the many at that eventful period  of our  history.  It appears
* Dr. James Fountain, of Jefferson Valley, furnished the above statement. 
32
 that the enemy made several unsuccessful attempts to capture this dis-
 tinguished individual.   On one occasion they were desirous of exchang-
 ing the doctor for a British surgeon then  in the hands  of the  Ameri-
 cans.   To  effect  his  surprisal, a  large  party of light horse were
 dispatched to Crompond, with strict orders to surround  his dwelling,
 and make him prisoner.   Some kind friend, however, gave the  doctor
 timely warning, which enabled him  to escape.
   "As a substitute  they seized  upon Dr. James Brewer, who  resided
 in the immediate neighborhood,  and were proceeding home with their
 prisoner, when, passing through Stoney  Street, they were fired upon
 by a party of Americans who lay  concealed behind the fences.  Dr.
 Brewrer received a mortal wound, and expired the next morning, Nov.
 20th,  1780, in the arms of Dr. White, who had thus narrowly escaped
 the melancholy fate of his friend.  It deserves to be mentioned that he
 was the only one wounded of  the party.   Dr. Brewer, who had thus
 perished at the early age of thirty-nine, was a native of Massachusetts,
 and left by his wife, Hannah Brewer, four sons and three daughters.
 His grandson is the present Dr. James Brewer, of Peekskill."  (I have
been unable to learn anything of Dr. Brewrer here referred to.)
  " Ebenezer White, M.D., died  8th day of March, 1825, leaving issue,
besides  Henry above  mentioned, Bartow; Dr. Ebenezer, of Somers-
town,  (for many years surrogate of the county, and a member  of As-
sembly;)  Lewis,  of Peoria;  James, Theodosius, of Somers,  and  a
daughter Catharine."
  Dr.  BENJAMIN  BASSETT, of Peekskill.  The following sketch
is from the Highland Eagle, of April 10th, 1858, published in Peeks-
kill.  It  was written by Rev. D. L. Marks, of the M. E. Church of
that village,  and given as an address at the funeral of the deceased.
  We  are called  in the providence of God, as a community, to the
mournful duty of  committing  to the grave the mortal remains of one
long and favorably known among us.   It seems to us fitting that on
such an  occasion there should be  made  a brief record of the man.
This duty has devolved on me.  For many of the facts.I am about to
present in this hasty sketch I am indebted to a member of the Medi-
cal Faculty,  viz., Dr. Lee,  of this village.
  Dr. Bassett was born in Derby, Conn., December 6th, 1784.  He
graduated at Yale College, in  1807, in the twenty-third year of his age.
His medical education was prosecuted under the most favorable circum-
stances of the times.   He received the instructions of the professors of 
33
the University of Penn, located in Philadelphia.  The celebrated Drs.
Rush, Physic, and Dorscy were among his medical instructors.  Here
he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.
  Soon after he graduated as a physician, he began the practice of his
profession in Delaware County, in this State.
  Afterward he removed to  Oswego County, where he continued his
practice in a sparse population, until about the year 1826, when he re-
moved to Yorktown, in this county, where he practiced medicine suc-
cessfully about three years.   He removed to Peekskill in 1829.  From
that date  he has lived and practiced medicine in our midst, endearing
himself to a large number of friends and  families,  until the  21st  day
of March, 1858, when, as the shades of the Sabbath evening came upon
us, he quietly sank into the arms of death, and his spirit passed to the
eternal world.
  He is reported to have borne the most " kind and fraternal deport-
ment towards all the  junior members of the profession, and to have
been free from the slightest tinge of jealousy or  ill will, and ever ready
to excuse or overlook what others might have considered as an infringe-
ment on his rights or interests."  His intercourse with all the members
of his profession is said to have been marked with " kindness and cour-
tesy."   Hence, " he had few if any enemies among  medical men."
  The estimation in which he was held by the profession was  evinced
by his election in 1846, and  also in 1847,  to the honorable position of
President  of the  " Westchester County Medical  Society."   In the
latter year  he delivered an address before the  Society as their presi-
dent, " On the laws of epidemics as exhibited  in those that had  pre-
vailed in the county the preceding twenty years."  This was so highly
appreciated by the Society that it was published by their order.  It is
still preserved in a medical work,  vol. ix.  of  the first series of the
New York Journal of Medicine, p. 183, and is worthy of the  place it
occupies.   It is classical in style, rich in facts, abounds in experience,
and every line evincing the closest habits of thought, and a highly dis-
criminating mind united  with  his characteristic humility and self-de-
preciation.   As he stood before the Society as their president to ad-
dress them, the first sentence he uttered assured them of his courtesy
and  humility, so generally characteristic of true greatness.   " Gentle-
men,"  said  he, "if  you have expected from your  president to-day a
learned treatise on any branch of medical science,  you will  be disap-
pointed.   We all enjoy in common the same  facilities for  acquiring
medical knowledge, and many  of you probably improve these facilities
more than I do."  We transfer the brief introduction to that address
            3 
34
to this sketch, because it is so perfectly characteristic  of  the man.
Men of real merit are generally men of true humility.  Such a man
was our esteemed friend, Dr. Bassett.
  Dr. Bassett merited  and occupied  a prominent position as a physi-
cian.   A member of the medical profession remarked of him:  "That
he was a close observer both of the  phenomena of disease  and of the
effect of medicine.   He had great confidence in the recuperative power
of nature, and accordingly resorted to no harsh or purturbating reme-
dies, but when promptness and decision  were demanded, he was not
wanting."  During  the greater portion  of  his life his vigorous mind
was given to the study of disease, and his time  was largely occupied
with visiting the sick and watching over  his patients.  He  possessed
more than ordinary  skill in his profession.
  There was a rich  and noble  benevolence which strongly marked his
character.  The gratification  of  doing good seemed to be a much
higher compensation for untiring  labors by day and night  than any
other which he received.   His services were as cheerfully rendered to
the poor as to the rich, and often, like the healing gifts of Christ, they
wrcre without money and without price.   Many are the  grateful testi-
monies given of this fact, and there are among us not a few  who have
lost in his death an  invaluable  friend.
  He would have accumulated a much larger  patrimony for  those
whom he has left on earth, had he followed his  profession  as a mere
money-making trade.   But his was a mind and a heart that could rise
above  all sordid and mercenary motives, and he  has left his memory
engraved on many  grateful  hearts.   His friends and family have re-
ceived, and will keep as a precious treasure,  this rich legacy of a good
name and worthy example, left them.
  One of his prominent traits  of character was that of closely investi-
gating  any subject that was presented to his attention, before coming
to any  decision concerning it.  Hence he was never hasty nor rash in
his decisions.   This   doubtless  did much in making  him a "cautious,
careful and safe practitioner in his profession."   He was such in  the
estimation  of  medical  men,  and in the estimation  of the community
generally.
  Dr. Bassett was  most emphatically a man of  one  work;  and a man
greatly devoted to that work.  He  gave his mind, his  heart, and his
time to his profession, and followed it very closely for  the  benefit of
others.   He was unwearied in his  attentions to the  sick, exhibiting in
the sick room, where as a pastor we have  often found him, patience,
kindness, and sympathy to the afflicted; and when death baffled all his 
35
skill,  and claimed  his. patients as  its victims,  his sympathies  were
strongly manifested to the bereaved.
   He seemed never  to aim  at any worldly display, or to reach a high
standard of wealth, but to feel perfectly satisfied with a moderate com-
petence.  Hence, with great simplicity  and singleness  of  heart, he
pursued for nearly half a century  his daily employment, a stranger to
the corroding cares and anxieties  of those who are in eager pursuit ot
wealth.
   Though exposed to the inclemencies of weather, the frequent loss of
sleep, and to irregularities  of meals, with  a feeble constitution, such
were his habits of life, that he was  rarely confined by illness, and it is
believed never with serious  disease.  His last sickness seemed to be
more the  exhaustion of his vital powers, by long-continued labors, than
by any special disease.
   He literally exhausted life in the practical duties  of his profession.
Even when he had reached an age at which  nature needed repose, he
was frequently seen in great feebleness going to visit his patients, and
found administering healing remedies to others, when he needed some-
thing to support sinking nature in himself.   He seemed anxious to do
good as long as he had any strength left.  After often saving life, and
often witnessing  death in a great  variety of forms, he yielded to the
righteous decree of  his God,  and  gathered up his feet in death.  He
closed his eventful life in his own residence,  in the village of Peekskill,
lamented by a grateful community, in the seventy-fourth year of his
age.   For several months his health declined, nature gradually yielded,
and the light of his  life was extinguished in a manner which rendered
the last moment  almost imperceptible.  There lay his  venerable form,
silent and motionless.   The  angel had come, and the spirit had de-
parted.   There sat  his aged companion, nearly overcome with grief,
left  almost alone, consoled  by her sons and her Saviour  and  God.
Friends were filled with silent grief.  There  was a  solemn  sadness
where he had so long resided.  Dr.  Bassett had gone  " to his  long
home."
   In his last sickness  he  evinced  great  clearness of mind, and much
close and serious thought on the subject of religion.  His attention had
previously been turned to this all-important subject, and at a former
period  of his life he  is said to have sought the mercy  of his  God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ.   He wrote bitter things against  him-
self because he had not  come out openly, and in a more public man-
ner; and  at an early period of his life consecrated himself to God, and
his influence to Christianity.   He  fully affirmed his faith in all the great 
36
and glorious doctrines of the Cliristian religion.   The imniortality of
the soul and the resurrection of the body were referred to with  great
decision of faith, and much emotion of spirit.
  These seemed especially to occupy his mind up to the very last hours
of human  consciousness.   He  most  emphatically  declared  to us,
and to others,  that he had  no hope except in Jesus Christ.  He did
not trust to his morality of life—to his long and sincere devotion to
the iuterests of others—nor to  any human dependencies, but only in
the merits of the world's Redeemer.  He made his own arrangements
for his funeral, selected the place  for  his burial, and the clergymen
whom he wished to address the living on the day of his interment; and
when we promised him that these desires should be  complied with, he
spoke with great feeling and affection of his endeared and  faithful com-
panion, and of his children, whom he committed to the care  of his
Heavenly Father.   He wished to be put in a plain  coffin, and buried
in a plain and  Christian manner.   Soon after receiving assurances that
his wishes should  be complied with, his speech failed, and he became
unconscious of what was transpiring  about him,  and in  a few hours
passed away to the  world of spirits.
  I have also  taken from the same  paper of March 27th, the following
eulogy, written by Prof. Chas. A. Lee, on the life and character of Dr.
Benjamin Bassett:  An aged and  respectable citizen has gone from
among us.  Probably there is  no reader whose  eye 'this notice may
strike but will  feel that sadness and grief which spring from the loss of
one in whom centers a strong personal interest, on learning  that Dr.
Benj. Bassett  is dead.   When we say that there is scarcely a family in
our community which does not feel  almost as if a member  had been cut
off, scarcely an individual who does not mourn for him as a departed
friend—and that after more than a third of a century spent  in the ac-
tive duties of his profession in our midst, he yielded  up his life to Him
who  gave it, without  an enemy in the world—honored and loved by
all classes of society—we need say  but little more;  these  simple facts
are nobler eulogies than any we  can pronounce, for  they stamp him as
a good, useful  and christian man.
  Dr. Bassett  belonged emphatically  to  the  old school, New  Eng-
enders of a former generation, few of whom still survive as monuments
of their time.   Graduating at Yale College in  1807, a classmate of
that grand old theologian, Dr. Taylor—both  their minds partook of
that rather solid than ornamental mould characteristic of those early
days.  Bound together by those peculiar and tender  ties which knit
kindred spirits in  the formative process of a college course—that affec- 
37
tion was as warm and fresh as when  fifty years before they rode out
from New Haven, each to launch for himself upon the troubled waters
of everyday life—and  bidding a sad good-bye to old associations and
to each other—a scene which we have often heard Dr. Bassett describe
—the future Doctor of Divinity turned back with tearful eyes  and ex-
claimed, while the future physician, overpowered with emotion, echoed
the sentiment, "thou dearest  spot on  this earth, may the  memories
which cluster around thee cling to us forever;" and these memories ac-
company ingthem thus through after years, it seemed fitting that when
one had departed the other should follow to  join him in  the future
world,  there never to separate again.  There were many points of re-
semblance between  them—a kind, gentle and affectionate disposition—
an abnegation of self—a love  for all humanity—and  a childlike sim-
plicity  threw an indescribable charm  around each.   Mr. Bassett's in-
nate modesty  prevented him  from  acquiring  any great  notority, but
did not circumscribe the sphere of his usefulness.  His name will ever
be cherished by  those who came in contact with him, and  whom he
attended professionally during  the long period of his  practice in this
place.   No man ever enjoyed more implicitly the entire confidence of
his patients.   So great was this faith, that to many, simply his presence
in the sick room inspired more of hope than any saving properties
which  all the  medicine contained, and  often  have we  known  the suf-
ferer to ascribe  such efficacy to his skill and  prudence that the very
strength of the belief produced the result desired.
   Not only to the  homes of the  prosperous  did he  carry hope and
health, but to the poor and needy his services were as freely given as
they were freely required, never asking or receiving for these labors of
mercy anything more than that gratitude which was  all that they had
to bestow.   He  was a fine conversationalist, and possessed an exhaust-
less fund of humor, and an immense  store of anecdote, which would
lighten up the gloomiest apartment, transform the expression  of pain
into a merry smile,  and cause the  cheerless  visage of  the desponding
to beam, in spite of every effort to repress it, with a cheerfulness which
promised the  speedy approach of  better days  and robust strength.
These same qualities made him the life  of a social circle, and one of
those genial companions with whom an hour spent infuses a  glow and
warmth and good-will into the whole nature, which drives away all
gloomy and misanthropic views, and makes one  look with  a  pleased
and kindly eye on everybody and  everything.   But  besides his integ-
rity, which was so pure in himself that he hardly suspected dishonesty
in others—his single-mindedness, which  caused him to form a straight- 
38
forward and manly  opinion  on every subject—his  most remarkable
trait was a  universal charity, which  rendered him the  most liberal of
men.  No one ever heard him express a harsh or  ungenerous opinion
of his neighbor; no  one ever knew him  hesitate to give ample credit
where it was due; free from envy, he took  delight in  the  success of
others:  towards  his professional brethren  he  always  expressed  the
highest  regard;  if it was a difficult and dangerous case, he was  the
first to propose a consultation, and whoever gained the glory, he ap-
peared entirely satisfied if only the patient was saved.   Thus kind and
gentle, thoughtful for others, careless for self, a useful citizen, a valued
friend,  an unobtrusive Christian—full of years and of virtues, he  has
gone to his rest; sorrowfully we take leave of  him in  closing this im-
perfect tribute, but in our memory he is cherished forever.
  Dr. P. Stewart, of Peekskill, says that Dr. Bassett wrote an article
on Epidemic Dysentery and Intermittent Fever,  which  was published
in the N. Y. Medical Journal for May, 1831, which shows  the strong
points of his mental character;  it is a very valuable practical treatise.
He also wrote about the same time, as  I  have been  informed, some
interesting articles  on  the effects of sulphate  of quinine, but where
they were published I cannot say.  In  his whole life he honored his
profession, except perhaps in  one particular, viz., in placing too low an
estimate on the value of his medical  services;  his  charges were  so
small that he was  unable to live in a manner suitable  to a man of his
ability,  skill and position.  Until within the  last few years of his life,
he felt too poor to avail himself of the means of professional improve-
ment that he desired, and  ought to  have had;  and when  his circum-
stances  enabled  him to secure these advantages, he was  too far ad-
vanced in years to profit by them.
  Dr. James Fountain,  who enjoyed his acquaintance for many years,
in a letter written to me some time previous to  the death of Dr. Bas-
sett, speaks of him as follows: " He was a well read and accomplished
physician; he possessed  a strong mind, well adapted to reasoning.   Dr.
Bassett's peculiarity was his excessive caution.  I recollect once having
been sent for to consult with him in a case of typhoid  fever; I recom-
mended a powder of camphor and opium; the doctor was delighted to
hear the prescription, for he  had  already prepared the powder,  and
had held it between  his  thumb and  finger three  hours, fearing it  was
not quite  safe to venture the  opium.
   "The doctor still lives,  but  he is going the  way of all flesh, after
securing the respect and esteem of the profession, and a multitude of
acquaintances.   His manner was ever unobtrusive and unostentatious.'1 
39
  In six weeks from the time the above was written, Dr. Bassett had
departed  "to  that  undiscovered .country from  whence no traveler
returns."
   Dr. ELI AS CORNELIUS, of Somers, was a native of Long Island;
 he served in the  capacity  of surgeon's  mate  in  the  army of the
 American Revolution.   After the close of the war, he settled in the
 western part of Somers, where he practiced his  profession over forty
 years with eminent success and credit.
   During the Revolution he contracted the habit of smoking, snuffing,
 and tipling, but, contrary to the generally received opinion, he  was
 never intoxicated during his long and arduous life.
   Dr. James Fountain says:  "Dr. Cornelius was truly a pattern phy-
 sician;  with a very limited medical education, he commenced the active
 duties of  his profession, but full of energy and  ambition, he studied and
 practiced both by day and by night.   He kept three good horses, and
 rode off rapidly, and on his arrival at home he gave his  horse over to
 his groom, and went directly into his office, and there  he spent all his
 available  time in the pursuit of knowledge or  in the compounding of
 medicines.
   " He availed himself of every means  of  information; he commenced
 taking  the first medical periodical ever published  in America, viz.,
 The Medical Repository, and ever continued to read it.  He had also all
 the principal authors of his day, and studied  them  thoroughly.  He
 very wisely avoided engaging in politics  or .any public  matters, that
 are so apt to divert the attention  of the  professional man  from the
 great objects of his calling.  Having been inspired by a genuine love,
 with the requisite enthusiasm, for his profession, he gave it his undivid-
 ed attention, and the whole  force of  his energies  and talents were
 made subservient to it.
   " He died at the age of sixty-eight years, having been blessed with a
large family,  which were carefully and  respectably bred.   One  of his
sons having been thoroughly educated, became one  of the most cele-
brated and accomplished divines in the  New England States.
   " He commenced life like many of our profession, in extreme poverty;
but honestly acquired what very few of the devotees of the healing
art have  been able to do, a competency—having left for his  heirs an
estate of nearly  fifty thousand dollars." 
40
   Dr.  WILLIAM H.  SACKETT was born at Greenwich, in Con-
 necticut, in the year 1781.  He was the second son of Justus Sackett,
 a farmer of that town.  Dr. Sackett was a gentleman of thorough clas-
 sical education, being a  graduate of the literary department of Yale
 College.   He pursued his medical studies under the care of Dr. Perry,
 of Ridgefield, in his native state.  Dr.  Nehemiah  Perry, now of the
 same place, was his fellow- student.   He  settled in Bedford in the year
 1805 or '6, being full of youthful  ardor and ambition; some three
 years after he married the daughter of Col. Jesse Holly, of that place.
 His mind was amply stored with the ancient and  modern literature of
 the profession.   He commenced his studies at an important era in med-
 icine; a period of transition as it were; new and  brilliant lights were
 just beaming upon the hitherto dark and obscure  theories  of medicine;
 Cullen,  Brown, Darwin, and Rush were the leading spirits of the day.
 Dr. Sackett carefully studied these, and indeed all others of his time.
   He was a man of extraordinary perseverance and industry; he pur-
 sued the special objects of his calling energetically, both day and  night,
 and on  all  possible occasions.   He possessed a strong mind, fruitful in
 resources, and was justly esteemed the most accomplished physician in
 the  county. Uniting the several qualities of  mind above mentioned
 with a thorough collegiate education, and a careful medical pupilage,
 he soon became a very popular physician, and was  universally esteem-
 ed.  It is  probably  not  saying  too much, that he was regarded, and
 still is in memory, as the pride of the profession in that portion of the
 county.
   He was  very prompt in business, and possessed a remarkably cheer-
 ful and  fun-loving disposition.   He rode  on horseback, generally upon
 a gallop, and would never allow the messenger to  arrive first at the
 house of the sick.   His " gray mare" was  as extensively known  as
 himself.  As every great military character, from Alexander the Great
 to General Worth, has had his favorite horse, which  have received hon-
 orable mention in history, so should Dr. Sackett's "gray ma;e" be as-
 sociated with his memory, as it is to this  day at Bedford.
   Dr. Sackett was the preceptor of the late Dr. Joseph Scribner,  of
 Tarrytown, Dr. Mead, of Illinois, and the late  Dr. Baily, of Tarry-
 town.  He  possessed a nervo-sauguineous temperament; was tall and
slender; his eyes large, blue and piercing.   He loved his profession, and
fell a sacrifice  to it.  The whole term  of his practice  in Bedford
 would not exceed fifteen years.   He died  December 29th,  1820, in the
thirty-ninth year of his age.   Alas! his ambition,  his energy, his devo-
 tion to the  profession which he so much  loved, resulted in his prema- 
                               41

ture death; he died in the prime of life, and in the midst of his useful-
ness.
  I am indebted to  Drs. J. Fountain and  Shove for the materials of
the above sketch.
  Dr.  MATSON SMITH, of New Rochelle, was born in  the  year
1767, in Lyme, Connecticut.   He died March 17th, 1845, in the  79th
year of his age.   The following is  extracted from the published dis-
course of  Rev. Gorham D. Abbott, on  the  funeral occasion of Dr.
Smith.  Mr. Abbott says:  "In the course of his education he passed
two years at Yale College, a classmate of the Rev.  Dr.  Nott, Presi-
dent of Union College.   But his health failing, he returned home and
studied medicine  in his native village,  with Dr.  Samuel Mather.   In
1787, at the early age of twenty, he came and settled in New Rochelle
as a practicing physician.   His father died when he was very young;
and  as he left his mother's  home fifty-seven years ago, to fix his resi-
dence in this place, the richest patrimony  he bore was a devoted Chris-
tian widow's blessing and prayers.   He  married for his first wife the
daughter of his medical instructor, a branch of the family of that name
so highly honored in the annals of New England.  The names of Drs.
Increase and Cotton Mather will be remembered as long as Howard
University or the Churches of Christ in Boston have existence.
   " Dr. Smith was a medical licentiate of the State of Connecticut, and
for several years President of the Medical  Society  of  Westchester
County.   His professional knowledge and skill were extensively known
and highly appreciated by his medical brethren;  and, in consideration
of his  standing as a medical practitioner, the Regents of the Univer-
sity of New York, some years since, conferred upon him the honorary
degree of  Doctor of Medicine.   For more than half a century he has
been identified with  the history of  his town and county, not only in
consequence of the widely extended practice to which he was called
by his high professional attainments, his experience  and skill, but by
his interest and aid iu whatever has  affected the moral and religious in-
terests of nearly three generations of inhabitants.
   " He commenced his professional  career by taking a marked and de-
cided stand in respect to the observance of the Sabbath, of temperance,
and  of religion;  and he lived to see in  the history of his own family
the happy fruits of his long course of uprightness, integrity, and piety.
   " He filled many situations of responsibility,  confidence  and trust. 
42
He has long been associated with the great, benevolent  and philan-
thropic institutions of his day.   The interests of  the  Bible, of the
Sabbath, of temperance,  of morality and religion in our own land, and
in the uttermost parts  of earth, have ever shared his  labors, benefac-
tions and prayers.   Whatever has concerned the glory of God and the
well-being of mankind, either for time or eternity, has found a friend in
him."
   Rev. Mr. Abbott, after giving a detailed account of Dr. Smith's
religious experience and views in his last days and hours, describes his
death as follows:
   " Early in the forenoon of Monday he  appeared in extreme  distress.
I said softly to him, ' Dr. Smith, if you still feel that all is peace, will
you please to give us a sign ?'
   "He distinctly did, though the dying hand had scarcely life remain-
ing to obey his will.
   " In the afternoon every indication told that the end was near.   His
pulse was gone.   The power  of motion was gone.  The hands and the
head had  assumed their  last position.  The eye  had ceased to  look
around upon any earthly object; it was fixed and directed to Heaven.
Every  line  and every feature of  the countenance  began to wear the
similitude of death.  All gathered around his bed to watch the termin-
ation of the conflict with the King of  Terrors.  I was requested once
more to ask the question if  he recognized  us.  I did so.   There was
no voice—no sign.  He was  in the  midst of the Jordan.  He was so
far from our shore, that  he could make no answer to  our voice.   We
could only commit him to those arms which could bear him  up amid
the deepest waves, and receive him safely on  the  other side.  At seven
his spirit was with God.

                " ' Night was his time for death,
                  When all around was peace,
                  Calmly to yield the weary breath,
                  From sin and suffering cease;
                  Think of Heaven's bliss, and give the sign
                  To parting friends.  Such death be mine.'
                                                   Montgomery.

   " Such were the closing days and final scenes of the life of our depart-
ed brother."
   By my special request, Prof. Joseph Mather Smith, of the College of
Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, has prepared the following
chaste  and elegant notice of  his father's  professional life, which I  shall 
43
give entire.  I hope it will  not be thought that I have  given  undue
length and prominence to the sketch of Dr. Matson Smith, when it is
considered that he was one of the earliest and most  distinguished of
the physicians of the county, and took a special interest in this Society,
being present, and having been elected Secretary of its first meeting in
May, 1797.  I would gladly give each  of the sketches equal length,
provided the lives of  the individuals had furnished the materials for it,
and that the facts and incidents could at this day be obtained.
   Although Dr.  Smith  commenced his professional  life   at New
Rochelle, at the early age of twenty, his success in business was extra-
ordinarily rapid.   Nor did he fail to enlarge his practice year by year,
until it extended over most  of the southern towns of the county.  This
almost unexampled prosperity seems  to have resulted from his prepos-
sessing personal appearance, his decision of character, his ingratiating
address,  and the  rectitude  of his moral and professional deportment.
He was fortunate in early securing  the respect and confidence of  the
more  respectable and influential of  the people  among whom he had
settled as a stranger, and especially of  the physicians of the neighbor-
hood.   His prudence and discretion  were displayed in refraining from
actively participating in the exciting and often turbulent political strifes
so  common at the close of the last and  the commencement of the pres-
ent century.  Decided and uniform in his political sentiments, a patriot
by birth, of the New England school,  he expressed his opinions with
frankness, but in  terms so respectful and void of offensiveness to his
opponents, that he never alienated their friendly regard.   While thus
industriously performing his increasing professional duties, he enlarged
the circle of his usefulness by aiding to advance the interests of popular
education, not only in the elementary and solid, but in the higher  and
classical departments of learning.  Nor was he slow in uniting in every
project which tended to  elevate  the  moral tone of the community in
which he lived;  a community which,  originally composed  mostly of
Huguenots  and  Englishmen  of orderly and  religious habits, became
sadly degenerated during the  Revolutionary war.   Such was especially
the case throughout that portion of the county lying between the boun-
daries called the British and American lines, and known as the neutral
grounds—a territory overrun  by marauders and vagrants, and  the
scene  of many bloody rencontres between the contending parties,  and
from which  many of the best portion  of  the population voluntarily
exiled themselves until after the return of peace.  But the influence
 of Dr. Smith was exerted  to promote  the accomplishment of a higher
purpose, and that was, such  a reformation  as Christianity alone  can 
44
effect.  His endeavors directed to this end were attended with results
as satisfactory perhaps as the circumstances of the times would permit.
   As a profession, medicine was  regarded by Dr. Smith, next to that
of the Christian ministry, as the noblest of human pursuits.   Its inher-
ent dignity and benevolent attributes were to him  transparent  in all
its aspects; and it was in the labors of such men as Boerhaave, Syden-
ham,  Huxham, and Cullen that he recognized its diversified  capabili-
ties to minister  to human happiness.  These distinguished physicians
he contemplated as  models  of what medical men should be; and by
those who  knew him well, it will not perhaps be thought too partial to
say, that his  conception  of a virtuous, humane and enlightened physi-
cian was realized in his own character.
  Residing in a country district, it was  essential to his success  that
he attend  alike  to  the   several  departments of practical medicine.
Happily, it was not against his predilections that he became a general
practitioner.   Devoted to the practice of physic proper,  obstetrics and
surgery, it  may perhaps be said, aside from some of the rarer and more
delicate operations of surgery, which he referred to special experts,
that he was equally skillful in these departments.  With  his experience
enlarged by clinical observation,  and his judgment matured by reflec-
tion, he became a ripe counsellor to his professional neighbors; and as
such, he was the more esteemed on account of his courteous deportment,
his respect for the opinions of his medical brethren, and  his scrupulous
care to avoid everything which, in utterance  or action,  might tend to
lessen the confidence of a patient in the skill of his physician.  In fact,
so strictly and conscientiously were the principles of medical ethics ob-
served by him, that no physician  hesitated for a moment to meet him
at the bedside  of his patient.  To  young physicians  of  merit  he was
especially friendly,  aiding them  in difficult  cases, in that kind and
delicate manner which could not fail to inspire them with self-confidence,
and give to their patients the assurance that their medical attendant
was worthy of their regard.
  The liberal and sagacious views of Dr.  Smith, in respect to the
hygienic and  prophylactic relations of the medical art, were strikingly
illustrated in  his adoption of the practice of vaccination at a very early
period after its introduction into this country. Convinced by his own
experiments that the discovery of  Jenner was the  greatest boon  con-
ferred on humanity by medicine,  he entered heart  and hand  into the
work of diffusing its benefits in the community in which he lived, taking
great pains to remove the doubts of those whose minds wavered in
relation to  its value.   The practice of vaccination, through  the agency 
45
of Dr. Smith and a few of his contemporaries, soon became as general
in the County of Westchester, as it did through the influence of Drs.
Valentine  Seaman, Mitchell, Miller, Post, Hosack, and other medical
men in the City of New York.   With these eminent physicians he had
frequent professional intercourse, and with them he efficiently co-oper-
ated in the attempt to exterminate the variolous disease.
   Though minute in his study of the ordinary endemic  diseases of
the southern parts of the county, and of which, if the writer remem-
bers correctly,  he gave an account in an annual address, delivered be-
fore the County Medical  Society, Dr. Smith also carefully watched
the modifications of disease, induced by atmospheric  influences.   The
occurrence of new and rare forms of epidemic maladies quickly attract-
ed his notice; and the one which,  of all others, during his long profes-
sional career specially engaged his attention, was the epidemic  or ty-
phoid pneumonia, which prevailed  in the Northern and Eastern States
under various modifications, in 1811, '12,  and '13, and which,  in many
places, was extensively prevalent and mortal.   The annals of that dis-
temper constituted no  inconsiderable  part of the original American
medical literature of that period.   To the stock of knowledge of the
disease Dr. Smith  contributed his mite,  in a  communication to Dr.
Hosack, entitled "An Account of a Malignant Epidemic which pre-
vailed in the County  of Westchester, N. Y., in the summer of 1812:"
a  communication which was published by that gentleman in the third
volume of the American  Medical  and Philosophical Register,  of which
he was the leading conductor.   The sketch given by Dr. Smith of the
prevalence of the epidemic, and of its symptomatology, peculiarities.
and treatment, exhibits the clearness of his views regarding its nature.
and of the remedies required in its treatment.
   Among the physicians who took an active part in the first quarter
of the present century in establishing and maintaining the Westchester
County Medical Society,  the subject of  this memoir was  one of the
foremost.   The efforts he  made to  advance the interests of the Society
were not overlooked by his associates; and the proof that they  were
not so, was shown in his  election  to its presidency, an office he filled
for many years; and it is well remembered that nothing which did not
imperatively claim his attention, was allowed  to prevent  his attend-
ance at its stated meetings.  Such meetings were to  him occasions of
delightful intercourse  with his professional brethren, and of profitable
interchange of  medical inteUigence.  And it  must be added, that it
was, without his solicitation, through the agency of this  Society that,
in 1830, he received from the  Regents of  the University of the  State
the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
46
  In his physical development, Dr. Smith was above the ordinary stat-
ure; and though rather delicate and valitudinary in his youth and early
manhood, yet, after entering into  active life,  and forming  habits, so
far  as his avocations would  admit, the most conducive to health, he
became  muscular and robust;  and with the exception of suffering oc-
casional vertigo, and a few attacks of acute inflammatory and  febrile
disease,  he  enjoyed a high degree of health until within a year  or two
before his  death.  For upwards  of thirty years  he spent no small
share of his  time  on horseback, traveling over hills  and valleys, by
day and by night, in heat and cold, in storm and sunshine,  answering
to every demand of duty, whether professional or  otherwise.   As old
age approached, he,  for the most  part,  exchanged the saddle for  the
carriage, and deemed it justifiable to abridge his labors, by generally
declining to attend to the calls  for his services at night.   At  a later
period he  felt the necessity of withdrawing from  general practice,
though he  still maintained his position as a consulting physician.   In
his 77th year he began  to  experience, in  addition  to a troublesome
constipation, which had existed for several years,  a  dysuria, which,
after some  months, was followed by a retention of urine—a condition
from which relief was obtained  only by instrumental means.  This in-
firmity,  so  common in old age, gradually impaired his general  health,
and being  recognized as an enlargement of the prostate gland, with
the usual concomitant disorder of  the bladder,  was of course regarded
as incurable.  The natural progress of the disorder,  and the irritation
of  the diseased parts, caused or  exasperated  by  the necessary intro-
duction of  the catheter, gradually induced a collapse, which terminat-
ed his life  on the 17th of March,  1845.
   A brief  sketch of his life, and a narrative of the calm, resigned,  and
devotional state of his mind as he  approached the grave, was prepared
and delivered as a  funeral address, by his excellent friend, the Rev.
Gorham D. Abbott,  and which is preserved in his family, in print, as
a worthy memorial of his professional and  Christian character.
  Dr. STEPHEN ALLEN HART was  born at Shrub Oak, West-
chester  County, New York, June  11th,  1820.  He commenced the
study of medicine under the direction of Dr. John Collett, in March,
1843.   He is said to have pursued the study with much zeal and ar-
dor.  After having attended two full courses of lectures at  the Uni-
versity Medical College, in New York City, he received  the degree of
ML), in the spring of 1846. 
47
  He immediately entered upon the practice of his profession in York-
town, in his native county, where he continued to reside until the time
of his death, February 22d, 1849, set. 29.
  He left a wife and two children to mourn his premature death.
  Dr. Hart gave promise of becoming a prominent member of his pro-
fession, possessing as he did all the requisites  which  should character-
ize the good physician—amiability, benevolence, intelligence, ambition,
and  integrity.  But he failed to enjoy what it was  his aim to secure
to others, viz., health and longevity.
  Dr.  GEORGE C. FINCH.   The following biographical sketch of
Dr. Finch was  prepared by his friend and preceptor, Seth Shove, M.
D., and read June 2d, 1857, before the Westchester County Medical
Society, in accordance with a previous resolution.
  It was referred  to the committee of publication; in consequence of
the committee not having continued the publication of  their proceed-
ings, this beautiful eulogy of Dr. Finch has remained in manuscript un-
til the  present.
  Dr.  Shove has kindly consented, with the approval of the commit-
tee, to permit it to be published  with the other biographical sketches
of deceased physicians of this county.  This, and the sketches of Drs.
Smith  and Bassett, are rather  more  lengthy than the original  design
of these articles contemplated;  yet, since the compiler has failed to ob-
tain any information in relation  to many physicians that have lived and
died in this county, he felt justified in introducing a more extended bi-
ography of individuals where it could be furnished; also for  the reason
that, in either of the above specified  cases, particularly the  present, it
would  have been  unjust to  the  author of the sketch to attempt  its
abridgment.

Mr. President and Gentlemen:
   Upon the record of your  Society's Transactions  at  its last annual
meeting is found a resolution, requesting me to prepare a biographical
sketch of the late  Dr. Finch, one of our fellow members, to  be read at
this meeting.
  To a knowledge on the part of the mover of that resolution, of my
long and  intimate  acquaintance, and friendly  social and professional
relations with  the  deceased, I am probably indebted  for  the  honor
of submitting this brief sketch of our lamented friend and brother. 
48
The  gratification  of responding to a sense of duty imposed  by this
relation, is mingled with  regret of my inability to do justice to the
memory of one thus fallen, ere he had arrived at the meridian of his
usefulness; and whom, had such an event been my allotment instead of
his, I should have considered it an honor to look  upon, prospectively.
as successor in my field of labor.
  Dr.  George  C. Finch was born  April  6th,  1817,  at what  is
now  Croton Falls, in the  town of North Salem, Westchester  County,
X.Y., where his parents still reside, and where his father,  Silas Finch,
Esq., has long been known as a prominent and highly respectable cit-
izen  and magistrate.   His mother was Sarah Crosby, daughter of the
Hon. Darius Crosby, of Westchester  County, for  three years a mem-
ber of the Lower House of the Assembly, and for four, of the Senate of
this State.   She  is  a lady of exalted  worth, to  whom  the son was
doubtless much indebted for his many excellent  traits of  character.
They had but two children;  the younger, a surviving daughter, who
remains, the solace of her otherwise disconsolate parents, at her  loved
but saddened home.
  In his rudimentary studies the  doctor discovered early signs  of a
taste for learning; and his parents, possessed of ample means, resolved
to spare no labor or expense in his education.  At the  age of ten he
was  placed at the grammar school of Mr. Minor, of South East, where
he remained a considerable time, and was afterwards a member of the
North Salem Academy, pursuing his studies with great diligence, un-
der the direction  of the Rev. Mr. Jelliff.  He was subsequently trans-
ferred to Mount Pleasant Academy, of which the Rev. Mr. Prime was
principal, where he prepared for Union College, at which he  graduated
on the 9th  of August,  1839, having sustained and ended his collegiate
course in a manner which does him great honor.  He was  a  member
of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and if we may judge by an  intimation
derived from a private source, we should conclude that he was a favor-
ite of the Faculty and Alumni of the Institution;  certain it is that he
enjoyed ever after a very enviable friendship and intimacy with persons
of distinguished eminence, who were graduates of  the same institution.
To the ordinary classical attainments,  he added a  knowledge of the
French Language.
   Having elected the profession of medicine, and  being thus prepared
to study it with  facility, he  entered the office of the writer of this
sketch, where he remained during his term of study, excepting that
portion devoted to lectures at the Jefferson Medical College, at which
he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the spring of 1841. 
49
  Being desirous of cultivating a professional acquaintance, and secur-
ing the  instructions  of the  able  professors of the institutions of his
native State, he employed the spring term in  the medical department
of the University of the City of New York, and in the  hospitals, &c,
after  which he returned to associate himself, for a time, with his first
preceptor, in order  to become  familiar  with the details of private
practice.
  Thus  intellectually qualified to enter upon the active duties of a
profession he seemed destined to  honor, but of slender physical consti-
tution, he yielded to the promptings of parental choice, and opened an
office in his  native village, in face of the oft-repeated saying, that "A
prophet is not without honor, save in Ms own country."
   Here  he found himself  surrounded by a large  circle  of acquaintan-
ces and friends, who esteemed him for his moral and intellectual worth;
but it required time  to secure their  entire  confidence  in this newly-
acquired relation as their  medical adviser.
   In  his early professional  aspirations, it cannot be denied that the
doctor desired to shine,  but not in the dark shade which calumny
might cast  over  the reputation  of his  neighboring physicians.  He
seemed  only ambitious to- acquire a reputation for usefulness,  and to
deserve  that reputation.   He  sought real  character, and laid the
foundation in sincerity and upright intent.   How well he  succeeded,
may  be  inferred from the  fact that, as  his medical abilities came to be
appreciated, he gradually acquired a very respectable practice, and  a
large share of popular esteem, which he ever after enjoyed;  both of
 which might have been increased indefinitely had his physical powrers
been equal to his mental capabilities.   These facts are  very  creditable
 to the doctor, particularly  as Croton  Falls was  a new field of labor,
 divided among old and established practitioners.
   It is  believed that, during his twelve  years' professional duties, he
 never lost one real friend;  and if ill health sometimes  compelled him
 to delay his visits, or fail in his attentions to the sick,

                " Consider why the change was wrought,
                  You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault."

    Perhaps  the most remarkable features in the doctor's mental con-
 stitution were quickness of perception, accurate discrimination, and
 deliberative judgment, regulated by thorough knowledge of his profes-
 sion.  By the exercise of  these qualities he was highly successful  in
 his treatment,
    As  a man, he was social and honest; as a friend,  cordial, sincere,
              4 
50
and  faithful; as a physician, humane  and  skillful.   In the  strictest
sense of the term, he was a gentleman; but nowhere did he appear to
better advantage than at the bed-side of his patient.  Mild and amia-
ble in disposition, urbane in manners, dignified  in  deportment, on his
bland and  cheerful countenance the ever-kindling smile beckoned  the
sick  and desponding  to hope, trust and confidence;  nor was that confi-
dence  abused by selfish  dissimulation.   If his  patient or the friends
either needed or desired  a consultation, it was enough.
  In his relations to other physicians, he was modest and complaisant,
but  highly sensible to any infraction of  established rules of etiquette
or ethics, and was sure to meet such dereliction with indignant reserve
and  professional non-intercourse.
  He was opposed to every species of quackery,  and to anything which
bears its semblance.   Even the obtrusive pretences of the Hahnema-
nean delusion could  not  captivate his settled  and invulnerable princi-
ples.   When invited to  the house of his particular friend, to consult
with a distinguished  leader in homoeopathy, who had been sent for to
see his patient, he replied, apparently  against  his own interest: "I
would be pleased to meet with Dr. J. as an old friend and preceptor,
but not as a physician."
  The delicacy of his  constitution rendering him unable to endure the
fatigue of  a  laborious country practice,  especially in the night, and in
bad  weather, he at one time conceived the idea  of abandoning his pro-
fession, at  least in part.  This, together with a desire  to be useful to
the public,  might have induced  him to yield to  the solicitations of his
friends, and he  was elected  supervisor of his town, which office he con-
tinued to hold for six consecutive years.   At  the time of his  death he
was   one of  the  committee  for  erecting  the new  public  County
Buildings.  In  1853 he represented his district in the State Assembly.
  In all these  relations he discharged  his  official duties with great
fidelity, and with entire  satisfaction to his constituents.
  In the latter part of  the summer of 1853  he had a severe attack
of fever, from  which  he slowly recovered, but with great difficulty.
During the two succeeding years his health, though feeble, was  such
as to enable  him to travel a little,  enjoy the society of his friends, and
occasionally  to visit  the  sick in his immediate  neighborhood; indeed,
his physician entertained hopes of his ultimate  recovery.   But in the
fall  of 1855  slight  cough  and fever indicated  the insidious approach
of pulmonary disease, which terminated  his existence on  the 28th of
March, 1856, in his  39th year.
   He was  not  a member of any religious denomination, but a liberal 
51
supporter of  the  Presbyterian  Church, which he  regularly attended
when not prevented by other duties, and for which he  entertained a
decided preference.   In his last sickness he received the ordinances of
the church, and professed his faith in the Saviour.
  In the life  of Dr. Finch we have a conspicuous example of private,
public, and professional excellence, worthy the imitation of  all who,
like  him, would  live  esteemed,  honored and  beloved, and who, like
him, would die lamented by all who knew him.
  Dr. HENRY WHITE, of Yorktown, was born August 31st, 1781.
He was the son of Dr. Ebenezer White, a sketch of whose life will be
found in these memoirs.  Having  received a good  common  English
education for the times in which he lived,  he commenced the study of
medicine at the age of eighteen, under the tuition of  his father.  In
the fall  and winter  of  1802 he  attended  the medical  lectures at
Columbia College, in ^Sew York City.
  In 1803 he effected a copartnership with Dr. Joshua Secor, in the
City of New York, to practice  medicine  in connection with  a drug
store.  The same year, however, he returned to his father, preferring
country to ,city practice.
  In 1804 he went to Hackensack, Dutchess County, N. Y., and en-
gaged  in practice;  but not feeling  encouraged with the location,
again returned to his  native place.  In the  same year he married  a
daughter of Rev.  Silas Constant;  their matrimonial alliance was hap-
py, but brief; in about two years he was called  to mourn  the loss of
his much beloved  wife.  In the year 1809 he was elected  delegate of
this Society, to the State Medical Society, for a term of  four years.
In 1816  he married  the widow of the late Dr. Stephen Fowler, of
New Castle, in this county; she is a daughter of Dr.  Elisha Belcher,
whose biography has been given.   Having for several  years been sur-
rogate of the county, in 1823 he became one  of the  Judges  of the
Court of  Common Pleas, which  office  he  held  for many years.   He
took an active interest in all the great religious  and  moral enterprises
of his time; Bible, temperance, anti-slavery, tract, Sabbath-school, and
other societies received  his encouragement, and generally found in
him an earnest and efficient officer.  Indeed, so  much of his time  was
devoted to these engagements, that he could hardly be  regarded as one
of the practicing physicians of our county, for many years  of his life.
He was a man possessed of noble sentiments and undoubted veracity. 
52
Punctuality was one of his prominent traits; it was his rule  never to
let  any one suffer by his neglect  or procrastination.  He was very
scrupulous in his observance of the  sacred Sabbath;  to him  it was a
period of delight—a day of holy rest; he would never permit secular
conversation, or the reading of secular papers or books, on that day.
  He  was very hospitable,  and took great pleasure in entertaining
clergymen in particular.
  Dr.  White continued the general practice of medicine in his  native
town until about the year 1840;  after which, he merely attended upon
the sick as a consulting physician.
  He died of congestion of the lungs, in  November, 1857, aged sev-
enty-six years.
  With  these  simple, brief,  and imperfect  sketches  of our deceased
brethren, my present labor of love  will cease.  I will therefore

             " No further seek their merits to disclose,
                Or draw their frailties from their dread abode;
               (There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
                The bosom of their Father and their God."

  I had  hoped to  obtain an account of several others, at least equally
worthy of mention as those included in these sketches; I have failed,
however, in obtaining the required  materials.  I shall, therefore, con-
sole  myself with the hope that  another, with  more  zeal, energy, and
ability, may commence the work  anew; and  should  these  sketches
prove serviceable in rendering such an effort more easy and complete,
I shall feel amply  repaid for the  time bestowed on them.
  May the members of this Society, and all who may chance to read
these simple narratives, be stimulated to increased exertions to elevate
their intellectual, professional, moral, and religious character  to a po-
sition which shall  justly entitle them to be held up as examples of the
truly good physician.   With this noble object in view, let us be dili-
gent and lose no time, for all should

               " Remember, life is but a shadow,
               Its date the intermediate breath we draw;
               Ten thousand accidents in ambush lie,
               To crush the frail and fickle tenement,
               Which, like the brittle hour-glass measuring time,
               Is often broke ere half its sands are run."