/Ifoemortal 
DR. JOSHUA BARTLETT RICH. SH\ Joshua Bartlett TRich. 
FEBRUARY 25, 189b. 
“ His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 
Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind.” 
Joshua Bartlett Rich was born in Roxbury, Mass., 
August 23, 1844. His father, Joshua Gross Rich, is a 
resident of Bethel, Me., and the oldest and most noted of 
the veteran hunters and guides of the Rangelev lakes. 
Although now 76 years of age, he is still actively en- 
gaged as a trial justice, pension solicitor and newspaper 
correspondent. 
After following the sea for five years, he married, in 
1842, Man' N. Day of Roxbury. A brave, pious and 
true helpmeet, she shared with him for forty years the 
perils and hardships of their home in the primitive 
forests ot Maine, Mr. Rich’s native state, whither he 
returned to live soon after the birth of their first child, 
Joshua Bartlett Rich. Dr. Rich’s mother died in 1884, 
and eight of her fourteen children are yet living, all of 
them married and settled in life. 2 
As de Tocqueville says: “The entire man is, so to 
speak, to be found in the cradle of the child.” And the 
early years of Dr. Rich’s life, amidst the dangers and 
privations of the wilderness, were spent in the grandest 
training school on earth. Learning from necessity all 
the curative herbs in nature’s magnificent dispensary, 
acquiring self-dependence and benevolence, and becoming 
imbued with that peculiar sweetness of character which 
seems to be generously bestowed upon those who seek 
nature’s beauties and try to do their best, he grew to a 
noble manhood— 
“ Himself an act of God, 
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God.” 
From the very outset of his career, Dr. Rich was beset 
by obstacles which would have deterred almost any one; 
but he persevered, with characteristic earnestness, until 
he achieved remarkable and distinguished success. Leav- 
ing school in Bethel, Me., at the age of 19, he prepared 
for college at Phillips Academy, at Andover. He entered 
Yale with the class of 1869, but left that class at the end 
of the junior year, and was graduated with the class of 
1870. In his college life he displayed conspicuous 
earnestness, devotion to duty, and maturity of character, 
thus giving promise of the useful and noble life to follow. 
He next went to Lyme, Conn., where he taught in a 
classical school for one year, and where his gentle and 
Christian influence was felt and valued by the entire com- 
munity. He then studied medicine for three years in 
Philadelphia at the Jefferson Medical College, and under 
the supervision of the eminent anatomist and surgeon, 
Dr. W. W. Keen. He received the doctorate in medicine 
in 1874, and for two years thereafter practiced in Phila- 
delphia. During two years of his course of medical 
study, he was instructor in literature and science at the 3 
Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, 
where he showed extraordinary ability and thoroughness 
in his instruction and amelioration of the blind. One of 
the most distinguished philanthropists and teachers of 
the blind in this country thus writes: 
“ As a man, as a teacher and as a physician, he occu- 
pied a high place in public esteem, and his labors in 
behalf of the blind were well directed and productive of 
excellent results. He never ceased to feel a profound 
interest in the advancement of the cause of education 
among this class of our fellow men, and I have often 
witnessed his warm and unfailing sympathy with them, 
and the many helpful things which both he and his good 
wife were constantly doing for them.” 
I)r. Rich was married in Philadelphia February 8, 
1S73, to Sarah Jeanne Wrigley, daughter of Edward 
YY7rigley, a prominent merchant of Philadelphia. Miss 
Jennie YYTrigley, as her friends called her, was one of the 
teachers in the institution for the blind, where her un- 
selfish devotion and Christian benevolence wrought 
marked results in the intellectual and moral progress of 
her pupils. With high abilities as a writer, Mrs. Rich 
has occasionally found time to contribute poems and 
articles to the pages of several magazines and journals 
of the best standing. 
Their happy home life, often suggestive to me that 
“ God hides Himself within the love 
Of those whom we love best; 
The smiles and tones that make our homes 
Are shrines by Him possessed ;—” 
has been favored with four children : Franklin Peale, 
born November 11, 1873; Helen, January 15, 1875; 
Susan Marie, October 23, 1876; and Ethel, May 25, 1880, 
died 12, 1882. 4 
In September, 1876, Dr. Rich .settled in Worcester, and 
became superintendent of the City Hospital, which office 
he found it necessary to abandon five years later, to be 
able to meet the requirements of his exceedingly large 
general practice. He has always continued on the surgi- 
cal staff of the City Hospital, and for two years was 
president of the Worcester District Medical Society. He 
was also a member of the Worcester Medical Improve- 
ment Society and of the American Academy of Medicine. 
In each branch of Masonry he held a high standing. 
He was affiliated with Quinsigamond Lodge, Worcester 
Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, Hiram Council, R. and 
S. M., Boston Templar Commandery, Goddard Council, 
Lawrence Chapter of Rose Croix, and Massachusetts Con- 
sistory of the Scottish Rite. 
Dr. Rich’s wide practice and popularity were vastly 
augmented by his fidelity of attention, and the extent 
and multitude of his quiet benefactions and secret chari- 
ties will never be half understood. As a surgeon and 
anatomist he held an eminent rank; his throat practice 
exceeded that of the specialists, and his gynecological 
practice was very extensive. It is impossible to empha- 
size adequately the admirableness of the spirit and 
method of his life and practice. Even the abrupt termin- 
ation of his mortal appearance among us seems to have 
come as a result of his devotion to his high vocation. 
The entreaties of friends, to whom his lessening vitality 
was painfully apparent, failed to entice him to a respite 
from his incessant exertions ere his overtaxed heart 
ceased from its wearied throbbings. 
While he did not “wear his heart upon his sleeve for 
every daw to peck at,” he was invariably candid, open and 
sincere. His unassuming charity and nobility of charac- 
ter endeared him to every one, but were not so publicly 
heralded as are the pretentious but shallow and insincere 5 
excellences of many whom successful sharpness and 
materialistic progress have exalted for the adulation of 
the mediocrity-worshipping and sham-loving society of 
our age and land. 
Pre-eminently, Dr. Rich was a knight of truth, justice 
and right, never hesitating to sacrifice comfort, human 
opinion and self-interest in the cause of humanity and 
equity, and quite in contrast with many of the dignified 
notables of our day who are 
“ So careful by lordly sedateness 
To compromise nothing but truth.” 
But while this inflexible devotion to truth and justice 
was so conspicuous an adornment of this noble mind, yet 
there remains to be admired and loved that attribute 
which is an essential component of his very being—his 
inexhaustible and supernatural charity. He viewed all 
at their best, inspiring and cheering them to higher 
efforts and nobler ideals. To the depraved, the soul- 
disordered and the sin-sick, his very presence was a truce 
to vice as well as an assuagement to suffering. 
His following of the higher life of usefulness and duty 
was consistent, doing at the instant moment its immedi- 
ate duty, and never leaving this exemplification of the 
God-life for the nonce to follow’ some fashionable for- 
mality of the hour because it might be esteemed “ the 
correct thing to do." 
As I have already shown, he unflaggingly maintained 
that outward attestation of the reality and uplifting powrer 
of the Spirit of Jesus, here and now, w’hich a saintly 
theologian called “the practice of the presence of God.” 
He knew that heaven is not afar beyond the skies, but 
here and now, for those who will awaken to it; and that 
only the crucifixion of self in one’s own heart, and the 
resurrection to the life from God alone, can make one the 6 
possessor of the kingdom of God. His creed was the 
simple but all-sufficient 
“ creed of creeds, 
In loveliness of perfect deeds. 
More strong than all poetic thought,” 
—the acceptance and following of the promise that, 
“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God,— 
God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” 
Ever earnest and marked by a regal dignity supported 
alike by interior character and physical endowment, he 
was equally cordial, gentle and companionable to those 
who enjoyed his friendship; while, for myself, bound to 
him by no tie of creed, nor of profession, nor of kinship, 
nor of any common interest, save the sympathy of an 
unsordid, unselfish love, I may say that while from the 
first moment of our acquaintance a familiar word never 
passed between us, it is equally true that no word was 
ever spoken between us that was not expressive of gentle- 
ness and esteem, almost invariably of affectionate re- 
spect. Uninterruptedly, to my heart of hearts, he has 
remained, and appeals, now and evermore, as 
“The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, 
The best conditioned and unwearied spirit 
In doing courtesies ; and one in whom 
The ancient Roman honor more appears, 
Than any that draws breath.” 
To him I may add, in the words once spoken by a true 
saint of another: 
“ Thou art not dead, pure heart, above earth’s strife 
Thy home of rest is Love’s serenest sphere. 
To him, Death is the grandest step in life, 
Who lives from God, in Faith and Duty here.” 
EDWARD RANDALL KNOWLES.