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MEMOIR
USHER PARSONS, M.D.,
PROVIDENCE, R. I.
     BY HIS SON,
CHARLES W. PARSONS,
ViM1,':
■—— ^<4^9-fl.
     PROVIDENCE:
HAMMOND, ANGELL & CO., PRINTERS.
        1870. 
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            IS DEDICATED TO

      KDW1N  PARSONS.

            OF NEW YORK,
            ■
         My  ^athepvs  Nephew,

                 AND THE

fHOSEN FRIEND, ADVISER, AND COMPANION
           OF  HIS LATER YEARS. 
 
PREFACE.
   My father left a large amount of manuscript material illus-
 trating different  portions of his life.  He had  gathered  to-
 gether, probably  during  his visits to his  native town, many
 fragments  relating to  the period of his boyhood and youth,
 which he had marked "juvenile."  The documents pertaining
 to his naval career are  particularly abundant, consisting of let-
 ters, diaries, hospital records, official accounts, requisitions and
 other papers, many of them of so little permanent importance
 as to make me wonder at their preservation, when I found
 them after his death.   For many years he kept  a diary.  He
 also filled a series of note-books with more extended record<
 of incidents in his life,  reflections and reminiscences, contain-
 ing many passages which throw great light  on  his personal
 history, and his modes of thinking.
  From  these manuscript sources, and from various works
 already in print,—his  own  and others,—and from my own
 recollections, this memoir has been compiled, as a grateful
 work of pious duty.  The portion relating to his naval life
 may seem disproportionately long;  but this  is explained  by
 the more abundant materials, and by the great importance of
that period in forming his character and establishing his posi-
tion among men.   The life of a practising physician affords
little incident for narrative; its record must be kept in the 
vi
PKEFACE.
memory of those whom he  has served, and usually dies with
them.  Accordingly, my  father's professional career in civil
practice is described  in  a  few pages, and in general terms.
The chronological order which was followed in the early part
of this memoir naturally gives place afterward to a summary
of the varied studies and  interests with which my father wa-
connected, given in  the order of subjects rather than of dates.

  The fac-similes on pages 40 and 47 are from original docu-
ments  found among his  ample collections.  They represent
the signatures of his first ancestors of the name in this coun-
try, Joseph Parsons, of Springfield, and Joseph  Parsons, of
Northampton, of" Charles Frost, major," and of Commodores
Perry and Elliott.   They were carefully prepared by Mr. W.
S. Hoyt, of Providence.  These fac-similes, as well as some
disconnected writings of my father, which are thrown together
in the appendix, will have their value in the estimation of some
antiquarian readers.
                                              C. TV. P.
  Providence, August 18,  1K70. 
(JO.N TEST*.
I'A RENTAGE AND ANCESTRY,    -----
IllRTH AND BOYHOOD,  -     -     -     -    -
Medical studies begun, ------
Resolutions for improvement,   -
Studies in  Boston, license to practice, discourage-
  ments,  --------
Commission as surgeon's mate  in navy, ordered to
  New York,   -------
Arrival at Black Bock, and life there,
-Joins Perry and sails for Erie,
Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, -
Commission as  surgeon,—on  Lake  Huron,—surgeon
  of the Java,    -
Cruise of the Java in the Mediterranean, 1816,  -
Returns in the Java,—comes to Providence,—degree
  of M. D.,.......
Cruise of the Guerriere, letter from Palermo,
Leaves the Guerriere, journey  in Italy,
Paris, its surgeons and hospitals,
London, its surgeons, hospitals, &c ,  -
Returns  to Boston, stationed at Charlestown, pro-
  fessor, publishes "Sailor's Physician,"  -
Settles in Providence, marriage, professor in Brown
  University,  -------
Medical  Life in Providence, becomes prominent as
  SURGEON,     ------- 
viii                  CONTENTS.
Revisits Europe, 1843,    -
Rhode Island Medical Society, American Medical
  Association,  -------
Medical writings,  Boylston Prize Essays,.    -     -  31
Effort for foundation of a hospital in Providence,  32
Extra-professional studies and tastes, -     -     -  35
Ecclesiastical and political relations,    -          37
Genealogical studies,   -                         -  39
Life of Sir William Pepperrell,     -     -     -     41
Tndian studies, relics, names  of  places  in  Rhode
  Island,  --------     44
Indian disinterments,   -     -     -     -     -     -  45
Historical and other  societies,—controversy about
  Perry and Elliott,   ------  47
Discourses on the  battle of Lake Erie,  at Provi-
  dence, Put-in-Bay, Cleveland,   -     -     -     -  48
Tenacity of attachment to early scenes,—visits to
  Lake Erie, &c,  -         ,-     -     -     -     -  51
Old age, declining health,    -                    55
Last sickness and death ; address by Hon.  S. G.
  Arnold,     -------     5(5
                  APPENDIX.
I.   Notice of Rev. Moses Sweat, A. M., of Sanfohd,
      Maine,      -------  59
II.  Dr. Parsons's first medical publication, on epi-
      demic pleuro-pneumonia, 1813,     -     -     -  61
III. Battle of Lake Erie described :—
      First—In Dr. Parsons's diary, September 10,1813,  64
      Second—In a  letter to  his father,  September
        22, 1813,.......65
IV. Extract from the diary of his journey to Louis-
      burg, 1852,   -------  66
V.  List of his publications, -     -    -      -     -  69 
MEMOIR.
     USHER PARSONS was  the youngest  of  nine
      children, of William and Abigail Frost (Blunt)
Parsons, of Alfred, York county,  Maine.
  His first ancestor of the name, in this country, was
Joseph Parsons (l), who arrived from England in 1635,
and  was one of the earliest inhabitants of Springfield,
and  afterwards of Northampton,  Massachusetts.  His
oldest son, Joseph (2),  was a prominent citizen and
trader in  Northampton;  born in Springfield,  1647,  he
died at Northampton, 1729.  His oldest son, Joseph (3),
graduated at Harvard college, 1697, was a pupil and
admirer of Rev.  Increase  Mather, was clergyman at
Lebanon,  Connecticut, and afterwards at  Salisbury,
Massachusetts, and died there, 1740.   His  oldest son,
Joseph (4), graduated  1720, was minister at Bradford,
Massachusetts, from 1726 till his death in 1765.  He
married Frances, daughter of John Usher, lieutenant-
governor of New Hampshire.
  Rev. Joseph Parsons (4), of Bradford, had  six sons
who grew up.   Of these, three went through  Harvard
college, and were, respectively, clergyman, physician
and lawyer; these three died at an average  age of less
than  thirty-four.  The other  three,  children of the
           l 
2
MEMOIR OF
same  father and mother, and brought up in the same
home, did not go  to  college, but were  mechanics or
traders, and reached  an average age  of seventy-six.
The fifth son, "William (5), was a trader, farmer, manu-
facturer of lumber  and potash, and a town-officer.  He
was born at Bradford, 1743, settled in  South-Berwick,
Maine, and  moved thence to Alfred, then  a  part of
Sanford, in 1775, and died in Alfred, August 4, 1826.
  William  Parsons  married  Abigail  Frost   Blunt,
daughter of Rev.   John  Blunt,  of Newcastle,  New
Hampshire,  whose  wife  was daughter  of Hon.  John
Frost,  and of his  wife  Mary, sister of  Sir William
Pepperrell.   Usher Parsons (6)  was son of William.
This sketch  of his  ancestry, drawn from materials col-
lected  by himself, accounts for  his  peculiar christian
name, and also for his interest in the  history  of the
families of Frost and  Pepperrell.
  Usher Parsons was  born in Alfred, which was still a
part of Sanford, August  18, 1788.  His boyhood was
spent there.   He attended the village school in winter,
and worked on his father's farm in summer.   On the
last night of the year 1799, he was told by  his sister
of the death of Washington, and afterward  walked
with the other school-children in a funereal procession,
wearing crape.   He was sent to  Berwick academy in
May, 1800, and attended there about one year.  He after.
ward served in retail stores at Portland and Wells (now
Kennebunk).*  His service at Wells ended March 29,

  *The following recommendation was written by the father of the
late Charles C. Little, of the firm of Little, Brown & Co., Boston :
"This may certify that I,  the  subscriber, of Wells, have employed
Usher Parsons as a clerk  to assist me in my store for upwards of 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
3
 1807 ;  and  on May 6th,  he entered the office of Dr.
 Abiel  Hall, of Alfred, as a student of medicine.  He
 here saw  a little practice, studied the human bones,
 and read  Cullen's First Lines,  and the works of Dar-
 win and Brown.   He was often interrupted to help on
 his father's farm,  and taught school in Alfred,  Berwick,
 Kittery and other towns.
   In the autumn of 1809,  he had already attended one
 course of  anatomical lectures  at Fryeburg, Maine, by
 Dr.  Alexander Ramsay, an educated  Scotchman, an
 enthusiast in anatomy, who first inspired him  with
 interest in this pursuit.  Many years later, he wrote as
 follows in regard to this period in his life:—

  "■ Being disappointed of a remittance from my father of
 some money to enable me to attend  a second course of lectures
 in Portland, by Dr. Ramsay, I walked about fifteen miles in
 the night, nearly to Saco, slept a few hours on some hay in a
 barn, and reached Kennebunk the following noon, and Alfred
 in the evening.  During my  moonlight walk, I meditated on
 the past and the future course of my life. I thought of the mis-
 spent time of my past years, of my low aims in the medical
 profession, until within the last few weeks, and asked  if it
 would  be possible, at this my  twenty-first year, to begin a
 new course, that should redeem  the time, and elevate me to a
 respectable rank in  the medical profession.  I was now want-
 ing in preparatory education, unable to parse the most simple
 sentence in Latin, and hardly able  to write a common letter
 in English grammatically.  I had no means of educating my-
 self but by school-keeping.  How many years am I willing, I
asked, to devote to this and to hard study for the attainment

eight months ; and have proved him to be a capable Lad, possest of
steady habits, and well calculated for book-keeping.
                                     "David Little."
  " Wells, August 16th, 1806." 
4
MEMOIR OF
 of a rank in the profession that, with my present ambitious
 views, I shall be satisfied with ?  I concluded  that ten years
 would be required,  and determined that  all my energies
 should be employed for that length of time, and to be satisfied
 could I arrive at eminence in respect to knowledge, although
 the tenth year should find me as penniless as at this hour.
  " My resolution was now fixed and my  plans matured this
 night, and in the main were not deviated from  during that
 length of time.   I determined to obtain the degree of A. M.
 and M.D., and to become a teacher of anatomy.  On arriving
 at Alfred, I packed up my Latin books, and went to Sanford,
 four miles off, and placed  myself  in the family of Parson
 Sweat.*  I began with the Latin grammar, and by the last of
 November, had gone  over it several times  and read two books
 in Virgil, and was able to read the Greek  Testament a little.
 I then taught school  two months in Elliot;  then returned to
 Parson Sweat's a few months; then went  in May to keep
 school three months half a mile from Berwick academy; then
 attended  the academy one quarter, and read two or three of
 the Evangelists [in Greek,] and four orations against Catiline;
 then kept school at Alfred three months, and, during evenings,
 read Virgil nearly through, finished  the Evangelists and the
 book of Romans.  I now felt that  to go  through college  in
 this tedious way, would be likely to consume the ten years.
I therefore concluded to  return to medicine;  to read a few
months with Dr. Hall, at Alfred, and then  study with some
very eminent  person  six  months, which would complete my
three years, to attend  a course of lectures, and then commence
practice, or be ready to commence whenever a vacancy offered,
and endeavor to go through the college  studies whilst trying
 to get into practice.   Accordingly I went to  Dr. Kittredge, of
 Andover, but found him from home. I then went to Boston,
 and entered the  office of Dr. John Warren, for six months.
 It was with much difficulty that  I got through  with the
 expense of lectures and board, although assisted to fifty dol-
 lars by my father."

       *For a notice of Rev. Moses Sweat, see  Appendix. 
DR. USHER  PARSONS.
5
  He went to Boston in  or  about July,  1811,  and
boarded at the " Market Tavern," with  his brother-in-
law, General Samuel Leighton, then Representative in
the General Court from Elliot.   His instructor was the
eminent surgeon, Dr. John Warren, brother of General
Joseph  Warren who fell at Bunker's hill, and father of
the late Dr. John Collins AVarren.
  He was examined  by the Censors of the Massachu-
setts Medical Society, and approved and  licensed as
"a Practitioner in  Medicine," February 7, 1812.  His
license  is  signed  by Drs.  Lemuel Hay ward, Thomas
Welsh,  Aaron Dexter, Josiah  Bartlett and  William
Spooner, as Censors;  by  John Warren, President, and
J. C. Warren,  Recording Secretary of  the Society.
He went from  Boston home to Alfred.  The war with
England was now  impending, and offered new  oppor-
tunities to young medical  men.  I  again  quote from
his own sketch of his early life:—

  " After an unsuccessful attempt to get a school, to repair my
wardrobe, I went to  Exeter to get a place  as physician, but
was soon discouraged.  I  then went  to Dover for a  few
months, but received no encouragement, and the expenses
here added to my debts and poverty.  There was now a pros-
pect of war, and I tried hard for a place of surgeon's mate in
the army, but failed.  At length an invitation was forwarded
me by the surgeon of the John Adams to join him as mate,
assuring me he would try to get my appointment of mate con-
firmed by a commission, but adding that I must be in Boston
in sixty  hours.   I made all dispatch, but did not reach there
till sixty-four hours, and then found the ship had sailed.  I
was now left with one dollar, but succeeded in borrowing
another, and returned.  At Salem, I tried for a berth on board
a privateer.  I reached Dover discouraged indeed, and not a
little mortified.  A few weeks previous to this, I had  applied
         1* 
6
MEMOIR OF
 for a mate's commission in the miyy, but despaired of success.
 and I had now no hope left but that a chance might offer in a
 privateer. In about four days from my return from Boston, I
 was told there was a package in the office for me.  I went and
 found it to be a commission of surgeon's mate in the navy, my
 pay to commence from that day.  Xo one  can  imagine  my
 joy; it was ecstatic, frantic."

   His commission was obtained  through  the aid  of
 Dr. Josiah  Bartlett,  Member of Congress  from  New
 Hampshire.*  It  was dated  July 6, 1812.
   He soon received  an order from the Navy Depart-
 ment,  dated August 15, to  report on  board the cor-
 vette, the John Adams, at New York, the same vessel
 he had lately attempted to  reach at Boston.   In  Sep-
 tember,  he  volunteered, with most of the officers and
 men of that  vessel, for an expedition under command
 of  Commodore Isaac Chauncey, the  exact  nature  of
 which was unknown to most of them, though supposed
 to be for frontier service on  the great lakes.  It seems
 that no order to him to join this expedition appeared
 on the records of the department;  and this circum-
 stance afterward caused him some difficulty in obtain-
 ing pay.  In October, orders were sent him,  directed to
 New York, to  repair to Georgia.
   The  troops  set  out from Brooklyn  navy yard  in
 sloops for Albany, September 24 ;  reached  Albany  on

  *Dr. Bartlett  wrote him from Washington, May 30: "I this day
 called on the Secretary of the Navy respecting your appointment in
 the medical department of that establishment.  Mr.  Hamilton in-
formed me no vacancy now existed, but on examining your recom-
mendations he ordered your name to  be inserted specially,  as he
 termed it, in the list of candidates, and said vacancies frequently
occur ; that your recommendations were so good you should obtain
the first that offered." 
DR. USHER TARSONS.
i
the 29th, and travelled thence to Buffalo in wagons
and on foot, arriving there October 17.  On this jour-
ney, and through the two years of service that followed,
he kept a full diary, which is still preserved.
  Through the following winter  and  spring, 1812-13,
he  was in  charge of the sick and wounded  at  Black
Rock, near Buffalo, living first in a tent, and afterward
in barracks.   During the winter, an epidemic pleuro-
pneumonia prevailed, of which  he wrote  an account
for a Buffalo newspaper, being his first medical  publi-
cation.  This article is  quite characteristic, and is re-
printed in  the Appendix.  It illustrates the influences
under which his views of medical practice were formed,
and also his inclination  to controversial writing.
  Late in  November,  1812, an  attempt was made to
storm a battery on the Canada  side of Niagara river,
as a preliminary to landing General Smyth's  army,
with a view of taking Upper Canada.   The movement
failed  ingloriously.   Several  men were  killed, and
others badly wounded,  affording Dr. Parsons  some
surgical experience.  A few days later, he crossed the
river with  a flag of truce  to  ask for the body of an
American  officer;  the  request  was  denied, but the
British officers conversed pleasantly.
  On May 27, 1813, the British post  near the mouth
of Niagara river, Fort  George,  was  successfully at-
tacked.   The other British forts were abandoned in
consequence, and the whole Niagara  frontier was in
possession  of the  Americans.   Fort Erie  opposite
Black Rock was deserted and its magazine was blown
up.   In his diary, May  28, Dr. Parsons writes:  "At
about 7 o'clock, the enemy blew up their magazines at 
8
MEMOIR OF
all  the  forts.  In  the afternoon, Dr. Purcell, a citizen
and myself,  with  about twenty others crossed.   We
took two prisoners at the shore, and marched to Fort
Erie, leaving the prisoners and others in the boat.  On
our arriving  near the fort, two  men met us with a flag
of truce and surrendered themselves.  We now walked
into the fort and were treated  with great  hospitality.
Dr. Purcell  and the other  gentleman returned to the
boat, and  sent information to  Colonel Preston of our
discoveries.   In the evening, the colonel and regiment
crossed  and took possession."  This story of his receiv-
ing the  surrender of Fort Erie was a favorite anecdote
with him,  many years after.
  In March, Captain Oliver II. Perry had arrived from
Newport, Rhode Island, at Erie, or Presqu' isle, Penn-
sylvania, on the southern shore of the lake, to superin-
tend the outfitting of a fleet that was to contend  suc-
cessfully with a British squadron for the command of
Lake Erie, and to free a  long frontier from the constant
danger of attack.   In June, Perry came to Black Rock
for the purpose of taking to Erie five small merchant
vessels,  armed with one or two guns each.   Dr. Parsons
was still there, in  charge of the invalids, and joined
Captain Perry.  They  sailed  June 14.   Nearly  half
the crews  were  soon on the sick list.   On arriving at
Erie, part of the sick were placed in a large unfinished
court house,  converted  into a  hospital.  Dr.  Parsons
remained at Erie till August.   In addition to the  care
of the sick,  he  enjoyed the acquaintance  of several
families there.  The presence of naval officers led to
some gaiety, and he attended parties and balls.
  The little  squadron sailed  from Erie,  August 12, 
DR. USHER  PARSONS.
9
toward the head of the  lake.   On the 19th, they were
visited by General William Henry Harrison, with his
aid,  Colonel Lewis Cass, and  other  officers.   On  the
20th, they arrived near the mouth of Detroit river, and
thence sailed to Sandusky,  and  anchored among  the
islands of Put-in-Bay.   Many  on board were attacked
with bilious remittent fever, including the commodore
and more than half the officers.  The two other sur-
geons  were confined for some  weeks before and after
the  battle of  September 10th.  Dr.  Parsons writes:
" I did not escape an attack myself, which confined me
two or three days, and, during this time, more than one
hundred lay sick without any medical aid."  His diary,
September 3d,  says:  " I never was so much emaciated."
In his published  narrative of  the battle, he writes as
follows:—

  " In  this weakened condition, with only one doctor in the
squadron to attend  the sick and take charge of the wounded
of a battle, we met the enemy [September 10].  The action
was soon very severely felt on  board the  Lawrence, the two
largest vessels of the enemy engaging her at short distance
for nearly two hours.  The Lawrence being shallow-built, and
affording no cock-pit, or place of  security for the wounded,
they were received on the ward-room floor, which was nearly
level with the surface of the water.  Being only ten or twelve
feet square, this  floor was soon covered, which  made it neces-
sary  to pass them out into another apartment, as fast as the
bleeding could be stanched.  Several, however, were Avounded
a second time before this could  be  done.   Midshipman Laub
was moving from me with a tourniquet on his arm, when a
cannon ball struck him in the breast; and a seaman brought
down with both arms fractured was struck by a cannon ball in
both legs.  An hour and a half had so far swept the deck that
new appeals for surgical aid were less frequent.  This change 
10
MEMOIR OF
 was rendered the more desirable at this time, from the cir-
 cumstance that the  repeated request of the commodore  to
 spare him another man had taken from me the last one sta-
 tioned to assist in moving the wounded; in fact, many of the
 wounded themselves took the deck at this critical moment/1
  " Having sole charge of the wounded of the whole fleet, and
 the wounded being passed down to me for aid faster than I
 could attend to them in a proper manner, I aimed only to save
 life during the action by tying arteries or applying tourniquets
 to prevent fatal hemorrhage,  and sometimes applying splints
 as a temporary support to shattered  limbs, &c.  In  this state
 the patients remained until the following morning, under the
 free use of cordials and anodynes.   At sunrise [the 11th], I
 began amputations, and in the course of the whole dav and
 evening, was able to finish all  operations and dress at least
 once or twice, and to do justice to them all.  On the following
 day, I visited the other vessels and brought all the wounded
 on board the Lawrence and treated them in like manner."

  It appears by his diary, that this removal of wounded
 from other vessels  to the Lawrence took  place on  the
 14th.  On the 13th, two British surgeons met him in
 consultation.  The 11th, a surgeon was sent to his aid
 from General Harrison's army.   Two accounts of the
 battle, written by Dr. Parsons at the  time, are  quoted
 in the Appendix.   Many incidents in regard to his per-
 sonal experiences  during  the battle  are mentioned in
 his various historical addresses, to which we shall here-
 after allude.
  Commodore Perry, in a letter  to the Secretarv of the
 Navy, wrote :—" Of  Dr.- Usher Parsons,  surgeon's
 mate, I cannot say too much.  In consequence of the
disability of both the other surgeons,  Drs. Horsely and
Barton, the whole duty  of  operating, dressing  and
attending nearly an  hundred  wounded, and as many 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
11
sick, devolved entirely on him ; and it must be pleas-
ing to you, sir, to reflect that, of the whole  number
wounded, only three have died.   I can only say that,
in the event of my having another command, I should
consider myself particularly fortunate in having him
with me as a surgeon."  Dr. Parsons's diary shows
twenty-two killed outright on board the Lawrence,
and several others had limbs shattered who died  that
day or in the night.   The wounded on the Lawrence,
were sixty-one ; in the  whole squadron,  ninety-six.
He attributed his general success with the wounded to
the fresh air,  (they being lodged on the deck of the
Lawrence,  sheltered by an awning and  tarpaulins), to
a plentiful supply of fresh provisions, vegetables  and
cordials, and the cheering influence of victory.   The
Lawrence reached Erie, September 23 ;  and a hospital
for the wounded and sick, including many British pris-
oners,  was  then established  in the court house.   Dr.
Parsons remained there  in charge of this hospital for
nearly nine months.   His residence at Erie led  to many
friendships and endearing associations, which were re-
newed long afterward, and gave him great  pleasure in
his declining years.
   In common with other commissioned officers of the
fleet, Dr. Parsons received, by vote of Congress, a silver
medal  bearing the likeness of Perry and a representa-
tion of the battle, with suitable inscriptions.   His
share of prize money first gave him a feeling of pecu-
niary independence; one of his earliest uses of the
money was to pay debts incurred in obtaining his medi-
cal education.  But a much more important reward of
his services on Lake Erie was the warm  friendship  of 
12
MEMOIR OF
Commodore Perry, and the commencement of a surgi-
cal reputation.
  From January 1 to February 5, 1814, he served as
surgeon of the  17th  Regiment, Pennsylvania militia,
doing duty at Erie, by order of Major  General  David
Mead.
  He was promoted to the rank of surgeon, April 15,
1814.  On June 19, he sailed with the fleet from  Erie
for Detroit and Lake Huron.  At Detroit, troops  were
taken on board intended  to  attack  Fort  Mackinac,
under Colonel Croghan ; the fleet then sailed through
Lakes St. Clair and Huron, and made an  unsuccessful
attack on the Fort, losing several officers and men.  The
fleet then  returned, and Dr. Parsons  was at Buffalo,
September 1,  and back at Erie on the 21st.
  Perry  had returned to  the  sea-board,  and  been
appointed to  command the new frigate Java, building
at Baltimore,  and  was allowed to select his own  offi-
cers.  He chose several of his  companions in lake ser-
vice, among others, Dr. Parsons, who on the second of
December 1814, received orders to report to Perry at
Baltimore.  He was attached to the Java,  under Perry,
through  the years 1815  and 1816.  He appears to
have now revisited  his native village.  It was  at this
period that he first came to Providence, travelling by
stage with his comrade, Thomas Breese.   They lodged
at the  house since known as  the   " Manufacturers
Hotel."  He passed the year 1815 mostly with the fri-
gate, at Baltimore, Norfolk, New  York,  and  other
ports.  War with England had ceased, and the frigate
was ordered to the Mediterranean, to look after Amer-
ican interests, especially in connection with the  Bar-
bary States,  and the threatening attitude  of Algiers. 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
13
  He sailed  from Newport as surgeon of  the  Java,
January 22,  1816, and  reached the Straits of  Gib-
raltar, February  12.   On February  7,  in  a  severe
storm, several  men  were  thrown  from  the   masts
and yards ; some were killed,  and others required sur-
gical  operations.   In assisting  to  move them,  Dr.
Parsons was thrown between decks, breaking his right
knee-pan. For this, he many years afterwards received
a pension.   His diary during this voyage of the Java,
contained an account of his daily occupations, with full
description of local  customs  and  interesting  places.
He visited Gibraltar, Malaga, Port Mahon on the island
of Minorca, Algiers, Tunis, and the ruins of Carthage,
Tripoli, Messina. Palermo, and  Naples.   Perry  gave
his officers  every proper facility  for  excursions  on
shore, which were often made by several of them in
company.
   On arriving  at Algiers, April 1, they found the
British  fleet, under Lord  Exmouth, which had  gone
there to secure the liberation of Christian slaves, and
prevent future enslavement of captured citizens.  The
barbarous customs of piracy and the reduction of cap-
tives  to servitude, and of demanding tribute from com-
mercial nations,  were beginning to call  on that  State
the vengeance of the  great Christian powers.  In 1815,
Decatur had  secured  by  force of arms a treaty which
relinquished claims to tribute  from  the  United  States,
and  released  all American captives.   Lord Exmouth
now visited Algiers for a similar purpose..  He obtained
the release, by  a large ransom, of  several  hundred
Christian slaves mostly belonging to nations of South-
ern Europe.   Dr.  Parsons writes,  April 7 :—" The
            2 
14
MEMOIR OF
 British fleet departed for  Tunis with Christian  pris-
 oners.   They paid from five hundred to one thousand
 dollars per head for them, except a very few belonging
 to the  British, which were not ransomed."
   Misunderstanding arose between the Dey and Com-
 modore Perry, and a fight was  expected.  Dr. Parsons
 writes, April 8 : " Volunteered  my services to  go in
 Captain Perry's boat,  and prepared both for fighting or
 doctoring."
   In  May, he  set out from Messina to visit  Mount
 Etna,  The excursion  occupied four days.  He was
 accompanied by Dr.  Hoffman,  of the United States
 Navy.   His diary describes the villages and ancient
 ruins that they passed,—the three regions, torrid, tem-
 perate  and frigid,—the exhausting ascent of the great
 cone,   and  the  grand view  from  its  summit,—the
 sea, the  flaming islands of Lipari,  the varied land-
 scape of  Sicily, and the slopes of the mountain  itself,
 its successive zones, its many villages, and its  black
 rivers  of solidified lava.   From the  village of Nico-
 losi, which is half-way up the mountain, he  was accom-
 panied by  a local magistrate, who had never before
 visited the crater ; and who, reading in an  old French
 Gazeteer that  Lima was in South America, inquired
 whether  the United States were near that.
   While at Naples, he examined repeatedly the re-
 mains  of Pompeii  and Herculaneum.
   His journal of this voyage ends abruptly, at Naples,
 July 21.  The Java  revisited  several ports on the
 Mediterranean, Tripoli, Tunis,  Algiers, Malaga  and
 Gibraltar, and sailed in January, 1817, for the United
States,  bearing a new treaty with Algiers.   The crew 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
15
suffered with the small pox on the homeward voj'age.
On the occurrence of the first case, the men were mus-
tered,  and it  was found that eighteen of them had
never  had either small pox  or kine pox.   They were
vaccinated, but with matter  brought from the United
States a year  previously, and the  vaccination failed.
Dr. Parsons thereupon inoculated them with small pox
virus, and all had the  disease mildly.   Some continued
sick when the  Java arrived in Newport, and  the town
authorities gave permission to "land a number of per-
sons from on board the  said ship, with the small pox,
at Coasters' Harbor  island."
   The Java reached  Newport,  March 3, 1817.   In
July, Dr. Parsons came  to Providence, bringing intro-
ductions  from  Commodore Perry  and  other  naval
friends, and contemplating a settlement there in  civil
practice.   He  resided there four months, boarding at
the house of Major  McClellan.*
   In November, he  went to attend lectures at the medi-
cal school, in Boston ;  and, in March, 1818, he received
the degree of  Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Uni-
versity.   His  dissertation in graduating was on  "the
epidemic  pneumonia of 1812-13, as it appeared about
Lake Erie."  In that  year,  he published  in  the  New
England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, a  "surgical
account of the naval battle on Lake Erie,"  and a  re-
port of two cases of  gunshot wounds of the thorax.

  * Major Samuel  McClellan,  a native of Woodstock,  Connecticut,
and a pensioner of the Revolutionary war, died in Providence, Feb-
ruary 7, 1850, aged ninety.  His house was for many years a resort of
the most prominent lawyers, .judges and politicians of Rhode Island,
and was a scene of much original and entertaining talk  It stood on
Benefit street, opposite the present rectory of St. John's church. 
16
MEMOIR OF
 He joined  the  Massachusetts  Medical Society at this
 time.   His mother died at Alfred, on the 4th of July.
   In July,  1818. he sailed  from  Boston as surgeon of
 the  frigate Guerriere,  Captain Thomas Macdonough.
 for St. Petersburg, carrying out Mr.  George W. Camp-
 bell, minister to Russia.  He spent  about ten days in
 St. Petersburg, and  wrote  very full  accounts of re-
 markable objects in that city, and of peculiar customs.
 The frigate sailed thence to the Mediterranean.   He
 was at Copenhagen,  October 14; off Cape Trafalgar,
 November 1; reached Syracuse in December, and spent
 several weeks at and near  Messina.   In April,  1810,
 the Guerriere left Messina for Palermo, and  afterward
 sailed  for Naples.   My knowledge of this  cruise is
 mostly obtained from letters to his  correspondents in
 the United  States.   These show that he took an active
 and inquiring interest  in  a great variety of subjects;
 and I am tempted to quote  freely from them.  A  few
 extracts must suffice.
   The  following  letter was addressed  to  Dr. Jacob
 Bigeiow, of Boston, then Professor of Materia Mediea
 in Harvard University, and the  only one of his cor-
 respondents of that period who still  survives:—

                               " Palermo, May 8,1819.
  "• A few days since, I was favored  with an introduction to
 the Professor of Botany and Materia Mediea, and Director of
 the Royal Botanical Garden of Palermo   lie took me through
 Lhe college and botanical garden, and  favored me with a par-
 ticular description of everything pertaining to  them.  The
 college is a  superb edifice, enclosed within the walls of the
 garden, and is furnished with books, prints, herbariums, &c.
in abundance.  In short, everything about this, as well as the
garden, bears the impress  of royal munificence.  On entering 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
17
 the library, he handed me a book and asked me if I knew the
 author.  It was the Flora Bostoniensis, [written by Dr. Bige-
 low].  He was much gratified with my reply, as well as with
 one of your papers  on the comparative forwardness of the
 seasons, which I had taken care to have  in my pocket.  He
 observed that he had hitherto been obliged to depend on the
 botanical gardens of England for all his American  plants, but
 was now desirous of obtaining them direct from America, and
 asked if I would name his wishes to you.
   u For  the last six weeks our squadron has been in the har-
 bor of Messina  about one hundred miles from this. My op-
 portunity for acquiring information of this sea has therefore
 been  very limited.   I  have seen the other medical school of
 Sicily, at Catania, which is about as large and  well conducted
 as the one at Palermo, there being about eighty students in
 each.  We sail to-morrow for Naples, from which I shall visit
 Rome and Florence, and  return home through France  and
 England."

    At Palermo, he saw the  telescope with which  the
 first of the planetoids, Ceres, was discovered by Piazzi,
 on the first day of the present century.   He  remained
 at Naples  a few weeks, and  writes from  there a long
 letter to Mr. John  Pickering, of  Salem, Massachusetts,
 in regard to books he had bought for his correspondent.
 He says:—

   " A  word respecting  Pompeii, which I have visited four
 times,  with increasing  interest each time.  Excavations  are
 still carried on,  and of all the disclosures of the city, about
 one-eighth have been made since I saw it in 1S16.  Then there
 had been three large excavations, each something more than
 an acre in extent, ranging  in a direction obliquely  across the
 city, and distant from each other about ten or twelve rods.
 Since that year,  streets leading  from one excavation to the
other have  been cleared out, with the houses on each side of
 them, so  that you can now  walk  through the ancient* city and
         2* 
18
MEMOIR  OF
suburbs a distance of three-quarters of a mile, on the same
pavements that the inhabitants did two thousand years since."

   From Naples, the  cruise was continued along  the
Barbary coast to Gibraltar, arriving there in the mid-
dle of June.   He there received permission from Com-
modore  Charles  Stewart,  dated  United  States ship
Franklin, Gibraltar, July 15, 1819, to leave the Guer-
riere on account of ill health, and "return to America,
or make  a trial of the air  of the  north  of  Europe."
He thus writes :—

  " My reasons for leaving the squadron are, that the Medi-
terranean climate disagrees with my health, on  account of the
heat and confined air of a berth-deck; and secondly, because
I am very desirous of making the  tour of Europe for the pur-
pose  of professional improvement, and do not expect to meet
with another opportunity so  favorable as the present; lastly,
I am so exceedingly tired of the monotonous scenery of a
man-o'-war, of the perpetual jarrings that occur, and of  the
restrictions that are imposed on officers, that a change seemed
desirable for the health  of the mind as well as body."

  He left Gibraltar July 20, and went as  passenger to
Leghorn.   He  then  visited  Pisa,  in  company with
Captain Macdonough.  He journeyed thence to Lucca
and  Florence.   He examined the  medical institution
in the  University of Pisa, and took great delight  in
anatomical preparations in  wax  at  Florence.    He
thence  went by carriage  to Rome, and  there  passed
some days, visiting the hospitals as well as the objects
of general interest."   From Rome he embarked, Sep-

  *I find little of interest in his notes at Rome, unless the following:
"The present season a steamboat, with appropriate machinery,  was
ploughing up the bed of the Tiber, but I did not  learn that anything
was found." 
DR. USHER  PAPSOXS.
19
teinber 0. in a small schooner for Leghorn, having only
" the hard deck for a feather bed and without any cov-
ering ;  nor  would  any other have  been of service, on
account of millions of  fleas in the vessel."  The voy-
age  along the Tuscan shore was  very uncomfortable.
At a small unnamed port, " was called on  to  see  an
aged female afflicted with partial blindness, and another
with fever.  A jolly old bacchanalian  is physician to
about twenty soldiers  who  are stationed here,  and to
the  few inhabitants.   He  professed  great veneration
for tli< ■  Brunonian system of medicine, and his bloated
face  indicated the  sincerity  of his faith, though his
apparel gave him  the appearance of  a Shakspeare's
apothecary."  He arrived in Leghorn, September 10.
   He then journeyed through Genoa, Nice, Aix, Avig-
non  and Lyons  to Paris, arriving there September 29.
He thus writes to Dr. Lyman  Spalding:—■

                                 "Paris, November 29.
  "Having been pretty  busily engaged  for two or  three
months  in attending  hospitals and medical schools, I have
thought it probable you might feel some curiosity to know
how  I have found them.  These establishments are so numer-
ous and employ  so  many  lecturers and  professors  that a
stranger at first sight would  believe the attention of the whole
city is directed toward them. I have attended the lectures of
some whose names  are familiar to you, particularly  Dubois,
Boyer, Pupuytren,  Richerand, Alibert and Larrey  on sur-
gery,—Vauquelin, Chaptal,  Gay Lussac, Thenard and Abbe
Hauy on chemistry.   It is difficult to determine which surgeon
to rank first, Dubois, Boyer or Dupuytren.  The two first are
older and consequently more  experienced,  but  Dupuytren
has been at the  head ot Hotel Dieu  for several years, and
durin"- the time has performed more operations than all the
other surgeons  in Paris.  I am willing to acknowledge him 
20
MEMOIR OF
 the  best operator I have  yet  seen, although I think  very
 highly of the other two and of Larrey. *  *  * *  Larrey is
 surgeon of the hospital of the king's guards, which is but  a
 small establishment.   An opinion prejudicial to him prevails,
 that he is too  fond of cutting,—that he has frequently ampu-
 tated where it was  not necessary.  Medical gentlemen are
 permitted to see his patients every Thursday, when he gives
 a particular history of every case, and performs some opera-
 tions.  The last time I was there, I took the liberty of intro-
 ducing myself to him, which he gave me no reason to regret
 doing; he inquired about hospitals in the United  Stales.   I
 have found  the people here very ignorant of the state of
 medical science with us, and  yet  very desirous to  be better
 informed.  This circumstance has induced me to supply one
 of the journals with a short description of our contemplated
 Dispensatory.   I have had the honor of becoming acquainted
 with Drs. Swediaur,  Pinel  and Cuvier. The two former are
 far advanced in life, and the latter is now turning politician."

  In another place, he writes:—

  " Cuvier has exchanged natural history for politics;  he has
 lately been erected a peer,  and  is a leading ultra royalist, as
 well  as a noisy one.  The liberals have enrolled his name in
 the list of political weathercocks, or among  those who have
 turned at every change of government in France.  Cuvier still
holds a professorship, and continues his residence in the  Gar-
den of Plants, and gives  a  weekly levee  in imitation ol Sir
Joseph Banks, to which all  strangers are invited.
  " Sir Humphrey Davy passed  through here not long since,
on his way to Naples, to unroll the Herculaneum manuscripts.
While here he examined the chemical laboratory, with other
things connected with his scientific pursuits; but Englishman-
like,  as the  French say, he turned up his nose at  everything.
Every object they offered for his inspection, he considered as
unimportant, or said it was  borrowed from England."

  The following are  extracts from his note book, en-
titled, " Surgical notes and observations  made in  dif- 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
21
ferent cities in Europe, particularly in Paris and Lon-
don," in which he gives short accounts of hospitals and
medical schools in Palermo, Messina, Naples, Florence-
Pisa, Genoa and Nice:—

  11 La Charite (Paris; October 13.)  Went through the wards
with Boyer, his son-in-law, Roux, and about thirty students.
Saw  nothing but bad ulcers and  those badly managed.  The
French  surgeons are neither neat, scientific nor successful in
their treatment of ulcers, wounds, &c.   They rarely attempt
to heal by the first intention; even in amputations below the
knee, the first surgeons are  in the habit of stuffing the  stump
with lint  to prevent its closing by the approximation  of the
skin  of the opposite sides.  This practice  is condemned in
Kngland and must ere long be in France."  In regard to in-
humanity and disregard of life, and the practice of poulticing
inflamed limbs, he also severely criticises  the hospital surgeons
of Paris.
  " Larrey's manner of operating is pleasing.   He uses the
knife adroitly and gracefully, and is neat  in his dressings.  He
is humane and solacing in his behavior to the patients, differ-
ing in this  respect very much from Dupuytren, whose behav-
ior to them is savage.  This is the more remarkable when it
is considered that D. has always been  in civil life, while L.
has always been in military practice where sympathy and fine
sensibilities are less known.  Their stature is much alike, both
being very stout and very stately in their appearance.  Larrey
is very ready and pertinent in his remarks."
  " November 11.  Went early to the  hospital Salpetriere to
attend the  physician in his rounds.  Enquired for  M. Pinch
who  is  physician-in-chief and at  the head of the institution,
and sent in to  him my address, with a request that  I  might
accompany  him through the hospital.  He invited me into
his studv, and after some enquiries about American hospitals,
A:c,  we "made a tour first  through three large wards  full of
women past sixty years of age, and who  were ill.  After pre-
scribing for these, we visited the lunatic  apartments in which 
22
MEMOIR OF
 are women in every state of mental disorder, from slight mel-
 ancholy to furious  mania.  Those of the latter  description
 were many of them chained, and others shut up in prisons.
  *  *  *  I found in this instance, that introducing myself
 to the professor had as good if not better effect than a letter
 would have had."

   He bought many medical books and instruments in
 Paris.  Among these was Laennec's treatise on auscul-
 tation, with a stethoscope of the original  pattern,  now
 a curiosity  of  medical  history, and  certified to have
 been "examined  and used by Laennec."
  Among other  acquaintances formed in Paris,  was
 that of a genial  and accomplished Englishman,  Mr.
 William  Clift,  a  pupil  and connection of  the great
 British  physiologist and surgeon, John Hunter.   This
 acquaintance, renewed in London,  ripened into  a  life-
 long friendship with Mr. Clift  and his family, includ-
 ing his son-in-law, Professor Richard Owen, the emi-
 nent  comparative anatomist.   These friends corres-
 ponded with Dr.  Parsons for  many years,  and their
 kindness was continued to his  relatives and to visitors
 whom he sometimes introduced to  them by letter.
  He went from  Paris to London, arriving there  De-
 cember  4, and remaining till Christmas.   In those
 three weeks  he became acquainted with many of the
 most  eminent  surgeons and  savans of London,  Sir
 Astley  Cooper, Abernethy, and others.   He attended
 the levee of Sir Joseph  Banks.  He breakfasted with
 Sir  Astley Cooper, but found  him pressed with busi-
 ness.  He gave considerable attention to the Hunterian
 Museum at the college of surgeons, and contemplated
the  formation of a museum of  anatomy founded on a 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
23
principle suggested to him there, viz.: that of bringing
together specimens of corresponding organs and sets of
organs from as many as possible of the different classes
and orders of  the animal  kingdom.   He attended  two
meetings of  the Royal  Society.   Beside the  usual
sight seeing, he saw  Kean play Hamlet at Drury-lane,
and heard a debate in the House of Lords, by Russell,
Castlereagh and others, on the subject of "rotten bor-
oughs,"  and the expediency of admitting  representa-
tion from large manufacturing towns in the House of
Commons.   The following extracts are from his diary
in London:—

  " December 9.  Examined the Museum of the College ol
Surgeons.  This collection is calculated for physiological pur-
poses alone. Every organ of the animal machine is exhibited
in as great a variety of animals as they have hitherto been
able to collect.  The separate organs are preserved  in spirit,
and  are arranged from those of the most simple to those of
the most complex structure. The museum begins with the
simple muscular  fibre, rectilinear; then follow single and
double penniform muscles, sphincters, ifcc.  Then the organs of
digestion and assimilation,  beginning with the stomachs of
all sorts of animals;  then the various organs of mastication,"
cVC, &c.
  " 20. Went to St. Bartholomew's, and heard Mr. Abernethy
lecture on organic diseases of the heart to about three hundred
pupils, the most interesting lecture I almost ever heard.  His
manner is peculiar, and the most engaging and amusing as
well as impressive I ever heard.  Dr. Mason, of New York,
makes somewhat such a figure in the pulpit as Mr. Abernethy
does here.  He is  full of illustrative anecdotes which he  tells
with such a quaintness as to make one laugh.  He is about
fifty years old, of  middle stature, head powdered, dressed in
black." 
21
MEMOIR OF
  He sailed from Liverpool, December 28,  in a  mer-
chant vessel, and reached Boston early in 1«S20.   lie
was ordered in  May to service at the marine barracks
in Charlcstown.  AVhile holding this appointment, he
resided much of the  time at Cambridge, enjoying op-
portunities of study and mingling in the learned society
of that place.   It was at  this time, and through the
influence of acquaintances gained in Cambridge, that
he realized  his youthful dream of being  appointed
teacher of anatomy, which he appears never  to have
given up since the  year 1809.  In  August, 1820,  he
was  chosen  Professor of Anatomy  and Surgery in
Dartmouth college.    He wrote at  the  time:   "Dr.
Parsons's motive for engaging in lecturing is a desire to
establish a museum of anatomy, human and compara-
tive, on the plan of the late John Hunter's."   He con-
tributed a number of preparations, some of them in
wax, which he had bought in his last visit to Europe.
But he lectured there only one year.    *
  At this time, he published at Cambridge the " Sail-
or's Physician," a medical guide for use on merchant
vessels.   This was extensively sold ; changed its name
to that of  "Physician for Ships," and passed,  through
five  editions,  undergoing  various  revisions and  im-
provements.  The  four  subsequent  editions  appeared
in the years 1824, 1812, 1851 and 1867.
  In December, 1820, he left Boston to visit the medi-
cal schools of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
He heard lectures from Drs. Hosack, Post, Francis and
Mott, in New York,  and Physick, Chapman, and  oth-
ers  in Philadelphia.   A fragment  of diary  still  pre-
served, shows  his  views of these eminent professors. 
DR. USHER  PARSONS.
25
He introduced himself  to them as  surgeon  in  the
navy.   His observations show that  he was intent on
preparing  himself for  anatomical teaching.   The  fol-
lowing extract may be worth preserving:—

  " December 31.  Breakfasted with Dr. Ilosack.  Examined
his anatomical museum, which is small.   His  study is an
octagon with a dome of light, and is  filled with a choice and
very large collection of books. He has  a very small private
study for the reception of patients.  In this he  has a small
library.  On  one of the shelves is an elegant volume of
Thomas's Practice, dedicated to Hosack, which  I had heard
he always  took  pleasure in showing ; and  to  gratify his
humor, I anticipated his  putting it into  my hands by taking
it down and asking what work it was. I at once saw what I
had often heard, that he  took a heartfelt satisfaction in perch-
ing upon this book to crow."

   In April,  1822, Dr.  Parsons began his long residence
in Providence.   He was for a while  partner in medical
practice with Dr. Levi Wheaton.   He married, Sep-
tember 23, Mary Jackson Holmes,  daughter  of Rev.
Abiel  Holmes,  D. D., of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
author of  " The Annals of America."   She died, June
11, 1825, leaving one son.   In April, 1823,  he resigned
his commission in the  navy.
   A   plan of  giving  lectures in Brown University,
which  had failed  in 1817, was resumed  in 1822.  A
medical school then  existed  at  this  institution ;  and
Dr. Parsons was appointed  Professor of Anatomy and
Surgery.*   Beside lecturing  to  the medical students,

  *His associates were Drs. Levi Wheaton, Professor of Theory and
Practice of Physic and Obstetrics; John DeWolf, Professor of Chem-
istry ; Solomon Drowne, Professor of Materia Mediea and Botany.
             3 
26
MEMOIR OF
he  gave a short annual course to the  higher classes of
undergraduates.  In 1826, he published an introduc-
tory lecture on Anatomy and Physiology  as branches
of general education.  The policy of President Way-
land, requiring  the officers of  instruction to  be also
officers of discipline and give their whole  time  to col-
legiate duties, necessarily severed his connection with
the  University.   His  special   interest  in anatomy,
awakened in his youth by the lectures of Dr. Ramsay,
continued through his whole active life.   In 1831, he
published at Philadelphia a volume, mostly compiled,
on  the  "Art of making  Anatomical Preparations."
  From the time of the death of his wife  till the year
1831, he boarded at McClellan's.  In 1832, he built a
one-story office of three rooms on President, now Wat-
erman street.  This he afterward enlarged, and occu-
pied till his death.  Until  the marriage of his son, in
1853, he  had  no home-establishment,  but took  his
meals  at  hotels or boarding-houses,  and  generally
slept in his office.  He liked the freedom of this way
of living.  During the last fifteen years of his  life, he
had a home with his son.
  He rose  gradually to a very prominent rank in his
profession.   Beside  his  varied opportunities, which
brought  him to the  beginning  of civil practice with
more than  usual  experience and  resources,  he had
many qualities of body and mind that fitted him for
medical life.   He was robust, with uncommon  powers
of endurance, and a frame strengthened  by labor  in
early life.  He was industrious,  persevering, ambitious
and social;  faithful  in attendance and considerate in
his  charges.  His early training  in  naval  service, and 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
27
the predominance of the reflective  powers, fitted him
rather for  the office of consulting physician,  and for
cases of exceptional difficulty, than for the  ordinary
run of daily medical practice.  He had not that easy
tact, that quickness  of thought and command of lan-
guage and features,  which were conspicuous in some
of his contemporaries.  Yet in many families of refine-
ment and education, his acquirements were appreciated,
and  his  ready sympathies  and sound judgment made
him  a trusted adviser and friend.   As consulting phy-
sician  and  surgeon, he was  very widely known  in
Rhode Island and neighboring parts of other states.
For many years, a large part of his practice was out of
Providence.  He was  a fast driver, and, before rail-
roads were multiplied, his sulky was well known on
the roads leading from Providence in all directions.
   His naval experience had turned his attention par
ticularly to surgery.   In European hospitals, he ap-
pears to have  observed surgical cases  almost exclu-
sively.   As an operator, he was more marked  by cau-
tion  than  dexterity, and was  particularly methodical
in the preparation and arrangement of instruments and
dressings.  He used  to poiut out the house in Smith-
field where he first operated for strangulated hernia, in
1823.  Being little acquainted with  the operation, he
studied it up, perhaps in  Scarpa's treatise which he had
bought in  Paris, while the messenger  was conveying
him to the  house.  In the American Journal of Medi-
cal Sciences, 1818,  he published a summary of his
laroe surgical operations.  He reports fifteen  cases  of
herniotomy,  with  eleven recoveries.   He performed
lithotomy only once, and successfully, on a  patient in 
28
MKMOIR OF
Apponaug, aged seventy-four.  He tied the common
carotid artery for a supposed  tumor in the brain, pro-
ducing  intense  headache  and total  blindness;  the
symptoms were  relieved, but returned, and ended in
death.   He extirpated the eye-ball, with the lachrymal
gland and much of the other textures  in the orbit, as
was  then  the common practice, instead of the milder
process  of enucleation.   lie operated frequently for
cataract.  He was at one time much interested in the
surgical treatment of deformities, and  performed te-
notomy often.   He contrived and used with fair success
an apparatus for securing union in cases of cleft palate.
  It was  only  in  the  latter  part of  his  professional
career that he enjoyed the advantages of etherization
in surgery.  He never became so  fully at home with it
as the  later generation of surgeons.   In the greater
part of his operations, the only anaesthetics at his com-
mand were such as laudanum and brandy,  and the
words of encouragement and  sympathy.
  While in active  practice, he gave  a great deal of
attention to private pupils in medicine, having often
several  at a time, and more than fifty in all.  He very
commonly had private dissecting  classes in winter.
  After becoming  well  established in  practice, Dr.
Parsons allowed himself  more liberty in regard to ab-
sence from Providence, than is usual with equally busy
physicians.  In the autumn of 1843, he visited Europe
for the third time, contemplating a journey to Egypt,
but  going no farther  than Paris, where his  son was
studying  medicine.  He spent some days in London
on  his  outward journey, renewing his acquaintance
with Mr.  Clift, and attending  a  meeting of the Geo- 
DR. USHER PARSONS.               29
 logical  Society, where he saw Dr.  Buckland, whose
 Bridgewater Treatise he  had read with great interest.
 In Paris, he frequented the hospitals, and took copious
 notes of surgical  cases, as he  had done twenty-four
 years earlier.  A  few  extracts from his  diary, show
 the character of his observations:—
   " There is to my mind  an unaccountable aversion on the
 part of French  surgeons to attempt  uniting  wounds after
 operations, by the first intention.  To-day, the flaps made in
 the amputation might have been brought together, a depend-
 ing opening left, and the whole or nearly all the wound closed;
 instead of which the old system in vogue twenty-three years
 ago is continued, of stuffing  the wound with charpie or lint.
   "There is in French surgeons an indifference to life that
 seems inhuman.  They operate when they should not;—when
 they must know that the advantages to be gained are not to
 be compared with the  risk of life, and  the certain amount of
 severe pain that must be suffered from  the operation."

   He  bought several valuable instruments and ana-
 tomical preparations in  Paris.   He also bought a copy
 of Josephus, printed by Schussier at Augsburg, 1470 ;*
 and the  " Annals of the World's History," printed by
 Walch at Venice, 1479, and adorned with wood-cuts
 representing  the tower  of Babel, Nineveh, Solomon's
 temple, &c.   He was in Paris from November 19, 1843,
 till February 19, 1844,  when he set out for  London.
 He there received  polite attentions from Mr. Richard
 Owen, Bransby Cooper, Mr. South, Dr. John  Forbes,
 and other distinguished surgeons and  men of science,
 visited the largest hospitals, and attended a meeting of
 the  1 loyal Society.    He  left London, March  8, for

  *See  "History of the Art of Printing," hy H. Noel Humphreys;
London, 1808; page 102.
         3* 
30
MEMOIR OF
Liverpool,  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh.   Returning  to
Liverpool, he there passed several days in the agreea-
ble society of some old American friends, and sailed
April 4, bearing  dispatches from  the minister, Mr.
Everett. ■  He arrived in Providence,  April 22,  1844.
  Dr. Parsons joined the Rhode Island Medical Society.
in 1823.  In 1837,  he was elected  President  of the
society for three years, without having passed through
the usual stages of vice-presidency.  He was a constant
attendant at its meetings, and contributed several papers
to its transactions.  These were mostly on strictly medi-
cal  subjects.  One had a semi-historical character.   In
1859, a committee was appointed to prepare sketches
of eminent deceased  physicians of Rhode  Island; and
Dr. Parsons, as  its chairman, compiled from  various
sources a pamphlet on this subject.  It contains notices
of nearly  forty physicians who lived on the island  of
Rhode Island, mostly in Newport; of the  Bowens and
others in Providence, and the north part of the State;
and longer articles, contributed by other writers to the
chairman, on Drs. Levi Wheaton,  Solomon Drowne,
Peter and William Turner, Charles Eldredge, Edmund
T. Waring and David King,—all deceased.
  His latest printed  communication to this society, was
a "Letter  on  some points of military Surgery," read
December 19,  1860;  and reciting some of his experi-
ence on the great lakes.   This  paper would appear to
have been suggested by the anticipation  of civil war.
   When the American Medical Association was organ-
ized in Philadelphia, in 1847, Dr. Parsons was present
as  delegate, and took an active  part.  In  writing of
the receptions then held, he says:   " It was gratifying 
DR. USHER PARSOXS.
31
to me to find  whenever  I introduced  myself to any
stranger,—which I did a dozen times this evening,—as
Dr. Parsons of Rhode  Island, they all called me  at
once  by my christian name, having read of my writ-
ings through journals."  For  many years he attended
the annual meetings of this association, successively in
Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Charleston,  Richmond,
New  York,  St. Louis and Philadelphia.   In 1848,  he
was appointed chairman of a committee on adulterated
drugs;  and,  in  1849,  chairman of the committee  on
medical sciences.  His report  on this  last subject con-
tains  a summary of the "progress of  American Medi-
cine during the year."   In 1853, at New York, he was
elected first Arice-President.  In 1854, at St. Louis,  he
acted in the place of President at the early part of the
meeting, and as such delivered the opening address;
the President,  the late Dr. Jonathan Knight of New
Haven,  being unable to attend.
   He was honorary member of the medical societies of
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New Jersey  and South
Carolina.
   Dr. Parsons was an industrious writer on professional
subjects.  He wrote frequently for the premiums insti-
tuted by  AVard N. Boylston,  Esq., of Massachusetts,
and awarded by a committee appointed by  the corpo-
ration of  Harvard University,  for  dissertations  on
" medical, anatomical, physiological and chymical sub-
jects."  Four of these  prizes were  awarded  to him,
viz. :  for dissertations on Periostitis, 1827 ;  on Eneure-
sis Irritata, 1828; on "the connection between cutane-
ous diseases which are not contagious, and the internal
organs," 1830;  and on Cancer of the Breast,  1835. 
32
MEMOIR OF
The other subject proposed for the year 1x30. was the
comparative influence of animal and vegetable decom-
position in producing fever. The premium for the best
dissertation on this subject was awarded to Dr.  Charles
Caldwell, of Kentucky; but Dr. Parsons's essay on the
subject  was highly praised by the committee, with a
wish that it might be published, and its author's name
made known.   He also received the Fiske Fund pre-
mium in Rhode Island, in  1842, for an essay on Spinal
Diseases.  These six papers were  published in a vol-
ume.  He contributed  numerous  articles  to different
medical journals.
  In 1831, he was appointed Professor of Obstetrics in
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and lectured
there the following winter.  Some valuable models for
illustrating these lectures were lost at sea, on their way
for  Philadelphia.  The subject was One for which his
experience had not particularly  qualified  him.   He
did  not afterward  accept any  appointment  which
would require him to reside away from Providence.
  Dr. Parsons had long been impressed with the need
of a general  hospital in Providence.   The following
account of  his agency in an effort to  found  one,
which failed at the time, was  written  by  him in 1863,
and is believed to be substantially correct as far as it
goes:—

  "Public attention was first awakened to  the importance ot
establishing a general hospital in Providence, by the medical
association of that city.  At one of its stated meetings, held
October 6,18-Vi, its President, Dr. Usher Parsons, introduced
the  subject for consideration, and recommended its reference
to a committee of seven of the senior members of the associa- 
DR.  USHER PARSONS.              33
tion.  The committee appointed consisted of Drs. U. Parsons,
chairman, Joseph Mauran, L. L. Miller, K. Brownell, George
('apron, S. A. Arnold and  Charles "W. Fabyan. At the next
monthly meeting, said committee reported that it was expedi-
ent to prepare a circular to present  to every citizen whose
property was assessed for the payment of taxes of more than
one  hundred dollars,  which  circular should set forth the
nature and amount of suffering  and  destitution  that  called
loudly for hospital relief.
  " This circular was distributed widely, but awakened little
or no interest in the desired object.
  " In 1S.V2, the association recommended to try a subscription
paper, which was presented to some of the leading citizens of
Providence, but the project failed, no one seeming inclined to
head the list.  Strongly impressed by the sight of suffering
daily witnessed in their professional walks, the association
next directed the chairman to draft and present a petition to
the city government, asking its aid and co-operation in devis-
ing some measures for relief, and to be  handed to numerous
citizens for their signature.   This was accordingly done in
the following language:—
  "' The undersigned beg leave respectfully to represent that
there exists in this city great need of  a hospital; that cases of
sickness and  of wounds are frequently occurring  in  which
destitution is added to  painful suffering;  that no provision
exists either for subsistence or surgical aid for persons injured
on railroads, in factories, at fires, in blasting rocks and various
other ways; that many sick prefer to endure  privation  in ill-
ventilated  apartments and crowded  garrets and cellars, to
being crowded into the Dexter Asylum, there to mingle with
foreign  paupers, many of them the  victims of debauchery;
that in many chronic cases patients are driven from our city
to the hospitals of Boston and Xew York, whose  expenses
there for  board would, if accommodated here, contribute to
the support  of a  hospital, and  themselves be relieved of
travelling  expenses and distant separation  from friends and
families; that no city of the population and wealth of Provi-
dence has deferred so long a time to provide a public hospital; 
34                     MEMOIR OF
and finally, that the medical association of Providence have
humanely tendered their services gratuitously as physicians
and surgeons  in such  an establishment, whenever they are
needed.
  "'In view of these facts, we respectfully beg  leave  to
recommend that a hospital be provided by the city, to be sus-
tained by private subscriptions, and would suggest that the
Toekwotten estate seems eligibly situated and  in every re-
spect  well adapted  for the purpose; and that its present occu-
pants would be better accommodated on  a larger lot, distant
from  the  city, where  agricultural  employments might  he
added to those now in use.   In conclusion, we hope that you
will appropriate this or some other suitable place for a hos-
pital,  on condition that fifty thousand dollars be raised by
private subscription for defraying current  expenses.   All
which is respectfully submitted.  .Signed, Usher Paksoxs,
Chairman.'1
  " The city government on receiving the petition and with
it a request from  the committee for  permission to address
them  orally, granted the request and appointed a committee
to meet them and examine the facts in the case.   There arose
a difference of opinion among  them, some preferring  the
Toekwotten estate, and  others the  old hospital lot.  On ac-
count of this disagreement, all further action  for the present
ceased.
  " "Within the last year, Captain Thomas P. Ives, now com-
manding the United States flotilla in the  Chesapeake bay,
called on the chairman of the hospital committee, with a peti-
tion to the legislature for an act of incorporation of a Rhode
Island hospital, which he wished to have signed by the same
persons that were appointed  by the Providence Medical
Association in 1851.   He  represented that his  late  father,
Moses B. Ives, Esq., had bequeathed towards the founding of
a hospital, forty thousand dollars, to which sum ten thousand
more would be added.  This noble bequest was hailed by the
association with joyful gratitude.  The legislature granted a
liberal charter, and the city of Providence soon  gave  for the
hospital a large and appropriate lot, estimated to be worth 
DR. USHER  PARSONS.
35
fifty thousand dollars.  A subscription  was  started and  the
sums subscribed in the aggregate, exceeded the most san-
guine anticipations of the friends of the enterprise.
  "At  an adjourned meeting of the hospital committee of
the association, held on the 12th day of May, 18G3, the charter
granted by the legislature was read and adopted.  It was then
proposed to enlarge the list of corporators, by the addition of
names of such persons as would be likely to favor the hospital
enterprise, and accordingly  two hundred names were added,
mostly non-professional gentlemen.  The meeting  was ad-
journed to the 21st instant,  when Dr. Parsons, on taking the
chair, formally resigned his place as chairman, and nominated
Governor James Y. Smith,  for permanent chairman of the
corporation."

   When the Ehode  Island  Hospital was  organized,
he gave one thousand dollars  to it.  He followed the
progress of the undertaking with  great interest, though
he was  then withdrawn from medical  practice.   He
gave about three hundred volumes to its library, and
bequeathed it one  hundred dollars by will.   He was
at first appointed at the head of its consulting staff.
   Dr.  Parsons had too active a mind to rest satisfied
with the knowledge  required for  every-day medical
practice.'  He investigated many subjects more or  less
connected  with  his professional studies.   When  the
doctrine called Phrenology,  was presented in  Boston,
graced by the zeal and eloquence  of Spurzheim,  Dr.
Parsons gave much  attention to  it.  Dr.  Jonathan
Barber gave a course of phrenological lectures in Provi-
dence ;  and Dr. Parsons followed  him in a short course,
illustrated  by many crania and models, describing the   t
anatomy of the  brain, and concurring in the general
principles  of  Phrenology, but opposing the extrava-
oant claims of the so-called science. 
36
MEMOIR OF
   In 1837. he obtained a charter for the Rhode Island
Natural History Society, of which he was chosen the
first President.  It  held several meetings, and made
some  collections, but  never attained the  position of a
working scientific society.   He kept up the practice 01
collecting specimens.    lie purchased and read  the
geological works of Buckland, Hitchcock and others.
He had some knowledge of field-botany, and occasion-
ally gave private  courses of  botanical lectures to
classes of young ladies.
   In  1831, he prepared an address on  Temperance,
which he  delivered in Providence  and  other places,
and which was afterward published.   In 1.^40, he
lectured before the American  Institute of Instruction,
at its meeting in Providence, on the connection and
reciprocal influence of the brain and stomach.   In this
as in  other addresses partaking of  a  physiological
character, he dwelt  much on  the doctrines of Bichat,
whose treatise, " Sar la  Vie et la J fort,'"  had  made a
great impression on his mind, and was habitually recom-
mended by him to his medical pupils.
   His reading on subjects not connected with  physical
science  was mostly in works of history and travel.
He took little  interest  in purely imaginative literature.
He read few of the  classical novels.   A  special inter-
est in  the remains of Pompeii, which he had carefully
examined when cruising  on  the Mediterranean,  led
him to buy and read Bulwer's  " Last Days of Pompeii."
In  poetry, his favorites were Thomson  and  Young.
He often read through the " Seasons," as the seasons
came  round;   and was equally  familiar with  the
"Night Thoughts."  He selected the  opening lines of 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
37
this poem, for his son to speak at a school declamation
when less than ten years old; and it will  be readily
believed that they were not  very intelligently or im-
pressively uttered.  He was also a regular reader of
the Bible.   Beside frequent recurrence to certain favor-
ite parts, especially in the Psalms, he  went  through
the Bible in course, with probably some omissions,
four times in the last thirty years of his  life.   He thus
wrote in his note book, November, 1837 :—

  "I have  this day finished the Old Testament, which I
began in June, 1831. I cannot but think that the  Christian
religion would gain by excluding some of the books.  Two-
thirds of what follows the first chapter of Jeremiah might be
omitted, and all of Solomon's Song.  These writings of the
Prophets might be transferred to the Apocrypha, or incorpo-
rated into a separate division of  the Bible, and considered as
elegies on the woes prepared by  Divine Power to bring upon
this ill-fated people the Jews.  The Bible, after  such an ex-
clusion, would be read more generally, intelligibly and thor-
oughly  than it is while encumbered with such a  mass of
matter so irrelevant to subsequent ages of the world.  As a
rule of life, and a history of God's government and the plan
of salvation, an abridged volume might be formed for general
circulation, which would embrace all that is essential. I shall
now commence reading TyndalFs New Testament with notes."

   His ecclesiastical relations were  peculiar.   He was
brought up in congregational worship and the faith of
the Puritans.*   Soon after  his  marriage, he  was ad-
mitted  to the Episcopal communion,  at  St. John's
Church.  In later years, he had  a seat in one place of

  *His  grandfather, the minister of Bradford, was suspected of
Arminianism.  Whether any traditionary influence, inherited from
him, softened the rigor of Calvinistic belief in the family of his son
William, I do not know.
             4 
38
MEMOIR OF
 worship after another,—St. John's,  the First Baptist.
 St. Stephen's (now Church of the Saviour) and the Cen-
 tral Congregational church.  For the last twelve years
 of his life, the latter was his usual place of attendance
 on Sundays, and the only  one where he owned a pew,
 though he frequently partook of the  communion of the
 Episcopal church.  He often went to other churches,
 especially the  Unitarian  under the ministry of Dr.
 Edward B. Hall, whose preaching he much  admired.
 After hearing him on Thanksgiving Day,  18.">3,  he
wrote in his note book:   "I wish he and other Uni-
tarians would follow  after  St. Paul's example,  and
preach a  little  more about Christ and him crucified.
 At the same time, I wish the Orthodox would preach
more practical sermons, and not be forever harping on
particular doctrines of the Calvinistic order."  In his
busiest years of practice, he was remarkably regular
in attending church once or twice on Sunday.
  He seldom took an active part in politics.   lie voted
 with the whig party in the day of it.   The nomination
 of General Harrison for President awakened a special
 interest in him,  on account of the general's connection
 with Commodore Perry and the service on Lake Erie.
 Dr. Parsons wrote several  newspaper articles in favor
 of Harrison, which were widely reprinted, and  spoke
 on the same subject in the old town house, October 19
 1840.  He was appointed messenger to carry the electo-
 ral vote of Ehode Island to  Washington, and handed
the package of votes to  Vice-President Richard  M.
Johnson.  When the suffrage troubles arose in Rhode
Island, he did not share in the attachment felt by many
natives of this State, to the charter of 1663, and his 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
39
sympathies were with the movement for enlarged suf-
frage.   Mr. Thomas W. Dorr was his intimate friend.
But when the affair took on a revolutionary character,
he rallied to the support of the existing government.
He acted as volunteer surgeon of the Marine Artillery.
The subsequent imprisonment of Mr. Dorr was  ex-
ceedingly distasteful to him.  He exerted himself to
procure his release, by circulating petitions, &c. ; but
his course did not  suit the uncompromising views of
Mr. Dorr, and was unavailing.  Immediately after the
passage of the act of liberation, he visited Mr. Dorr as
physician and friend.
   On the outbreak of civil war, in 1861, he offered his
services  as surgeon, in a letter to  Governor Sprague.
He was commissioned,  in June, 1861, surgeon of  the
Providence Horse Guards.  He followed the varying
fortunes of the conflict with intense interest.  At the
time of the presidential election, in 1868, his last ill-
ness had begun; he had been confined to  the house
sixteen days,  and walked with difficulty, leaning on
his son's arm.   The warden came down from the ward
room, and  met him in the lower entry, where a  chair
had been arranged, and he gave his last vote, for Grant
and Colfax.
   From an early age, he was interested in tracing the
history  and genealogy  of  his  family.   Till the year
1834, he did not correctly follow up the line beyond
his great grandfather,  Rev. Joseph Parsons, of Salis-
bury.  In that year, he carried on a lively correspond-
ence with  the  eminent antiquary of Northampton,
Svlvester Judd,  Esq.   Mr.  Judd's valuable letters are
now  before me.  They helped him to connect Joseph 
40
MEMOIR OF
Parsons, of Salisbury, with the first Joseph, of Spring-
field, and the  second Joseph, of Northampton.  He
explored old  graveyards, records  and  all  written
sources  of genealogical lore.  He visited the towns
where his ancestors had  lived,  talked with the old
men of those places, and treasured up the knowledge
he had learned from their trembling lips.  A  manu-
script book is  still preserved, in which he wrote out
the history of  the families of Parsons, Frost, Usher,
&c, with sketches of the lives of individuals, and pre-
served autographs of many.*  In 1838, he printed on
a sheet an outline of the " Genealogy of the Family of
Joseph Parsons."
  In 1849, he prepared  a  somewhat elaborate memoir
of Major Charles Frost, his great great  grandfather,
who was a man of some importance in civil and military
affairs, and was killed by the Indians in Kittery, now

  * These fac-similes are from autographs contained in that book.
"5^^t ^*T*^  (,)
  \t)f<rl}*-  ^-^oiy      (a)
$M*
 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
41
Elliot, July 4, 1697.   This was published in the New
England Historical and  Genealogical Register, July,
1849.  It was founded on materials drawn from old
manuscripts obtained in Maine, especially the volumi-
nous  papers left  by Frost's son in-law,  Captain John
Hill, who commanded Fort Mary at Saco,  from 1693
to 1700.   It contains, from the original  in  his posses-
sion,  the  account of Major Frost's death,  written to
Captain Hill  by Joseph  Storer, who was another son-
in-law of Major  Frost.   Dr.  Parsons  afterward pre-
pared a genealogy of the Frost family, and  an account
of "the  descendants of  Peter Hill,  of  York county,
Maine, with some incidents relating to the French and
Indian wars," founded on the same Hill papers.
   His most important literary undertaking, the "Life
of Sir William  Pepperrell," sprang originally  out of
his genealogical studies.   He began to prepare for this
task  in the year 1846, but suspended  it on learning
that  Pepperrell's  life would be  written  by  others.
The  principal exploit of Pepperrell, in heading the
attack on  the French fortified town of Louisburg, in
1745, and reducing it after a siege of forty-eight days,
had  been fully described by Belknap and other histo-
rians.  But  no extended memoir of Pepperrell had
been published.   Rev.  Dr.  Charles   Burroughs,  of
Portsmouth,   New  Hampshire,  and  Hon.  Lorenzo
Sabine, of Framingham, Massachusetts, had both pre-
pared sketches of his life,   A connection of the family,
Colonel  George Sparhawk, of Kittery, where Pepper-
rell's mansion still  stood, had talked  of writing his
biography, and  was known to have a  great many of
his papers, which had lain neglected in a shed or fish-
         4* 
42
MEMOIR OF
house on the estate, till Colonel Sparhawk selected and
arranged the more valuable documents.  It was after
correspondence with these gentlemen and many others,
that Dr.  Parsons  determined to  carry out the under-
taking.   He read  the state and local histories bearing
on  his  subject, examined  the papers  in  the Massa-
chusetts  Historical Society  and other public places of
deposit, and  procured documents  from all  available
sources.  The Sparhawk papers, after some negotiation,
reached his hands in January, 1851, through the kind
offices  of Mr. John Blunt, of New York.   For four
years after that, he gave much of his  leisure to this
work.
  Not  satisfied with studying the details  of Pepper-
rell's career in its written and  printed records, Dr.
Parsons visited the harbor and ruins  of Louisburg,
in August,  1852, in company with his nephew, Edwin
Parsons,  Esq., now of  New  York.  They  took the
English steamer from Boston to Halifax, and then a
small steamboat to Sidney, driving thence to Louis-
burg.  An account of his observations  there  is given
in the Life of Pepperrell, at page 332.
  At the beginning of  the year 1855,  his book was
essentially completed,  and had been submitted to the
friendly  criticism of several historical  scholars,  espe-
cially Hon. Mr. Sabine before mentioned,  and J. Win-
gate Thornton, Esq.,  of  Boston.  It was published in
May.  It was very favorably received  by students of
colonial  history, both in America  and England, and
was kindly noticed and somewhat  copiously analyzed
in  the  leading  newspapers  and  magazines of this
country,  and  in the London Athenaeum.  The subject, 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
43
being  ante-revolutionary, was  alike interesting in the
mother country, where several descendants of Pepper-
rell still exist, and in America.  It was republished in
London, in 1856.
  Most of the reviews of this book consist mainly of
the analysis of its contents, and are hardly fitted  to
extract from.  I will only reprint a few sentences from
a discourse, hereafter to be mentioned, delivered before
the Rhode Island Historical Society, by its  President,
Hon. Samuel G. Arnold, the  author of the  " History
of Rhode Island ":—

  " This work is a Very important contribution to our colonial
history.  The conqueror of Louisburg was one of the fore-
most men that America has produced.  A merchant of vast
wealth, whose landed possessions alone extended thirty miles
from the Piscataqua to Saco, acquired by his own skill and
industry; a soldier whose genius  was attested by success in
capturing the stronghold of France from its powerful defend-
ers; a civilian whose talents were  everywhere admitted to be
of the  highest order.  Sir  "William  Pepperrell was  the only
native of New England who was created  a baronet during
our colonial period.  The eclat of the war  of Independence,
has dimmed the fame of the great names of ante-revolutionary
days, and whoever aids to  rescue from oblivion the achieve-
ments and the characters of the mighty men of the past, con-
fers a favor upon humanity, and adds an enduring page to the
volume of history.  This Dr. Parsons has done in the memoir
of his illustrious ancestor.   *  *  *  To revive the memory
of these school-days of the republic, and to bring before us
the men who  led in that  era of our national pupilage, and
who formed the mind and trained the muscle of the growing
state, is a pious duty which Dr. Parsons has well performed."

   He  left  in manuscript a  history of his native town
of Alfred.    When a  celebration of  the hundredth 
44
MEMOIR OF
anniversary of the settlement of that town was  con-
templated, in 1860,  he was  asked to prepare a his-
torical discourse, but declined on account of impaired
health.
   For many years, he  interested himself in studying
the remains, language  and customs of the  aborigines
of this  part of our country.   The first record I have
of his meeting  with Indians, is in the diary  of his
march from  Albany to Buffalo, in 1812.   He there
writes, October 7, being on the route  between Yernon
and Whitestown:—

  "Passed by the Oneida  tribe of Indians, consisting of about
two thousand  souls.  The warriors have volunteered their
services  to assist in prosecuting the war against Canada.
Their dress is  a shirt which  does not extend the length of
the trunk,  a cloth pinned around the waist, and extending
over perhaps a fourth part of  the lower extremities, a pair of
broadcloth leggins, moccasons, and a blanket thrown over the
body.  Their huts are  one room, in which are  one bench,
kettle, pail, dish and samp-mortar.  The tribe have two schools
attended by all the children, and a church.   The conversation
of the warriors I could understand, but not  of the squaws.
This difference may be imputed to the circumstance that the
warriors have more intercourse with the white people."

  In  his  rides extending  many miles around  Provi-
dence, he examined the Indian  burying-grounds, and
gradually  made a collection of bones  and various
utensils,  such as hatchets, arrow-heads,  pots of soap-
stone, &c.   He recorded the Indian names of localities,
with the meanings that  had been assigned them by tra-
dition or by guess.   In 1840,  he furnished a barrel-full
of skulls, from an  aboriginal  burying-place in  Wash- 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
45
ington county, to Dr. Samuel G. Morton, of Philadel-
phia, author of " Crania Americana."
  After his principal historical work was published,
and when he was about seventy years old, he began to
collate  and arrange  his notes on  Indian localities in
Rhode Island.   He made new researches on this sub-
ject, and by examination of various maps, of historical
works relating to Rhode Island, and old records, col-
lected many new names, with supposed explanations
of some.  At length, in 1861,  he published a pamphlet
of thirty-two pages, entitled " Indian Names of Places
in Rhode Island."   It contains more than three hun-
dred titles; but some of the names are repeated in
different applications; thus,  the name  Pettaquamscot
recurs as given to a river, a tract of land, and a  rock.
There are  a few repetitions from  inadvertence, some-
times concealed by an unimportant variation in  spell-
ing.  In a preface he says:—

  "No attempt is herein made,  by the author, to examine
Indian names of places as a philologist or  grammarian, but
merely to gather such as were in existence when civilization
commenced within the State  of Ehode Island, according to
its present boundary; and, in a few instances, give the mean-
ing or derivation of the word used.  I  was led to this  enter-
prise, partly for the amusement it might afford in my leisure
hours, but more for  the purpose of rescuing from oblivion
names of places in use among the aborigines, and for the con-
venience of those who may hereafter wish to apply them to
their country villas, factories or institutions, as has often been
done in this and other states."

   As early as the year  1841, he visited the Indian
burying-ground and  old  fort in Charlestown, Rhode
Island, and made some examination of Indian graves. 
46
MEMOIR OF
He went there several  times in subsequent years, pro-
cured various Indian relics,  wrote out descriptions of
the places, and took part in some attempts at disinter-
ment.   In 1860, and  again  in 1861, he made these
entries in his diary :—

  " Saw the old Indian burying-ground and fort, and the arti-
cles lately dug up from  Indian graves, as coins, wampum-
peag, kitchen utensils, chains, iron and silver."  *  *   *
" Six of us went to the place and worked with spade till near
midnight.   Took  up a well preserved  skeleton,  eight feet
deep."

   When some Indian  graves were afterwards opened
by another party, Dr.  Parsons bought  many of the
bones and articles found with them, and  retained some
in his  possession at his death.  He prepared a  paper
on this subject, which he read, exhibiting many  of the
relics, before the historical societies of Rhode Island
and New  York.  This paper was  published in the
Historical Magazine, February, 1863.  It describes the
customs  of the  Indians in regard  to  burial,  sketches
the history of the Narragansett tribes, and their inter-
course with  the Dutch, and particularly of Sachem
Ninigret  and his descendants, and gives  a minute
account of the discoveries made in the ancient Indian
burying-ground, believed to  have been  the  Sachem's
cemetery.  He states the reasons for supposing that
the  grave in which the most curious  articles  were
found was that  of Sachem Ninigret's daughter;  and
that the adjoining grave was that of the Sachem him-
self, who  was living when the country  he inhabited
was first settled by the English. 
              DR. USHER PARSONS.              -it

  Dr. Parsons's various labors were recognized by his
election to man}^ literary and historical societies.   He
was a corresponding member of the historical societies
of Maine,  Massachusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,
Georgia and Wisconsin,  the American  Antiquarian
Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences, &c.   He
was an active member of the New  England  Historic
Genealogical Society, and was  its Vice-President for
Rhode Island from September 1864 till his death.   He
joined the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1825,
and  was a useful member of it, making  many contri-
butions to its collections and reading several papers at
its meetings.
  It is well known that a  controversy arose  between
Commodores Oliver  H. Peny  and Jesse D. Elliott, in
relation to the conduct of the latter in the naval battle
of September 10,  1813 ;  and  that long  after  Perry's
early death, the credit of  victory was claimed for
Elliott hy himself and his  friends.  Dr.  Parsons took
cl^~   ft   Lux^
 
48
MEMOIR OF
a warm and active interest in  this dispute.  He was
strongly attached to Perry and convinced that Elliott's
conduct was  disgraceful.   In conversation, by  news-
paper articles, by contributions to writings published
by others, and lastly in a public historical  address,  he
vindicated the claims of Perry and  the  truth of his-
tory as he understood it,  often  in terms reflecting
severely on Elliott and his  defenders.
  In January, 1836, Tristam Burges read a discourse
before  the Rhode Island Historical  Society, in which
he gave  a vigorous account of the  battle.  In 1839,
this was published with copious notes and diagrams of
the battle in different positions.   Some of these notes
were furnished by Dr. Parsons.   The "extract from
the log-book of the Lawrence,"  was taken  from his
diary.  He contributed many  notes to the  "Life  of
Commodore Perry," published in 1840, by  Alexander
Slidell Mackenzie.
  In 1852, having been invited to deliver the stated
annual discourse  before the  Rhode  Island  Historical
Society, he chose  for his subject,  " the history of the
battle of  Lake Erie.   I have made this choice,"  he
says, " first, because this battle  is  a part of  Rhode
Island  history, and therefore appropriate to  the occa-
sion ; secondly, because I could speak of it from per-
sonal knowledge; and thirdly, because a very inaccu-
rate and perverted account of it has been written and
imposed  upon the public by  the late  J.  Fenimore
Cooper, Esquire."   He narrates the  circumstances
which led to the formation  of a fleet  on Lake Erie, the
difficulties under  which it was created and got afloat,
and the reasons why it is regarded as belonging  to 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
49
Rhode Island history.  He relates the incidents of the
battle quite fully, and then attacks Elliott and Cooper
in a style o'f indignant sarcasm.   In the words of Mr.
Arnold:    " He has  done this in a style that  leaves
nothing  to be said upon the points in dispute.  His
own testimony is direct  and incontrovertible.   His
reply to the assaults of Cooper is comprehensive and
complete.  A certain irony pervades  this portion  of
the address, which is the appropriate  weapon where-
with to treat mendacity of statement when brought to
the support of cowardice  of conduct  and infamy  of
character."   Dr.  Parsons had always  a fondness for
written controversy,  and could handle  the caustic pen
as well as the scalpel or saw.
   In his  more advanced life, he became well known in
the growing cities along the southern shore of Lake
Erie.   He  often visited that region after his retirement
from  active practice.  Those  cities appreciated more
and more the importance of Perry's victory, and com-
memorated its  anniversary by yearly  gatherings, and
occasionally by special observances and various plans
for the erection of monuments.   Dr. Parsons was the
onlv surviving officer of the battle who had cultivated
historical tastes and the powers of writing and oratory.
   In  1858, the anniversary was celebrated at Put-in-
Bay island, near Sandusky, where  Perry's fleet had
anchored the  night  before the battle.   There  was a
very large  assemblage, and a brilliant display of yachts
and steamers.   Hon. Salmon P. Chase presided  at the
ceremonies on  the island.   Eloquent  addresses were
made; and three surviving officers appeared on the
platform; Captains Champlin  and Brownell speaking
           5 
50
MEMOIR OF
briefly, while Dr. Parsons read an elaborate narrative
discourse.   This was  received  with a great deal of
interest  by the large  audience, and was afterward
printed  in all the  principal newspapers  of Buffalo,
Erie,  Sandusky, Cleveland, &c.   He afterward wrote
in his note-book,  " this anniversary was  among the
most delightful of my life, as well as most interesting."
  Two years  later  the forty-seventh anniversary was
celebrated at Cleveland.  That city alone successfully
carried out the plan of erecting a monument to Perry,
which on that day  was dedicated.   It stands in the
park  at  Cleveland, and consists of  a statue of Perry,
and of other appropriate sculptures.  The dedication,
September 10, 1860, was very largely attended.   The
Governor of  Rhode Island  with many of her civil
and military officers were present by special invitation.
The two most important features of the  literary exer-
cises  on that  day,  were the oration by  Honorable
George Bancroft,  and  a historical  address  by  Dr.
Parsons.
  These three discourses relating to the battle of Lake
Erie,  all give the story in essentially the same wa}T,
and show some unavoidable repetition.  The two de-
livered at Put-in-Bay and Cleveland are not, however,
controversial.
  In  his later journeys along Lake Erie, Dr. Parsons
was regarded as a guest of  the public, and was passed
and entertained as such on  the steamboats and  rail-
roads.   These various acknowledgments of his early
services, and the kind reception of his historical dis-
courses, after he had passed the age of seventy, gave
him the keenest pleasure. 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
51
  Some  other  published writings, less  known than
those before  mentioned, attest his permanent interest
in his naval  reminiscences.   In 1836, he contributed
to the " Naval Lyceum," New York,  an article on
Quarantines.   In 1840, he published  in the Knicker-
bocker 'Magazine,  a story,  " The Avenger of Blood,"
founded  on an incident that occurred on board the
Guerriere in 1818.  In 1850, he helped to  agitate the
question of the abolition of  flogging in the navy, and
wrote a pungent article on the subject for a New York
newspaper.   In 1862, he contributed to the New Eng-
land  Historical and  Genealogical Register,  " Brief
sketches of the officers who  were in the battle of Lake
Erie."
   A  sketch  of Dr. Parsons's career  would  be  very
incomplete, if it  did not allude to the tenacity- with
which he clung to early attachments, and the pleasure
he took,  during his mature and  declining years,  in re-
visiting the scenes of his boyhood and youth.   Almost
every summer, after he had  gained an established posi-
tion in Providence, he went to his native place and the
neighboring  towns, where he had struggled with pov-
erty and youthful ambition.  No recreation gave him
greater pleasure.   He kept up intimate intercourse and
correspondence with the relatives who still  lived there.
   He also reverted with the deepest interest to the
region about Lake Erie, where he had laid  the founda-
tions of  success.   He revisited this region several
times, beside the  occasions already referred to when
he delivered historical discourses.  In 1835, he made
a tour to Lake Erie, in company with Captain Daniel
Turner,  who commanded the Caledonia in the  battle 
52
MEMOIR OF
of September 10, 1813.   They  went from New York
to Albany  by steamboat, and thence to Black Rock
by canal.   The journey by canal occupied three days.
Dr. Parsons minutely describes,  in his diary, the locali-
ties at Black Rock, and enumerates the houses that
were standing there in  1812, most of which were de-
stroyed by fire in December,  1813.   He could  not
determine the exact location of the  barracks where he
had been lodged in 1812.   He was joined  at Buffalo by
Captain Stephen Champlin, who commanded the Scor-
pion in the battle of  Lake  Erie.*  They visited  the
Queen Charlotte, captured  from  the British  in that
battle, and afterward sunk in the lake.   " A company
of merchants lately bought the ships, and have raised
the Queen  and  refitted her.  The captain received us
politely, and gave us  some pieces of oak from her to
make walking canes.  Captains Turner and Champlin
and  myself, made out an inscription to be put on  a
gilded cannon  ball that is to be slung  in her cabin.
Said ball was taken out from among her timbers; and,
as we stated, was fired by the Tigris."
   In 1836, Dr.  Parsons went to the west in behalf of
the " Smithfield Emigrating Land Company."   He thus
writes,  September 4,  1836:   "About  three weeks
since, I caught the western land-fever for speculation,
which has ever  since occupied my thoughts.   Two
weeks yesterday I attended a meeting at Scott's pond,
and  bought four shares.  I was chosen member of the

  * Captain Daniel Turner, born at Staten Island, New York, August
8, 1792, died in Philadelphia, February 4,  1850.   Captain Stephen
Champlin, born in South Kingstown,  Rhode Island, November 17,
1789, a cousin of Commodore Perry, died at his residence in Buffalo,
February 20,1870. 
DR. USHER PARSONS.
53
purchasing committee,  to  have my  expenses  paid."
He was absent about seven weeks, went  from Buffalo
to Detroit, thence to Toledo, where he bought a horse
for sixty dollars,  a saddle, bridle  and  blanket  for
twelve.  He then travelled horseback to Fort Wayne,
Laporte, Chicago,  Danville  and Indianapolis.  His
expenses on this journey, as charged  to the company,
were three hundred and eleven dollars and twenty-five
cents, including  the purchase of horse and outfit, which
were  sold for forty-one dollars.  He then and subse-
quently  bought land  at  different  points in western
states; and some of these  investments, after entailing
a long continued burden of taxation and other expenses,
became profitable many years later.
   In 1838, he revisited  Erie, after an absence of nearly
twenty-four years.  In his  diary, he mentions Cayuga
lake as almost the only place on his route to Buffalo,
which he recognized  as having seen it on  his early
march.   He arrived in Erie  late in the  evening  of
July  5th.  "Friday,  6th,  visited the court house  at
seven  o'clock.   Here I received my wounded of the
fleet about the 20th [24th] of September, 1813." He
called on many persons with whom  he had  been very
well acquainted for two years; only one recognized
him without aid, though many expressed great joy  in
meeting him.   In the burying-ground he looked  for
the graves of  Claxton,  who died of a wound received
in battle, and of other naval comrades.   He writes :—

  " I called on Captain Dobbins, who was  a sailing-master in
the war, now commander of the revenue cutter.  I went with
him to the Peninsula, [Erie was formerly called Presqu' isle,]
and trod once more the deck  of the Lawrence, now a hulk
         5* 
54
MEMOIR OF
resting about east a quarter of a mile from the old block-
house.  Her deck is in a sound state; but the water comes
nearly up to it, so that I could not see her hold.   In this vessel
I sailed in 1813, and was in battle.  She was repaired the fol-
lowing year, and I went in her to Mackinac with troops under
Colonel Croghan.  She was sunk and remained so till within
the last two  or three years, when she was raised and proved
to be perfectly sound.  Took some pieces from her to make
canes of."

   The following  day  he visited  James Miles, whose
arm he had amputated the day after the battle on Lake
Erie.  " He did not recollect me; but on learning who
I was,  shed tears of joy."  His diary concludes thus :—

  " This visit to Erie gave me indescribable pleasure.   The
thousand associations of pleasure and of pain; the fresh recol-
lections of events, as if they transpired but yesterday, which
a thousand  objects served to call up, and many of which
would but for this visit never have been revived; the pleasure
afforded in taking old friends by the hand, after a separation
of twenty-four years; the changes in looks; the changes in
worldly condition for better  and-  for worse; the grave-yard
where  lie the bodies of great numbers of early friends; the
changes  and vast improvements  about the  city,—elegant
houses and churches where there were then but a few humble
dwellings,—all, all tended to render my stay here one of the
most intense interest, on many occasions so powerful as to
take from me the power of speech.  But what shall  I say of
,the protecting mercy of Him who through dangers seen and
unseen, perils by land and  perils in the deep, has surrounded
my path, and preserved  me to  the present moment ?   May
the remainder of my days be more devoted to His service."

   In 1854, after attending the meeting of the  Ameri-
can Medical Association at St. Louis, he journeyed to
Chicago and St. Paul's, visited the falls of St. Anthony, 
DR. USHER PARSONS.              55
and  returned  by the way of Buffalo,  Montreal and
Quebec.   The  next year, he went to Lake Superior,
with his nephew Edwin.  On his way, he rehearsed
on the spot his adventure in the capture of Fort Erie
in 1813.   He stopped at Mackinac and Sault St. Marie,
and examined and described the copper mines at Lake
Superior.
  For several years before his death, Dr. Parsons was
almost wholly withdrawn from active practice, though
he sometimes visited in consultation,  and  even per-
formed some surgical operations.  His last amputation
was of the fore-arm, performed when he was seventy-
four years old, in  Rehoboth.  His  sturdy health of
body and mind gradually failed, but with very little
suffering, and with  many circumstances  fitted to make
old age happy.   An increasing forgetfulness in regard
to business  matters, and hesitancy in speech and un-
certainty in  locomotion, showed that his powerful
brain was yielding  to the natural changes  in its text-
ure ;  but he  still  enjoyed  reading, frequented the
Athenaeum, called  at the houses of a few familiar
friends,  kept up a rather extensive correspondence,
visited his near relatives in Maine and New York city,
and interested himself in watching the progress of the
Rhode Island Hospital.   The exercises  at the opening
of this hospital took place October 1, 1868.  He was
conducted to a  seat on  the platform, and was kindly
referred to in Professor  Gammell's eloquent discourse.
This compliment, the last he was ever  to  receive on
any  public  occasion, gratified  him  very much.  He
wrote  in his diary the  next day,  with a  trembling
hand,  " I feel  very  happy  for yesterday's doings." 
56
MEMOIR OF
He was present at the first important surgical operation
performed there, October 10.           *
  On the evening of October 17,  after  exposure to
cold, he had a severe acute attack, involving the brain,
and followed by persistent nausea, headache and con-
fusion of mind.   He first  left the house  after this,
November 3, when he voted at the presidential elec-
tion.  He continued to go out  almost every day for a
month  more, but with feeble and uncertain steps, and
a degree of mental disorder that gave his family great
anxiety.  From December 4, he was again confined to
the house and mostly to his chamber, and  died on the
morning of December 19, 1868, aged eighty years and
four months.   He was very faithfully attended  in his
last sickness by his friend Dr. Stephen S. Keene.  An
autopsy showed chronic degeneration in the arteries
and  membranes of the brain, and acute inflammatory
disease in the cerebellum.   This last  probably dated
from the  17th of October,  and  was the immediate
cause of death.  His funeral was kindly attended by
Rev. J.  G.  Yose, of the  Beneficent  Congregational
church.   He was buried in Swan Point cemeteiy.
  On the 1st of June, 1869,  Hon. Samuel G. Arnold,
President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, read
before that body, in accordance with previous appoint-
ment, a  discourse " On the services of three  distin-
guished members of the society,  who died during the
year 1868,"  Albert  Gorton  Greene,  William Read
Staples, and Usher Parsons.  I have already extracted
from this discourse.   The portion of it referring to Dr.
Parsons closes with the following sentences:— 
DR.  USHER PARSONS.
57
  " Probably no man now living has so complete a knowledge
of Indian traditions and history, or is so competent to  inter-
pret their meaning, as was Dr. Parsons. In his later years
he retired from practice and devoted his time to these favorite
pursuits; often making long journeys, even beyond the Mis-
sissippi river,  always returning with some new discovery in
Indian lore, and some vivid impressions of the growing great-
ness of our country.  He was a man in whom the love of
country was strongly marked, and  whose fidelity to the flag
never faltered  in the darkest hour.  His was  a genial tem-
perament and a kindly  heart, with  much of the jovial spirit
of the seas in his hours of relaxation.  We  miss his'familiar
form in these  seats at our stated meetings, and we miss his
cordial greeting and his honest smile in  the daily intercourse
of life; for  there are few families in this city where he was
not a welcome  guest, and where, during his long residence of
nearly half a century among us, his name had  not become as
a household word.   Loved in life and honored in death, his
memory will be revered by all who value those high qualities
of manhood which were united in his character." 
 
APPENDIX.
                           I.

  [This sketch of Dr. Parsons's early instructor in classical studies
was prepared by him, and is printed from a manuscript found among
his papers.]

  The Kev. Moses Sweat, A. M., was a native of Kingston,
New  Hampshire.   In his youth  he  was  occupied  in  the
labours of a farmer, and occasionally taught a school.  Being
very fond of books and particularly interested in the study of
the dead languages, he made great  progress in them, under
the instruction of Parson Moody, then preceptor of  Dummcr
Academy, who encouraged him to expect a tutorship in some
college.  But Mr. Moody soon died, and his favorite pupil
then devoted his time to the study of theology, under  the
direction of Elihu Thayer,  D. P., of Kingston, New  Hamp-
shire.
  About the year 17S.S, the Congregational society in Sanford,
which then included Alfred, invited Mr. Sweat to become
their  pastor, offering him a salary  of three hundred  dollars
with a parsonage lot for a settlement, which he accepted,  and
from this salary he soon, by rigid economy, saved enough to
purchase the large  Polyglot Bible of ten volumes folio.  He
then engaged ardently in the study of many of the oriental
languages.   Greek and Hebrew  he could read fluently,  and
he made some  progress in the study of Syriac, Arabic  and
Chaldaic. 
60                    APPENDIX.

  He  published two discourses in 180"), entitled " A Critical
Investigation of the Mode of Baptism as performed by the
primitive churches,"  about  one hundred pages, in which he
traced out the words Bapto and  Baptizo in  all the oriental
languages.   The  work  was so  highly appreciated by the
learned, that the late Judge  Sewall  of the United States
Court, subscribed for many copies for circulation.  The only
other  publication was a discourse preached at Alfred, on the
occasion of its separation from Sanford.  It was regarded as
ingenious  and highly creditable to the author's literary taste
and skill.
  Dr. Hemmenway and  other clergymen in York county,
duly estimating his character and attainments, presented his
name  to the  authorities of Harvard College, with a petition
to award him the degree of A. B., and, in 1790, he received
the degree of A. M.
  About ten years after his settlement his health  failed and
obliged him to suspend his ministerial labours for the term of
a year.  About the same time the Baptist society made in-
roads  upon his flock, and detached a large  number, which
made  it necessary for those  who remained to  ask for a reduc-
tion of his salary, to which  he acceded, and for nearly thirty
years  he continued his ministerial labours on a salary of one
hundred dollars per annum.  His large stock of sermons on
hand  made it unnecessary for him to write many new ones,
and he consequently passed most of his time in agricultural
pursuits.
  After his decease the writer of this sketch received  from
the children  of Mr. Sweat  a present  of some forty or fifty
sermons.  Though written in haste, they are faultless in style
in every particular, even to punctuation.  His composition
was made from the purest English.   He devoted about ten
hours to writing a sermon.  There was nothing impassioned
in his discourses, but simply appeals  to reason and common
sense, and they were always practical in their nature and ten-
dency.  He affiliated with Arminians as well as with Ortho-
dox brethren, and with those of intermediate shades of opin-
ion.   He held to  the trinity and believed in the atonement, 
APPENDIX.
61
but he rarely if ever preached  strong  doctrinal discourses.
Though his voice was feeble he was  a rapid speaker, and he
made no display  of oratorical flourish  in  his  manner.  In
conversation  he was fluent, very  instructive and agreeable—
in manners mild, meek, affable and gentle.  The writer of this,
who passed a year in his family in the study of Latin and Greek,
can truly say that in all the graces of a  christian gentleman
and model pastor he never saw his equal.  Mr. Sweat died at
Sanford, Aug. 30,1822.  He had three sons and two daughters,
all of whom  have deceased since his death.  The Polyglot
Bible is to be found in the library of  Bowdoin College.
                            II.

  [The following was Dr.  Parsons's first medical publication.  It
 was written for the Buffalo Gazette, and appeared in that paper.]
                        Buffalo, Tuesday, January 19,1813.
 Messrs. Editors :—
  TnE last number of your paper contains a request that the
 physicians in this vicinity will make known to the public their
 opinion as to the most successful mode of treating the pre-
 vailing disease ; and  observing a letter in your paper of the
 5th inst., containing the sentiments  of one  of the faculty,
 which in certain essential points may be deemed incorrect, I
 send you this reply.

 Dr. John Boss:—
  While pleased with the judicious introductory remarks of
 your  communication on the disease  which prevails  in this
 section of the country, I am led to disagree with you in the
 propriety of laying aside blood-letting.  Previous to showing
 the utility of this remedy, I must inform you that your failure
 of success, of which you speak, while practising it, proceeded
from your attending too much to the general state of the sys-
 tem, without sufficiently regarding the local affection.  A con-
             6 
62
APPENDIX.
vincing proof of this is, 3-011 altogether mistook the seat of the
disease in considering it to be in the right hypochrondium,
when it is in the thorax, and is nothing more nor less than
pneumonia or pleurisy.
  In confirmation of this, I will venture to say a more ac-
curate description of the disease  now prevailing cannot be
given than the one by Dr. Cullen, in his treatise on pleurisy.
Besides, of more than seventy cases that have fallen under
my care, but little variation in  the  symptoms has been ob-
servable,  except in violence  and duration.  And, that the
seat and  nature of  the  disease might be thoroughly under-
stood, the bodies of six patients, which were nearly all that
died, and these where the  disease first made its appearance,
were  carefully examined.   The following were the appear-
ances in the thorax ;  the lungs highly inflamed, adhered firm-
ly to the pleura, in some places were  so  sphacelated that no
vestige of organic structure remained, and in no place exhib-
ited a healthy appearance.  The  pleura had a livid appear-
ance. The  diaphragm and pericardium  had the same, and
were much thickened.  In no case were the contents of the
right hypochrondium in any degree diseased except that the
superior  surface of  the liver was slightly inflamed, which
might be ascribed to its  contiguity to the diaphragm.  This
state of the thoracic viscera precisely corresponds with that
which medical authors tell us appears in  bodies where death
is produced by pleurisy.  Therefore  your aversion, Sir,  to
blood-letting, singular as it is, can as easily be accounted for,
as your opinion that  the prevailing epidemic (pleurisy) " is
new to the physicians in this part of the world."
  (In attempting the cure of the pleurisy,  " the remedy chiefly
to be relied upon is that of bleeding at the  arm."   With this
I have commenced the treatment of every case that has come
under my care, and have invariably found it relieve the most
distressing complaints.  In some patients, the pulse after the
first bleeding being very low deterred me from repeating the
operation, although the pain and difficult respiration returned.
These cases terminated fatally ; and in reflecting upon them,
I am pained with the belief that, had the  use  of the lancet 
APPENDIX.
63
been repeated as often as the distressing symptoms returned,
the life of every patient might have been saved.  " Sometimes
the second bleeding may be larger than the first.  There are
persons who by  their constitution are ready to faint, even
upon a small bleeding ; and in such persons this may prevent
the drawing so much blood at first as a pneumonic inflammation
might require ; but as the same persons are frequently found
to bear after-bleedings  better than the first,  this allows the
second and subsequent bleedings to be larger.  It is according
to the state of the symptoms, that bleedings are to be repeat-
ed ; and they will be more  effectual, when  practised in the
course of the three first days than afterwards ; but they are
not to be omitted though four days of the disease may have
elapsed."
  Early  in  the disease I have derived  evident advanrage
from the application of blisters directly over the pained part.
Translating a part of the morbid  action of the lungs to the
glandular system, by such medicines as will induce salivation,
has invariably produced a salutary termination of the disor-
der. Eor this purpose I have exhibited calomel and opium
combined in small doses, and applied  mercurial unction ex-
ternally.  Small doses of nitre and tartar-emetic, given several
times in the course of a day, not only act as a gentle laxative,
but tend to promote  perspiration  and  expectoration,  two
symptoms denoting a favorable crisis.
  This  mode of practice, both theory  and experience teach
me to  be the most  rational  and  successful  ; and it  has the
sanction of perhaps every writer on medicine.  You will not
receive these remarks, Sir, as an attack on your professional
character, nor as expressive of a wish  to commence newspa-
per controversy.  I am actuated principally by a desire to re-
move from the minds of my patients any  undue prejudice
against the use of the lancet,  which the publication of your
sentiments may occasion.
                        Very respectfully,
                                 Your obedient servant. 
64
APPENDIX.
                         Ill

ACCOUNT OF  THE  BATTLE  OF LAKE  ERIE, EXTRACTED
              FROM DR. PARSONS'S DIARY.

                        Put-in-bay, Friday, September 10.
  At five o'clock, A.  M., discovered  the  enemy's squadron
bearing North West, wind South West. At seven could see
all the vessels, viz:—two ships, two brigs,  one schooner, and
one sloop.  At ten called all hands  to quarters.  At  quarter
before meridian the enemy commenced the action at one mile
distance.  In half an hour we came within musket shot of the
enemy's new ship Detroit.  At this  time they opened a most
destructive fire on the Lawrence from their whole squadron.
At half past one, so entirely disabled we could work the brig
no longer.  At two P. M., most of the guns were dismounted,
breechings gone  or carriages knocked to pieces.  At half past
two, when not another gun could be worked or fired from the
Lawrence,  Captain Perry hauled  down  the fighting  flag,
which bore  this  motto, Don't  give up the ship, repaired on
board the Niagara, and there raised it again.  In ten minutes
after, we struck to the enemy.  Captain Perry made all sail
with the Niagara, which hitherto had kept out of the action,
and in fifteen minutes passed in among the British squadron,
having the Detroit, Queen Charlotte  and Lady  Prevost on
the starboard  side, and the Hunter on the larboard side, and
silenced them all, and ten  minutes before three they hauled
down their colors.  Two small vessels attempted  to escape,
but being overhauled struck a few minutes after three.
  Killed on board the Lawrence, Lieutenant John  Brooks,
Midshipman Henry  Laub, James  W. Allen, Joseph  Ken-
nady, John C. Kelly, John Smith, William Cranson, Andrew
Michael, John  Hoffman,  Charles  Pohig, Nelson  Peters,
James Jones, John Bose, James Carty, Thomas Butler, Wil-
son May, Christian Mayo, Charles Johnes, Eatheldras Sykes,
and three others; sixty-three wounded.
  Slept but little, and dressed  about  one-third, and secured
with  tourniquets such as bled copiously.   During the action I
cut off six legs in the cockpit,  which were nearly divided by
cannon balls. 
APPENDIX.
65
       EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO HIS FATHER.
                  "Near the head of Lake Erie,    j
                On board the TJ. S. Sloop Lawrence, -
                                 September 22, 1813.    )
  " Before the arrival of this an account of our victorious en-
gagement with the British squadron on this Lake will reach
you.   I can only add a few particulars.  Most of  the action
was supported by this vessel, as you will suppose when in-
formed that out of one hundred and fifty men (our ship's crew).
thirty-one of whom were sick previous to the action, we had
rising eighty killed and wounded, among whom were nearly
all our officers save the intrepid Commodore.  On board all
the others were about thirty killed and wounded. This vessel
was engaged with  the enemy's two ships on  one  side and a
brig astern raking us for two hours, all within musket-shot,
during which we rendered the ships unmanageable, and when
this vessel could not discharge  another gun the Commander
repaired on board the Niagara; and within fifteen minutes af-
ter he  arrived within  close action with them,  the enemy's
three vessels struck.
  Unfortunately for the wounded, the two surgeons had been
confined for several days with fever, and could render them
but little assistance.  It has however operated in my favor, as
I have had all the amputations to perform ; and it  affords me
the greatest pleasure to reflect that in no case have I failed of
the best success.  This has inclined the Commodore's opinion
so much in my favor that I have no doubt he  will  render me
assistance towards obtaining a better situation.   He is the first
warm friend I have met with in the service capable of assist-
ing me.  I am now on my way in the Lawrence for Erie, hav-
ing all the sick and wounded of the squadron on  board, and
shall continue in the hospital with them till they in a measure
recover, and will then direct my course toward Cape Home.
  General  Harrison  was on board the Lawrence this  morn-
ing, and his army was on an island within half a mile of the
vessel.  It is supposed to consist of at least eight hundred reg-
ulars, militia and Indians.  To-morrow they cross to Maiden,
a distance of about eighteen miles.  Since the capture of the
            6* 
66
APPENDIX.
British squadron, the Indians  have evacuated Detroit, after
burning the place, and (as is reported) massacring the inhabit-
ants.  The enemy's squadron mounted more guns than ours,
and carried more men by at least one-fourth.  I  had some
narrow escapes for my life during the action.  Eive cannon
balls passed through the room in which I was attending to the
wounded.  Two of the men I had dressed and laid aside in
the commencement of the action were killed, before it closed,
by other shots.
  I have had very poor health all the cruise, am reduced to a
skeleton, but am recovering.   Never will I cruise  again on
this lake or any other.  The action was fought within about
ten miles of Maiden.  The enemy came out over night for
the purpose of attacking us, and in the morning were within
about fourteen miles of us, the wind in their favor.  We made
sail to meet them, and the wind changed in our favor, which
gave us an advantage over them.  They had more killed and
wounded than  we."
                          IV.

   FROM THE  DIARY OF HIS JOURNEY TO LOUISBURG,
                     AUGUST 1852.

  " Ox our arrival in Sidney we found a boat just down from
Upper or South Sidney some miles up the river;  some pleas-
ant people on board, three ladies.  Dined at a private board-
ing house, and took an open buggy with two horses and dri-
ver.  Left at quarter before three for Louisburg, twenty-six
miles distant.  Bode twelve miles to Miray  Biver, over a very
good road.  We passed not more than ten  or twelve houses
and very poor.  Very  small  portion of the land is cleared;
covered chiefly with fur, spruce, hemlock, hackmatack.  In
some places there is birch, beech, maple,  and abundance of
alder bushes; no oak nor pine.  There is very little granite,
but a sort of coarse  sandstone.  The surface and covering of
the earth resembles the lower part of Maine, and is very 
APPENDIX.
67
rocky most of the way.  Crossed several bridges.  The set-
tlers are mostly Irish  and highland Scotch; very  few New
Englanders.  The cleared land presents stumps of small size
and three to four feet high, the trees being cut in winter when
snow is  three feet deep on  a  level,  and lasts four  or five
months.  Oats, and barley, and some  wheat, and many pota-
to-patches, are along the road.  Land  is  said to be poor, ex-
cepting on the river shores where it is very good.  There is
no good timber-land.  The houses are very poor,  and mostly
log-cabins.
  " Beyond Miray, the land is very poor, rocky and  thinly
settled.  Two or three Scotch families appear to be thrifty,
and have some good cattle.  The  road is little better  than a
cow-path, hilly and stony.  The Biver Miray  runs up some
forty or fifty miles, and is one half to three quarters of  a mile
wide.  The bays make in from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, viz:
Miray and the Main-a-dieu (?), to near the  road we are tra-
velling.
  " We arrived in Louisburg  at eight o'clock, approaching it
from the West, and descending  to the harbor near the royal
battery,  then skirted along the shore southerly,  and then
crossing a bridge went into the old fortifications in a southerly
direction, following near to the shore  from the grand battery
to the west gate which is at the water's edge.
  " We had a letter from  Judge Dodd to Mr. Kennedy, an
Irishman seventy years old, whose one-story neat looking
house outside is  near the water, and between  the  west gate
and  the  Governor's house, the ruins of which remain.   It
stands on a small indentation  of the shore,  and was inclosed
by a chain boom that stretched across from near the west gate
to a point of land projecting out.
  "August 23.  Bose early and  looked out upon  the harbor.
An Irish fisherman living a  few rods east  pointed out the
place of the grand battery in front of us, about four-fifths of a
mile distant and a little on our left.  On  our right  stood the
light-house point, an elevated headland, and on our  right the
island-battery and the Green  battery  farther out.  Bight in
front of us was the N. E. harbor, running two miles, inclining
at the head to the right.  About fifteen or twenty dwellings 
68                    APPENDIX.
of small size skirted the bank that rose  from the water back-
ward, so that the whole harbor or basin seems like the arena
of an immense amphitheatre, the land rising up backward and
mostly cleared for half to three-quarters of a  mile back, and
dotted irregularly  with huts,  and a small  catholic church
stands halfway up  the ascent in a north direction.
  " On the tongue  of land that projects off into the sea as far
as island-battery, the end of which ranges nearly in a line with-
the island-battery and light-house, was  the site of the ancient
fortress.  The line of wall stretched from the west gate in a
south-east direction across the  land to the ocean, and a plan
of it is laid down in maps.  Near the south-east termination
of this ancient wall, and outside of it,  was an immense iron-
stone rock forming a  sort of cliff on the ocean.  From this,
much of the stone was taken to  build the fortification, and a
hundred cartloads,  that had been got out by drilling, lie in piles
near it.  The drill-holes still remain visible; the stone  is dark
and resembles basalt.  It seems to be as imperishable.  Near
the end of the tongue of land was the ancient burying-ground,
and some remains  of the graves are yet visible.  But near the
water was a large battery that  terminated the land, and with-
in it a glacis and trench.
  "We landed from the island battery near this old mound,
and after bathing walked toward the ancient city by the street
that passed the south side of  the hospital.  Passed  another
battery parallel with the  first; and over grass ground, to the
old ruins of the hospital, chapel and nunnery,  the  stones of
which are down almost to a level with the  grass land.   AVe
then passed the site  of the Governor's house, and  last  the
Secretary's, in front  of which were the public civil offices.
The Governor's house stood within  four rods of the water.
Arches that supported it are remaining.  The facing stone of
the public building was a white tufa  or seeming sand-stone.
Many cargoes of the bricks are carried  to Halifax and Sidne}'-,
and also of the facing-stone above mentioned; and many  car-
goes still remain.  On one of the white  facing-stones I noticed
the name, " I. Gridley, 1745," neatly carved or engraved. Isaac
Gridley was chief  engineer under Pepperrell in 1745. 
APPENDIX.
69
  " Many barrels of old iron, as hinges,  spikes,  horse-shoes,
bolts, kettles &c, have been discovered here, and  a barrel
full is now in Mr. Kennedy's store, and he has sold many. He
has broken up and sold a dozen cannon as old iron,  and half
a dozen are lying about the cliff.  The arches in the casemates
were  three  stories high,—the  arch itself making one.  The
timbers supporting the floors were afoot  square, and the ends
of them are  still visible.
                           V.

LIST  OF PUBLICATIONS OF DR.  PARSONS,  FROM MEMO-
             RANDA IN HIS HANDWRITING.

1809.  Pettifogger's Soliloquy,  in  verse ;  Freeman's Friend,
        Saco.
1811.  Book of Chronicles, 2 chapters; Boston Scourge.
1813.  On pleuro-pneumonia, addressed to Dr. John Boss;
        Buffalo Gazette.
1818.  Gunshot wounds through the Thorax; New England
        Journal of Medicine and Surgery.
1818.  Surgical account of the  Naval  Battle on Lake Erie;
        New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery.
1819.  Letter to Hon.  John Holmes, from Isle of Wight;
        Eastern Argus.
1820.  Sailor's Physician, 1 vol. 8 vo.; Cambridge.
1824.  Physician for Ships, a  2d edition of the above, with
        additions, (2000 copies.)
1,^24.  Poison of Battle-snake cured by whiskey;  Philadelphia
        Medical Recorder.
1820.  Epilepsy cured by galvanism; Xew England Journal
        of Medicine anel Surgery.
1826.  Introductory Lecture on Anatomy and Physiology;
        Brown University.
1S27.  Bovlston Prize Dissertation on Periostitis. 
70
APPENDIX.
 1827.  On Introduction of medicines into  the veins; Phila-
         delphia Medical Recorder.
 1829.  Beview of Allen's  Mechanics; American Journal of
         Science.
 1829.  Boylston  Prize Dissertation  on Eneurcsis Irritata;
         Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
 1829.  Case of poisoning  by  tartar-emetic; Boston  Medical
         and Surgical Journal.
 1830.  Boylston Prize  Dissertation on Cutaneous Diseases,
         &c;  Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
 1830.  On Animal and Vegetable  Decomposition  as a cause
         of fever.  lb.
 1830.  Discussion on  the  above, with Dr. James Jackson of
         Boston,   lb.
 1831.  Address on Temperance, Providence.
 1831.  Art of making Anatomical  Preparations; 1 vol. 8 vo.,
         Philadelphia.
 1832.  Beview of Allen's "Practical Tourist;"  American
         Journal  of Science.
 1833.  Bemarks on Phrenology; Literary Journal, Providence.
 1834.  Biography of Dr. Solomon Drowne;  Literary Journal,
         Providence.
 1835.  Boylston Prize Dissertation on Cancer of the Breast;
         Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
1836.  On Quarantines; United States Naval Lyceum.
 1838.  Genealogy of the family of Joseph Parsons.
1839.  Boylston Prize Dissertations, 1 vol. 8vo., with a history
         of the fund and a notice of its founder.
 1840.  Brief account of Early Physicians and Medical Society
         of Bhode Island;  American  Quarterly Register.
1840.  Lecture on connection and reciprocal  influence be-
         tween Brain and Stomach,  before  American Insti-
         tute of Instruction, Providence.
1840.  The Avenger of Blood;  Knickerbocker Magazine.
1842.  Notice  of Dr. Jeremiah Williams; Boston  Medical and
         Surgical Journal.
1842.  Eiske Eund Prize Dissertation on Spinal Diseases.
1842.  Physician for Ships; 3d edition, with new notes, &c. 
APPENDIX.
71
1843.   Notice of Dr. Niles Manchester; Boston  Medical and
         Surgical Journal.
1848.   Statistics of large Surgical operations; American Jour-
         nal of Medical Sciences.
1849.   Memoir of Charles Frost;  New  England  Historiced
         and Genealogical Register.
1849.   Report of Committee on Adulteration of Drugs; Trans-
         actions of American Medical Association.
1850.   Report of Committee on Medical Sciences; Transac-
         tions of American Medical Association.
1850.   Article on prohibition of flogging in the Navy; Sun-
         day Dispatch.
1851.  Physician for Ships: 4th edition.
1851.   Report of case of removal of uterus, by ligature; Bos-
         ton Medical and Surgical Journal.
1852.   Discourse on the Battle of  Lake Erie, delivered be-
         fore the Bhode Island Historical Society.
1853.   Genealogy of the Frost family, of York county, Maine.
1854.   Address before American Medical Association, at St.
         Louis.
1855.   Life  of Sir William Pepperrell, Bart., the only native
         of New England who  was created a Baronet during
         its connection  with the mother country; Boston;
         (London, 1856.)
1858.   Address on the Battle of Lake Erie; delivered  at Put-
         in-Bay Island.
1858.   Notice of Descendants of Peter Hill of York county,
         Maine; New  England Historical and  Genealogical
         Register.
1859.   Sketches of Bhode Island Physicians deceased prior to
         1850,  &c; Transactions of Rhode Island  Medical
       Society.
1860.   Notices of Dr. Walter Y. Wheaton and  Judge Hali-
         burton; Providence Journal.
1860.   Address on Battle of Lake  Erie;  delivered at Cleve-
         land, Ohio.
1860.   On the importance of culture of Flax;  Transactions of
         Rhode Island Society for Encouragement of Domestic
        Industry. 
72                     APPENDIX.

1861.  Indian Names of Places in Bhode Island.
1861.  Letter on some points of Military Surgery;  Transac-
         tions of Rhode  Island Medical Society.
1862.  Brief Sketches of the officers who were in the Battle
         of Lake Erie; New England Historical and Genealog-
         ical Register.
1863.  Lecture on Indian Relics; Historical Magazine.
1863.  Letter to Mr. George Livermore, on services rendered
         by  negroes in the war of  1812 ;  Proceedings of
         Massachusetts Historical Society.
1867.  Physician for Ships;  5th edition.

  [This list includes all his known published writings, except some
newspaper articles and brief contributions to medical journals.] 
 
 
 
 
 
NATIONAL LIBRARY
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