Napa-Solano County CA Archives Biographies.....Pond, Milo Bushnell 1836 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 19, 2005, 1:27 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

MILO BUSHNELL POND, M. D., has been a resident of California since 1853, and of
Napa for the past twenty-three years, during which latter time he has been
constantly engaged in the practice of the medical profession. His parents were
A. R. and F. M. (Bushnell) Pond, natives of Vermont, and descended from the
original Puritan stock. They had settled in Dearborn County, Indiana, where the
subject of this sketch was born in 1836, but afterward went to Illinois, and
later still to the county-seat of Grant County, Wisconsin, where the father
engaged in farming in that frontier settlement, then in the very vanguard of
civilization, the son bearing his share of its labors, and attending the public
schools of the town. At one of the occasional school exhibitions, the teacher
introduced a spelling-bee on a small scale as one of the attactions, where young
Pond spelled down the school. Among those present were Allen Barber, District
Attorney for the county, and Judge Nelson Dewey; and when volunteers were called
for to defeat the champion, they accepted the challenge. Elevating the boy, then
only six years old, upon a barrel, the contests were renewed. Each one who
failed to spell his word correctly being forced to take his seat, young Master
Pond was again the only one left standing! Frightened by the cheers that arose,
he fell off the barrel, and was at last "knocked out" by the applause that
followed his victory!

  In 1849, during the excitement following the gold discovery, his father
crossed the plains to California, meeting with the varied experiences common to
those who piloted the prairie schooners of that day over the almost trackless
desert. Following the usual variety of employments, he first engaged in mining,
then ran a freight boat on the Sacramento River, then back to the mines, and
finally settled in Vaca Valley, Solano County, on a farm. Meanwhile the family,
in 1853, fitted themselves out with ox teams,—one driven by the subject of this
sketch and the other by his eldest brother, Jared James,—and started to cross
the plains to join the father in his California home. Arriving safely, and
bringing through with them the same teams with which they left the States, in
spite of the hardships of the journey and the attempts of the Indians to runoff
their stock, the happily united family settled down upon the farm in Solano County.

  Here he invested in two scholarships of the Ulatis Academy, organized and
managed by James W. Anderson, the present superintendent of schools in San
Francisco, where he received the balance of his English education, alternately
attending school and assisting his father upon the farm, mastering Davies'
elementary algebra while resting his team at the plow. Leaving the academy he
taught school at Fairfield for one year, at the same time holding an appointment
as one of the County Board of Education, which position he retained for three
years. While teaching, he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr.
Stillman Holmes, then and for some years afterward practicing at Vacaville.
Beginning with 1862, he attended two courses of medical lectures in the
University of the Pacific, at San Francisco, after the first course being
appointed apothecary at the city and county hospital, retaining this position
until 1865, and continuing as assistant physician in the same institution for a
year after his graduation. The medical department of the university having
temporarily suspended operations, and the Toland Medical School, now the medical
department of the University of California, opening in 1864, Dr. Pond attended
his third course of lectures there, passing his examination in March, 1865, and
receiving his diploma as a physician and surgeon. In 1870, the University of the
Pacific, having re-organized its medical department, and being about to hold its
first commencement, invited Dr. Pond to an examination and participation in the
exercises as one of their students, where, after passing the usual examinations,
he was awarded an ad-eundum degree from this institution.

  In 1866 he removed to Napa, where he has since devoted himself to his
extensive practice as a physician. To Dr. Pond is really due the invention of
the split tracheotomy tube, which enables the operator to explore the trachea
for the purpose of cleansing the throat in cases of membranous croup, or
removing the membrane or foreign bodies that may accidentally lodge in that
passage. The occasion of this invention was its necessity in the case of a child
two years old under the Doctor's care, who had drawn a watermelon seed into its
windpipe. By means of this instrument the operator can dilate the opening so as
to look down into the windpipe or upwards into the larnyx, can use a sponge to
cleanse, or a forceps to withdraw any foreign body, and all under the direction
of the eye. Dr. Pond presented this invention to the medical society in 1873,
with a description of the operation, which was published in the transactions of
that body, illustrated with an engraving. At the same time he presented an
instrument he had designed for the introduction of sutures in operations in case
of cleft palate and vesico-vaginal fistula. This was a double-curved needle,
with an eye in the point, by means of which sutures were introduced with much
greater facility in these difficult operations than with those needles in common
use by the profession. A cut and description of this needle was also published
in the same volume of the transactions of the society.

  Some years ago the State Legislature passed an act authorizing the Governor to
appoint a commission for the purpose of selecting a site for a sanitarium for
the treatment of consumption. This commission examined every situation of
promise in the State; three of them, Drs. Logan, Gibbon and Hatch (since
deceased) visited Napa, and, with Dr. Pond investigating the different points in
this county, finally confined their endorsment to two of them, Mount Veeder and
Atlas Peak. More favorably impressed with the latter from the probable dryness
of its atmosphere on account of its great elevation, they still felt that this
advantage might be offset by the presence of the fir timber on Mount Veeder.
Nothing has ever been done by the State toward establishing the sanitarium; but,
feeling the necessity and the advantage to California of such an institution,
and its great value to those needing a dry, equable and bracing atmosphere and
healthful surroundings, Dr. Pond has since acquired 225 acres, comprising the
choice part of this mountain tract, retaining the beautiful groves of firs,
redwoods, madronas and other fine trees, and clearing off the open space for
orchards, vineyards, gardens and buildings. Here, besides the largest Japanese
persimmon orchard in the northern part of the State, he has a fine growth of
olives, prunes, apricots, peaches and vines, most of them being now in their
first bearing, in all about thirty acres. He will have this year about four tons
of French prunes, 5,000 gallons of finest grades of wine, and other fruits in
proportion. When the natural beauties and advantages of this tract have been
sufficiently developed and the conditions are favorable, Dr. Pond proposes to
erect an institution on Monta Verda (Green Mountain) which shall be a credit and
a blessing to the State.

  This busy physician is a member of the United States, State and County Medical
Societies, secretary respectively of the City and County Boards of Health, and
corresponding member of the State Board of Health for Napa County. He was
largely instrumental in establishing the County Hospital, and was for many years
County Physician, until at last he succeeded in turning over the
responsibilities of that position to one of his own students. He is a member of
the Masonic order. Dr. Pond was secretary of the first Union League Club
organized in Suisun, Solano County, California, on the evening following the
bombardment of Fort Sumter, and has been a progressive Republican ever since.

  The Doctor was married in 1866, to Miss Josephine E. Everts, daughter of Dr.
T. C. and Maria (Holland) Everts, who came to California from Indiana in 1856.
They have one son, Paul E. Pond, now an attendant of the Napa College.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.


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