Lake County IN Archives History - Books .....Chapter III Memorial Sketches Of Early Settlers - Physicians 1904 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 21, 2006, 1:32 am Book Title: Encyclopedia Of Genealogy And Biography Of Lake County, Indiana Physicians. Doctor and Judge H. D. Palmer has been named as the first or earliest physician of the county who had graduated from a medical college. There was one, perhaps quite as early, but who probably had no diploma, who administered medicine to the sick in what is now Hanover township, who was also a good deer hunter, Dr. JOSEPH GREENE. As a physician in treating the ague, called sometimes malarial fever, he was quite successful. His brother, Sylvester, also practiced. The next early physician was Dr. JAMES A. WOOD. His home was at first in Porter county, but his rides often extended into Lake. He rode a very fine-looking Indian or French pony, thick set, with a heavy mane, sagacious, hardy, an animal to delight a frontier boy, and one day he was near the Cady Marsh and a patient needing a physician on the other side. Dr. Wood had been told that no white man had ever ridden across. It was implied that an Indian had. Time was precious. He concluded that if an Indian had crossed he could. He ventured and succeeded. A wagon road crosses now. Dr. Wood soon removed from Porter county to the east side of Cedar Lake. He had an extensive practice. With J. V. Johns, Amsi L. Ball, and John Sykes, he was appointed a committee to make a report on the Michigan Central road when at its opening a free ride was given from Lake Station to Michigan City. From him, without much doubt the date of that event has been given as 1850; but it probably really was 1851. After several years Dr. Wood removed to Lowell. He was for eighteen months Regimental Surgeon in the Twelfth Indiana Cavalry. He had in Lake county a long practice. He was an excellent singer, a very pleasant, kind friend. DR. S. B. YEOMAN is one other physician to be named at Lowell, a good physician, an excellent man, who died in January, 1865. Among the physicians at Crown Point one of the earliest was DR. FARRINGTON (W. C. or W. F.), from 1840 to 1856. He had quite an extensive ride, and was planning as an enterprising man quite an improvement to Crown Point as then it was when death broke up all his plans. His proper successor was DR. A. J. PRATT, who came as a young practitioner in 1854. After some time he married Mrs. Farrington, who had two children, a son and a daughter. The children were not vigorous and in young manhood and womanhood they passed away, and the mother also passed out from this life, leaving Dr. Pratt with the then lonesome, lonely home. He at length again married, and three daughters, one after another, came into the home. The children grew into womanhood, and one is the Wife of Dr. George D. Brannon. Dr. Pratt for many years had a large practice. Accumulations increased. He became a member of the Presbyterian church, he was very kindly in his ministrations in the rooms of sickness, he had brought relief to many through his knowledge of the healing art, but in November, 1893, soon after the close of the great Columbian Exposition, his own time came to die. For nearly forty years he had been one of the principal physicians of the county and had done much good. He was born in 1825. Older than he as a resident physician was DR. HARVEY PETTIBONE, whose date of location at Crown Point is 1847. He was in the medical line. His father was a physician before him and his son after him. The Pettibone family came from the East, the father and three sons, Dr. Harvey, D. K., and William Pettibone, all for many years inhabitants of Crown Point. Dr. Pettibone married Mrs. H. S. Pelton and entered amid favorable circumstances upon a long and successful course of medical practice. He entered into political life once, sufficiently long to represent Lake county in the State Legislature. Years, 1882-1884. He was born in Naples, New York, November 28, 1821, he commenced the practice of medicine there about 1842, and his life ended here August 19, 1898, when he was nearly seventy-seven years of age, having been a physician for fifty-five years. DR. HENRY PETTIBONE, a son of Dr. Harvey Pettibone, may, like Charles F. Griffin, be properly mentioned after his father. He was born in Crown Point May 31, 1850, was a student with Henry Johnson at the Crown Point Institute, went with him to Hanover College, Indiana, graduated there in the scientific course, returned to Crown Point, studied medicine, secured quite a large practice, his father gradually retiring, married Miss M. Sauerman, and died very unexpectedly at a hospital in Chicago, June 26, 1902. He has two sisters, both living, and two daughters. DR. JOHN HIGGINS is the third of the physicians of Crown Point who were associated together for so many years. He was born in Perry, New York, May 29, 1822. He was a descendant of Pilgrims and Puritans, between whom some persons make no distinction. His Pilgrim ancestor was Richard Higgins, who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1621. His Puritan ancestor was Simon Sackett, who came to the Boston Colony in 1632. His father was David Higgins and his mother in her girlhood was Eunice Sackett from which family was named Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario. Graduating at an Indiana Medical college in 1846, Dr. Higgins was married in 1847 to Miss Diantha Tremper, a member of a Lake county family of early settlers. Dr. Higgins did not enter fully upon practice in Crown Point till 1859. In 1861 he entered the Union Army as a physician and surgeon, did much hospital work, became an expert surgeon, and resumed practice at Crown Point in 1865. Like his two contemporaries his practice extended over considerable territory, and having a good start financially, like them he continued to accumulate. One daughter came to his home, and as the years passed on a "son-in-law came, a young lawyer, J. W. Youche, and in the course of time a grandson came, and then for a few years the domestic happiness seemed complete. The young lawyer rose rapidly in his profession, became a State Senator, a large dwelling house was erected, the Higgins-Youche mansion, and made a home of elegance without and within, and the grandson soon became an intelligent, promising youth. Dr. Higgins was growing aged. He retired from practice. He rode very much in his buggy, having some fine horses, but not to visit patients. Sometimes one member of the family would be with him, sometimes another. But changes come to all. They came to him. In November, 1895, the wife who had been with him for forty-eight years passed away from earth. In January, 1901, the son-in-law, Hon. J. W. Youche, still in the prime of manhood, was cut down by the sharp sickle of death. And in the early morning of April 7, 1904, when nearly eighty-two years of age. Dr. Higgins' own time came to die. The three had all been respected and honored as men and as physicians, and all had met with financial success. Before leaving this record and these memorials of early physicians two more names are placed on this page. One is the name of W. E. VILMER, a German, whose dates of residence are from 1853 to 1861. Dr. Vilmer married a daughter of Mr. Lewis Herlitz, of Cedar Lake. His school of medicine was different from the others who have been named. His professional life was short. He fixed up a pleasant home and left in it, when he went from earth, besides his wife, two sons and one daughter. The other name is that of Dr. M. G. BLISS, coming here as a retired physician, opening and carrying on for some little time a drug store which was at length destroyed by fire, causing to him a great loss, and then taking a new course of lectures in Chicago, opening an office and acquiring considerable practice as a physician of the Eclectic school. He had nothing on which to start and, unlike the others, he did not, he could not, accumulate; but he was for some thirty years here a kind, good-hearted, successful physician, a very pleasant, kindly man, and a school Trustee for many years. He has in Crown Point two sons and two daughters. Additional Comments: Extracted from: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Genealogy and Biography OF LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA, WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 1834—1904 A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. REV. T. H. BALL OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO NEW YORK THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1904 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/history/1904/encyclop/chapteri372gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 9.0 Kb