ABRAM R. CALKINS, Allegan Village, Allegan Co., Michigan

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History of Allegan and Barry Counties, Michigan, with Illustrations and 
Biographical Sketches of their Prominent Men and Pioneers.
Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co.  1880.  Press of J. B. Lippincott & 
Co., Philadelphia.

Abram R. Calkins was born in Malta, Saratoga Co., N. Y., May 19, 1822, 
and died in Allegan, Mich., March 17, 1873.  In 1833 he removed with 
his father to Richland, Kalamazoo Co., Mich.  At this place his father 
died in 1837.  He then entered the family of his older brother, 
Chauncey W. Calkins, and continued his literary studies.  At the age of 
nineteen he began the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Coats & 
Bigelow, of Otsego, Mich., and graduated from the Geneva Medical 
College, N. Y., in 1845.  Soon after, he opened an office in Allegan, 
where he was married, in November of that year, to Miss Lucy Maria 
Winslow, who was the mother of his two sons, the younger of whom, Dr. 
Fred M. Calkins, follows his father's profession in the same place.  
For nearly thirty years Dr. Calkins practiced medicine in Allegan, 
often fording streams and following an indian trail through the forest 
to the rude home of the pioneer.  Ambitious to succeed in his 
profession, full of energy and vigor, daunted by no difficulty, 
deterred by no obstacle, he became skillfull both as a physician and 
surgeon.
  Sympathetic and kindly in his nature, he was ever a welcome visitor 
at the bedside of suffering humanity.  He displayed an active interest 
in every work that promised, in his opinion, the elevation and welfare 
of mankind, and helpful in every society of which he became a member.  
To the church he gave his presence, his counsel, and his means.  In the 
school board he labored for the physical and moral as well as the 
intellectual advancement of the young.  To the society of Freemasons he 
was a valued acquisition.  In politics he was a Republcan, positive and 
firm in his opinions.
  He entered the army in 1862, and was appointed surgeon of the 
Seventeenth Michigan Infantry; participated in the battles of South 
Mountain and Antietam.  He served in the army for a year, when the 
severe sickness of his wife induced him to resign his position.  She 
died before his return.  At the time of his death he was a member of 
the County and State Medical Societies, and also of the American 
Medical Society, having been sent by the State Society as a delegate to 
that body at its meeting in Philadelphia in 1872.  Dr. Calkins was 
thrice married, the second time in June, 1855, to Miss Helen G. 
Bingham, and again in April, 1863 to Mrs. Lottie S. Smith, who survives 
him.
  Although Dr. Calkins died at the age of fifty-one, he lived to see 
the comparative wilderness amid which he began his life-work bud and 
blossom as the rose, the streams substantially bridged, the Indian 
trails succeeded by good roads, and the log dwellings replaced by 
attractive farm-houses.
  Full of generous impulses, courteous, genial, and social, he was 
prized while here and mourned when gone.  Active and busy to the last, 
his life was another sacrifice to the profession which, when once 
adopted, leaves a man no longer his own master.  An affectionate 
husband, a watchful, indulgent, and loving parent, an obliging friend, 
and an upright citizen, it is well to cherish his memory.