Genesee County MI Archives Biographies.....Fairbank, Henry C. 1824 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 24, 2007, 2:43 am

Author: Chapman Bros. (1892)

HENRY C. FAIRBANK, M. D., the oldest physician now residing in Genesee County,
and a prominent citizen of Flint, is also notable as being one of the old
Abolitionists, taking rank with the workers the party as far back as 1843. The
Fairbank family came from Wales in 1632 and settled in Dedham, Mass., and a
house built by those progenitors in 1635 still stands and is occupied by a
descendant. The original and Welsh spelling of the name is Ffarbanchs.

  Since 1846 Dr. Fairbank has been in medical practice in this county, first in
Fenton, then for sixteen years in Grand Blanc, with one year meanwhile in Flint,
and returned to this city in 1804. He was born in Rose, Wayne County, N. Y.,
December 20, 1824. The father, Zenas, was born in Walpole, N. H., and the
grandfather, Capt. Ebenezer, took part in the Revolutionary War, and died in
Eastern New York.

  The father of our subject, who was likewise a practicing physician, began the
pursuit of his profession in Wayne County, N. Y., in 1835, and the following
winter came to Michigan and spent the first season near Ann Arbor, locating the
following spring in Genesee County, where he took up forty acres of new land in
Fenton Township, and also started a grocery store in the village of Linden,
besides carrying on his profession. He was prominent in the township in public
movements and also in the Free Will Baptist Church to which he belonged and he
died in Linden in 1851 at the age of sixty-one. He was one of the organizers of
the township of Argentine.

  Lucy Wade was the maiden name of the mother of our subject and she was born in
Connecticut, a daughter of Dudley Wade. She died in Linden in October, 1855,
leaving eight children. The eldest daughter, Mary F., is now Mrs. Lamb, and is
living on the place where she first settled in Linden in 1835; Lafayette, the
eldest son, a farmer in Linden, lost his only son by death in Andersonville
Prison; Frances C., deceased; our subject and Jerome Z. are next in order of
age, and the son who follows them is Judge James R. Fairbank, who enlisted in
the fall of 1861 in the Thirteenth Michigan Infantry, and after the war went
West to Lincoln, Neb., of which city he was afterward acting Mayor, and is now
Judge of the County Court in Valley County, Neb. The two younger children are
William M., deceased, and Lucy C., Mrs. Dr. H. P. Seymore of Ann Arbor.

  In the fall of 1835 our subject came to Michigan and the following spring
settled in Linden, where he assisted his father to build a log house and helped
to clear the land. He studied medicine at home with his father after attending
the Linden School and after that was under the preceptorship of Dr. J. C. Gallup
of Fenton for two years teaching school in the meanwhile to help himself along.
In the fall of 1846 he entered the University of Willoughby, Ohio, and the
following year began his course in the medical department of the Western Reserve
University at Cleveland, graduating therefrom in 1848 with the degree of Doctor
of Medicine. During the long period of his country practice he forded and waded
streams and journeyed many long miles on foot and on horseback and completely
wore out a pair of saddlebags.

  In the summer of 1864 an urgent call came for volunteer surgeons to be sent to
the front of the army, and Dr. Fairbank at once responded, going first to the
National Capital, then to City Point, Va., remaining on duty in the field
hospitals for twenty days, the length of time for which their services were
demanded. He then came back to Grand Blanc, but in the following November
located in Flint. He has been County Physician for three years and health
officer for two terms.

  Dr. Fairbank was, in 1849, united in marriage at Long Lake with Miss Harriet
J. Waterman, a native of Binghampton, N. Y. Their eldest son, Henry W., who
graduated at the University of Michigan with the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and
Master of Arts, is now writing and publishing music in connection with the house
of Bradbury & Co., of Chicago. The eldest daughter, Carrie E., now deceased, was
Mrs. E. C. Green of Lapeer, while the youngest daughter, Jennie M., who
afterward married Mr. Green, also died as did her sister, of consumption. The
second marriage of our subject took place in Detroit and united him with Miss
Mary A. Rice, who was born in New York State, and is a daughter of the late
Judge Samuel Rice of Grand Blanc Township, the first Judge of the Probate Court
of this county. She is a graduate of the Ypsilanti Normal School and for
fourteen years had charge of the department of English literature in that
institution.

  He of whom we write is a member of the Flint Academy of Medicine in which he
has served as President. He helped to organize the State Medical Association in
its original form and belongs to the present organization and is also identified
with the American Medical Association. For over twenty-five years he has been an
official member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and is now Chairman of its
official board. He is a Republican in his political views and in the early days
was often a delegate to State conventions of the Anti-Slavery party of the State.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

Portrait and Biographical Record of Genesee, Lapeer and Tuscola Counties,
Michigan, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens, Together with Biographies of all the Governors of the State, and of
the Presidents of the United States

Chicago:
Chapman Bros.
1892

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