Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Jewett, John R. 1897
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Sandy Heintzelman sheintz@iserv.net July 15, 2011, 12:21 pm

Ionia Standard, 22 Oct 1897

On Tuesday, October 12, 1897, one of Lyons’ earliest pioneers, and its first 
resident physician, died at his home in the village, after a protracted illness 
of some months.  In the death of this interesting character, the last of the 
original settlers has passed away.  A full history of Dr. Jewett’s life would 
be largely a history of Lyons, as he has been identified with the place sixty-
five years, and a practicing physician continuously since 1837, when as a fresh 
graduate of the medical academy at Ann Arbor, he opened an office adjacent to 
the log cabin of Wm. Hunt.  Although he had studied both the allopathic and  
homeopathic methods of practice, he enthusiastically adopted the latter, while 
his rival, Dr. W.Z. Blanchard, who located here a year later, was equally 
strong in the allopathic faith.

At the age of twenty-three Dr. Jewett made his first visit to the Grand river 
valley, in 1832 making his trip by canoe, down the Grand, from Ann Arbor, in 
company with Samuel Dexter, who was looking up a land location for his Herkimer 
colony.  Their first night was spent with the Indians at their village of 
Sawmic, near where Asa Bunnell located in 1884 – a mile up the fiver from 
Lyons.  At this place two adventurers, Hunt and Belcher, had erected a small 
cabin, and with them young Jewett made his home.  The only means of reaching 
this section then was by Indian trails and canoes.  The principal business was 
trafficing with the Indians, receiving from them furs, skins, etc., in exchange 
for blankets, guns, whiskey and trinkets.  Two or three years previous to 1821, 
an Indian trading post had been established a mile down the river near the 
junction of the Grand and Maple, by Louis Genereau, a Frenchman.

Such was the situation when first viewed by the young doctor.  Not having 
completed his medical studies, he returned to Ann Arbor, and after graduating, 
located permanently in the little settlement by this time known as Lyons, and 
where, during his sixty years of continuous residence, he has seen a howling 
wilderness transformed into one of the most beautiful villages of Michigan.

He was a native of Saybrook, Conn., born in 1809, removed with his parents to 
Ohio, where by diligence as a student he was enabled at the age of twenty to 
enter the old Medical Academy at Ann Arbor.  He was married in 1847 to Mary A. 
Snyder, and in due time three bright children blessed their home, two sons and 
a daughter.  The sons grew to manhood, were unusually promising, and were a 
great source of comfort to the parents, but both, as well as the daughter, died 
comparatively young.  The wife and mother soon followed, leaving the doctor the 
sole survivor of the once happy family.

In personal appearance he was quite prepossessing.  In habit a diligent reader 
and student, and possessing a retentive memory, he was enabled to converse 
understandingly upon almost any subject.

Almost at the beginning of modern Spiritualism he accepted that doctrine, and 
has ever since been a firm believer in and an advocate of that faith.

For some time past, pressed with the weight of years and a sense of his lonely 
condition, he has often declared life had no longer any charms for him, and he 
was anxious to cross the dark river where he felt his loved ones awaited him.  
In his last sickness he refused medical aid and nourishment, having no desire 
to live.

The funeral was largely attended at his residence, a large percentage being old 
and grey headed people, who had known him nearly all their lives.  Mrs. Dunham, 
a spiritualistic medium conducted the funeral services, and all that was mortal 
was laid to rest in the Lyons cemetery.

At the burial of Dr. Jewett, the Spiritualistic medium, who conducted the 
services, informed those present that the doctor, through her, would himself 
address them, giving assurance of his having reached the better land, of his 
present happiness, etc., concluding by thanking his friends for their kindness 
to him while in the flesh.  Some who heard her thought that the good doctor 
showed a sad falling off in the use of good English, since his passage to the 
other side.


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