Josiah Locke Phillips Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1516-1517 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	JOSIAH LOCKE PHILLIPS, M. D., was born in the picturesque old town 
of Farmington, Maine, on the 8th of June, 1835, and his death occurred 
in Sioux Falls South Dakota, on the 12th of June 1882. His father, Dr. 
Alan Phillips, was born at Greene. Maine, on the 29th of June, 1798, and 
died at Dubuque, Iowa, on the 8th of October, 1878 having been one of 
the early settlers in the Hawkeye state. He prepared for college under 
the preceptorship of Dr. Holland of Canton. Maine, and was graduated in 
the medical department of Bowdoin College as a member of the class of 
1822, after which he was engaged in the practice of his profession in 
Strong, that state where he remained until 1829 when he removed to 
Farmington, where he continued his professional labors until the time of 
his removal to Iowa, where he passed the remainder of his life. The 
family name has been identified prominently with the medical profession 
for a number of generations, and records extant show that the family was 
founded in America in the early colonial epoch of our national history. 
The genealogy is traced in a direct way to Richard Phillips, who was 
married, at Pembroke, Massachusetts, on the 9th of October, 1746, to 
Miss Ruth Bonney. In 1777 they removed to Turner, Androscoggin county 
Maine. Richard Phillips served in defense of Boston in 1775, and his son 
Ichabod, grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was also a soldier 
in the Continental line in the war of the Revolution. Ichabod Phillips 
was born in Pembroke, Massachusetts, on the 11th of April, 1765, and his 
death occurred October 13, 1830. In Hanover, Massachusetts, in July, 
1798, he was united in marriage to Mary Bailey, who was born in that 
place, on the 15th of March, 1763, and whose death there occurred on the 
1st of August, 1815. Annie (Croswell) Phillips, the mother of the 
subject of this sketch, was born at Falmouth, Massachusetts, on the 23d 
of August, 1795, and she died at Farmington, Maine, June 27, 1875. 

	Dr. Josiah L. Phillips was reared in his native state, and after 
duly availing himself of the advantages afforded in the common schools, 
he entered Bowdoin College, in 1852, and there continued his studies for 
two years, at the expiration of which he was matriculated in Rush 
Medical College in the city of Chicago, Illinois, w here he was 
graduated as a member of the class of 1856, being one of the early 
graduates of this celebrated institution. He engaged in the active 
practice of his profession at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he 
remained one year, and he then removed to Iowa, being established in 
practice in the city of Dubuque at the time when the Western Town 
Company sent out a party to locate a town at the falls of the Big Sioux 
river in the territory of Dakota. He became a member of this party and 
arrived in what is now the city of Sioux Falls on the 27th of August. 
1857. He thus became one of the first settlers of the new town, and here 
continued his residence until 1861, within which time he served as 
justice of the peace, under appointment by the governor of Minnesota, 
who had jurisdiction in Dakota. In the year last mentioned Dr. Phillips 
returned to Dubuque, Iowa, and enlisted in the Sixteenth Iowa Volunteer 
Infantry, which was organized in Davenport, being commanded by Colonel 
Alexander Chambers. The original surgeon of the regiment was Dr. J. H. 
Camburn, and Dr. Phillips became assistant surgeon at the time of the 
organization of the regiment, while later he was promoted to the office 
of surgeon. Proceeding with his regiment to the front, he continued in 
active service until the close of the great Civil war, making an 
enviable record and attaining to the rank of major. After victory had 
crowned the Union arms he received his honorable discharge and then 
returned to Dubuque, Iowa, being thereafter engaged in the practice of 
his profession in East Dubuque until 1869, when he came again to Sioux 
Falls, where his family joined him in June of the following year. He 
gained a strong hold upon popular confidence and esteem and built up a 
large and representative practice, being one of the pioneer physicians 
of the state and ever maintaining high professional rank and prestige. 
He continued in active practice here until the close of his life, while 
as a citizen he was ever loyal, progressive and public-spirited. He was 
a man of noble attributes of character and won to himself the friendship 
of all with whom he came in contact, while his name merits an enduring 
place upon the list of those strong and earnest characters who were the 
founders of the great and prosperous commonwealth of South Dakota. In 
politics he was ever a staunch Republican. 

	On the 1st of July, 1867, at Houston, Texas, Dr. Phillips was 
united in marriage to Miss Harriet C. Daggett, who was there engaged in 
philanthropic work, as a teacher in a school for negroes. Mrs. Phillips 
survives her honored husband and still retains her home in Sioux Falls, 
where she is held in affectionate regard by all who know her and have 
come within the sphere of her gracious influence. Of the children of 
this union we here enter the names, with respective dates of birth: 
Annie C., June 5, 1868: Abbie I., February 23, 1871; Alice C., August 
10, 1873; Flora C., September 30, 1875: Charles A., September 21, 1877: 
Rossie C., February 24, 1880. and Josie L., January 26, 1883.