Erastus J. Buck Biography - Grant County Wisconsin ***************************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ***************************************************************************** Submitted by David W. Taft, dtaft@cowtown.net Source: The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery Eminent and Self-Made Men, Wisconsin Volume American Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Cincinnati and New York Published 1877 Page 656-7 ERASTUS J. BUCK, M.D., PLATTEVILLE DR. BUCK is a native of Heath, Franklin county, Massachusetts, and was born September 5, 1828. He is a son of Erastus and Roxanna (Baldwin) Buck. He received an academic education at Nunda, Livingston county, New York' red medicine with Dr. John Turner, of the same place, and attended lectures at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where he graduated in March, 1854. He commenced practice at Towlesville, Steuben county, New York; immigrated to Wisconsin in the autumn of 1856, and located at Westfield, Marquette county, where he practiced until the rebellion commenced. Dr. Buck enlisted as a private in the summer of 1861; was immediately commissioned as first lieutenant of the Marquette sharp-shooters, a company which went into the 7th Regiment of Infantry, but the Doctor did not leave the State as a soldier. In January, 1862, he was appointed first assistant surgeon of the 18th Wisconsin; became surgeon the next September, and was with the regiment through the battles of Shiloh and Corinth, and the capture of Vicksburg, thence to the close of the war. Though among the younger class of surgeons, Dr. Buck occupied an honorable position among those of his profession. He was placed on the medical board of operators, a body which determined what operations should be performed, and (as the writer happens to know) performed himself several capital operations, such as the resection of the shoulder and elbow, operations requiring much skill, and in which he was uniformly successful. He was considered one of the best surgeons in the division, and it is not likely his skill was overestimated. On returning from the South in 1865 Dr. Buck located at Platteville, where he has found his army experience of great service to him. During the last twelve years, while doing a general practice, and making a specialty of nothing, he has had many surgical cases, such as strangulated hernia, fistula and chronic ulcers, and a few of them quite difficult, treating them with marked success. He is United States examining surgeon, and has been for several years. In politics Dr. Buck is a republican, but ranks everything secondary to his profession. In 1861, just before going into the army, he yielded to the urgent request of his political friends so far as to serve them a single term in the legislature, he representing Marquette and part of Green Lake counties, and acting on the committee on medical science and medical colleges. Dr. Buck is a firm believer in the general doctrines of Christianity, with a leaning toward the Presbyterian creed. Miss Sarah E. Trask, of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, became his wife September 5, 1866, and they have four children. Dr. Buck had a hard struggle in early life. In procuring his literary education he sawed wood, took care of a school building and acted as sexton of a church, to aid in defraying his expenses, and while reading medicine took daguerrean pictures to accumulate the means for finishing his studies. His education is thorough, and he learned the value of time and he worth of money in procuring it. A failure to early learn that lesson has been the cause of many a shipwrecks in life.