EARLY DOCTORS OF HENRY COUNTY
Dr. Thomas Baker was the first man of medicine. He was fat and lazy, there were no inhabitants but the doctor, so business was not rushing.The generally accepted theory is that his wife hitched up the team one morning; that the horses happened to be headed west, that they went west because it was a hard place to turn around, and kept going and going until they got to Kansas, and there all track of our genuine first settler is lost.
Dr. Maxwell followed. He set up on Rock River, in Phenix. He passed away in 1844.
Dr. King came to the Rock River region in /838. He is said to have been more knave than king. He left the country within a year.
Dr. Enos Pomeroy settled in Geneseo in 1839. He dwelt in Geneseo for a generation. He was a good physician and a highly esteemed man.
Dr. Stephen T. Hume located in Geneseo in 1845. He practiced during a generation, or a third of a hundred years, then withdrew to give younger men a chance. Since then he was prominently connected with banking, up to the time of his death in 1908.
Dr. Hume was gifted with the faculty for telling a good ancedote. If it happened to be at his own expense, so much the better.
The doctor says that his first call was to a surgical case, five miles east of Cambridge. After finishing his duties, he bade the family good night, and started for Geneseo. By this time, darkness had come on. The road was indistinct. Coming to a dwelling, he applied for permission to remain over night. It transpired that this was Uncle Billy Martin's house. Now, horsethieves had been plying their vocation in the country, and the farmers were all alert. He was regarded with suspicion at Martin's,' and denied admission. In fact he was told direct that there was no such doctor as Hume in Geneseo, and that he had better meander. On through the night the young physician floundered, finding after while the farmhouse of "Uncle Steele" Hamilton. Uncle Steele had not heard of a doctor named Hume, and promptly registered this young man as the boss of the equine-acquiring gang. The doctor was overjoyed to escape from "Uncle Steele," who was a big man and full of fight.
Next he came to Hiram Southard's farmhouse. Hiram had a hunch that the doctor was after his horses. Mrs. Southard, however, had taken an interest in the conversation, and interfered with the statement that she had heard there was a new doctor in Geneseo. The doctor was invited in. When a candle had been ignited, the doctor was inspected by the household. His honest countenance and gentlemanly demeanor made him heartily welcome, and the best bed in the house was at his disposal.
A vigilance committee was afterward organized, the purpose of which was to run down horsethieves. The loss of a horse in pioneer days was one of the worst calamities that could befall a family. In some cases it entirely halted farming operations for a year, leading to hunger and want. Pioneers in Texas and other new regions even unto this day, make no bones of hanging a horsethief. Serves 'em right.
Dr. Shipman located in Andover in 1840. He soon left, and located in Chicago.
Dr. Thomas Hall of Stark county practiced in Wethersfield.
Dr. Hickman was the first resident physician in Wethersfield. He had a good practice. He got lost on the prairie one fearful night in the winter of 1848-9. His feet were frozen. Part of one of his feet sloughed off. He left the county
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History of Henry County
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Illinois Ancestors