Maine physicians of 1820 : a record of the members of the Massachusetts Medical Society practicing in the district of Maine at the date of the separation / by James A. Spalding.

  • Spalding, James Alfred, 1846-1938.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Maine physicians of 1820 : a record of the members of the Massachusetts Medical Society practicing in the district of Maine at the date of the separation / by James A. Spalding. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not vexed when people joked with him about the barrelful of children which his bride, a Miss Barrell from York, would surely bring to him in the course of time. He did more than his share in establishing the Second Parish Church on a sound financial basis, and to keep it going, musically as well as religiously. For, he not only led the music and the psalms and hymns also, but he prayed often in the Weekly Meet¬ ings, and read sermons occasionally in the absence of the minister. As a citizen he was the most versatile man in town, much given to public speaking at town meetings, and gatherings of every sort, and he delivered a Fourth of July Oration which has come down to us, and on another occasion he spoke his own verses trippingly, and being great on Masonry, he delivered a public oration on that topic to the gratification of all concerned, and another on music in Port¬ land. He more than once led the village band, dressed as a Drum Major in hiis old let-out revolutionary uniform, served as toastmaster again and again at convivial suppers and dinners, particularly one given on a certain Washington’s Birthday. Beyond all his performances as a citizen I reckon his speech of welcome to La Fayette when he visited Kenne- bunk on his progress through Maine, when Dr. Emer- • son spoke to him and the assembled people briefly, charm¬ ingly, and to the point. I doubt if anywhere La Fayette was more happy than at the remarks handed on to him so cour¬ teously by Dr. Samuel Emerson, June 24, 1825. He also started a Social Library in the village, con¬ tributed to the “Village Visiter,” medical themes of public value, and in his old age was Chairman of a Whig Conven¬ tion. Medically, he kept a case book of his lying-in patients, some three thousand in all, was Vice-President of the York County Medical Society, attended the first meeting for the foundation of the Maine Medical Society, and was elected chairman unanimously. He was one of its legal incorpor¬ ators and at one time its Secretary, at another, one of the Censors, and he read before it one of the only five papers