Medical and dental colleges of the west : historical and biographical: Chicago / edited by H.G. Cutler.

Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and dental colleges of the west : historical and biographical: Chicago / edited by H.G. Cutler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the This material has been provided by the University of Illinois at Chicago, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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    and mathematics. He even took private lessons in mathematics of Professor Dascom Green, subsequently connected for many years with the Polytechnical Institute, of Troy, N. Y. In fact, although an agriculturist by accident of birth, the tastes of the youth were by no means pastoral, inclining decidedly toward both medicine and civil engineering at quite an early age. For several years after leaving school, however, circumstances forced him to work upon the farm, the Winters being more congenially passed in the pursuit of his favorite studies. In 1857 Dr. Stevens came West and obtained employment on a railroad then being constructed in Eastern Missouri which afterward became a section of the Missouri and Iron Mountain line. During the succeeding four years he was engaged in railroad work, bridge building, piling, filling, etc., taking no active part in politics; yet his views for the perpetuation and exaltation of the Union were known. Most of the time his headquarters were at Birds Point, and Charleston, Mississippi County, and for a short time during Buchanan's administration, in 1859, he was postmaster at the former locality, situated on the Mississippi River, opposite Cairo. During the latter portion of his stay in Missouri Dr. Stevens, as a stanch Unionist and Northern man, found himself the object of much disagreeable attention. In those days the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Democratic anti- Union organization, were quite as prominent in the politics of Missouri as they were in Illinois. Dr. Stevens, in common with other Union men, received a fierce notice to quit that section of the country, which he has preserved as a personal memento and an historic curiosity. It is written in rather a femi- nine hand, on common note paper, the document being entrusted to the care of one Irish Tim, an honest old fellow, who brought it to Mr. Stevens and said he found it back of Dr. Simpson's barn. The notice reads: ''Abolition Rail Road Stez'c-iis. You are hereby commanded to order the above Individual to leave at S, or hang at 12. ATorfolk-Colmnbus-Charleston Vigilance Committee/' Below the signature were two crude blood-red crosses, between which were the words, Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty, and still below this motto the initials K. G. C, enclosed by a circle of red. The young Northerner received the document in February, 1861, and although he did not leave for four months, neither did he hang at high noon of that momentous day. Instead, he remained until July of that year, when he permanently located in Chicago. Previous to this time Dr. Stevens had studied dentistry in private, and when he settled in this city he entered the office of Dr. Honsinger, then one of the leading local practitioners, and commenced the systematic mastery of his profession. After remaining here two years he commenced practice him- self, and for a third of a century, with few interruptions, he has thus been actively engaged. During this entire period he has labored and lived on the