Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 11: The Professions - Law and Medicine, 1924

Lawyers and Judges - In 1767 there was reported only four lawyers in Bristol county, viz: Hon. Samuel White, Robert T. Payne, Daniel Leonard, and George Leonard, of Norton. The members of the bar, residents of New Bedford, who died or retired from practice between 1779 and 1834, were Peleg Sprague, John M. Williams, R. H. Williams, Thonias Hammond, James Washburn, John Nye, and John S. Russell. In 1834 there were practicing in Bristol county and residents of New Bedford the following: Lemuel Williams, Charles H. Warren, Timothy G. Coffin, W. J. A. Bradford, Ezra Bassett, John Burrage, Thomas D. Eliot, John C. Clifford, Oliver Prescott, and John H. W. Page. In this list were to be found men of celebrity as jurists and statesmen.

All the sessions of the early courts were held in Taunton, but in 1828 the Legislature created New Bedford a half-shire town, and a local court was held in the old town hall on Second street. Judge Williams was the first presiding judge in New Bedford. A law enacted in 1834 created a police court in the town of New Bedford, in which Nathaniel S. Spooner was the first justice of the peace. The Superior Court of Bristol County for civil cases holds its terms in New Bedford, as does the court for criminal cases. A session of the Supreme Judicial Court meets at New Bedford for the counties of Bristol, Nantucket and Dukes. A probate and an insolvency court also holds regular sessions in New Bedford.

In the role of county judges the oldest was Edward Pope. He was a man of ability and long judicial experience. He was also collector of the port, and judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Oliver Prescott, upon first coming to New Bedford after his graduation at Harvard, class of 1828, taught the Friends' Academy. Later he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1832. In 1845 he was elected police judge of New Bedford. He was appointed in 1858 as judge of probate, and for fifty years was in the public eye as a professional man, and won an enviable reputation. He passed from earth in 1890, aged eighty-four years. George Marston, graduate of Harvard Law School, was admitted to the bar in 1845, removing to New Bedford in 1869. In 1879 he was elected attorney-general of the State, resigning that office. He died in 1883. Lincoln Flagg Brigham from Dartmouth College in 1842 entered law school at Harvard, but in 1845 was admitted to the bar, becoming a law partner of John H. Clifford. On January 28, 1869, he was appointed chief justice of the Superior Court. He retired from public life in 1890. Robert C. Pitman was one of the old school lawyers, born in New Bedford, came to the bar in 1847. He later served as judge of the police court, and was also a State Senator. He was elevated to the Superior bench, but soon retired from politics, devoting his entire time to his profession; he died in March, 1891. Edwin L. Barney, another old-school attorney, was born in 1827. He attended Brown University and Yale University Law School. He came to the bar of this county in 1850; was State Senator two years, city solicitor a number of years, and judge-advocate on General Butler's staff. Thomas M. Stetson, born in June, 1830, son of Rev. Caleb Stetson, graduated from Harvard in 1849, studied law under good lawyers and at the Dane Law School, Cambridge. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and was a law partner of several well known law firms in New England. He conducted the famous Sylvia Ann Howland will case, the most interesting and hardest contested case ever known in New England courts. Another brilliant lawyer of New Bedford was Hosea M. Knowlton. He was a Tufts graduate; was many years district attorney, and achieved national fame as the prosecuting attorney in the Lizzie E. Borden case; she was tried and acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother. Mr. Knowlton was attorney-general of the Commonwealth many years. Lemuel Le B. Holmes, was admitted to the bar in 1875. He was a native of Rochester, New York, studied law with Thomas M. Stetson, became city solicitor, then district attorney, and was finally appointed a judge of the Superior Court, a position he held at the time of his death several years ago. The list of all lawyers who have from time to time and who are still in practice is all too long to here insert, suffice to say they were well qualified men and had good clientage.

The Medical Profession - Massachusetts has had a Medical Society since 1781. The State is divided into seventeen districts, and one of these includes Bristol county. This society was chartered April 3, 1839 under the title of the Southern District Medical Society. Its present name is Bristol South District Medical Society. 'The records are in no wise complete, but this much is known: 'The following physicians, resident in New Bedford were members of the Massachusetts Medical Society prior to the formation of the local society above named: Samuel Perry, 1803; Alexander Read, 1816; Paul Spooner, 1821; William C. Whitridge, 1822; Andrew Mackie, 1824; Julius S. Mayhew, 1830; Jeremiah Stone, 1831; Lyman Bartlett, 1833; William A. Gordon, 1835; Thomas P. Wells, 1836; William R. Wells, 1838.

William Logan Fisher, in speaking of early medical literature and records states: "The medical literature of New Bedford prior to the present century was mostly confined to Ebenezer Perry, the only physician of the place. About the year 1795 his charge for a visit was sixpence, and thus he kept all other physicians at a distance. An English lady who was under treatment at this time was so much surprised at the smallness of his charges that she requested that she might be furnished with the particulars of the bill, that she might take it to England. After this the doctor raised his prices to one shilling per visit. It is said this doctor was a good, plain, practical physician, and an honest man."

The earliest physician in Dartmouth was Dr. Benjamin Burg, who died September 18, 1748, aged forty years. Dr. Daniel Hathaway was also an early physician, beginning in Dartmouth soon after the death of pioneer Dr. Burg, and continuing until his death in 1772. Drs. Elisha Tobey, Samuel Perry and his son Samuel, were all very early in the medical practice. Other physicians who were favorites in the homes of New Bedford and surrounding country were inclusive of the following: Drs. William Cushing Whitridge, came to New Bedford in 1822, he practiced till death, dying in 1857, aged seventy-four years. Alexander Read, graduate of Dartmouth, class 1808, located here in 1811; he was a devoted Christian and defender of the Bible. Elijah Colby came to New Bedford in 1830, and practiced until death in 1856; he was treating a patient an hour before his own death; was never known to speak a cross word in all his life. Julius Stewart Mayhew came here as a young school teacher and gave singing lessons, entered Harvard College Medical School; he came from a family of physicians there, having a doctor in every generation for hundreds of years before his birth. He was among the first to cast an Abolition vote in New Bedford; was a foe of all types of oppression. He was in truth a man of the "Old-School." Dr. Paul Spooner opened an office in New Bedford in 1807, and for half a century practiced successfully in maternity cases; he died in 1862, aged seventy-six years. Dr. Gordon was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts; graduated from Harvard Medical School, coming to New Bedford in 1839; he died here of heart disease in 1887; he was the president of the District Medical Society a number of terms. Dr. Charles Lamson Swasey, born in Maine, graduated from Bowdoin Medical College in 1838, and practiced his chosen profession until overtaken by death in 1860; he was well versed in history, and a great believer in the theory of evolution. Dr. William Howland Taylor, a native of New Bedford, born in 1853, graduated from Harvard Medical School and entered the Medical Department of the New York University, graduating in 1876. He took the Loomis prize with his essay on "Theory and Practice of Medicine." He was a member of the Bristol South District Medical Society, and was its secretary at one time.

Other physicians are mentioned at length in the biographical department of this work, hence need not be here treated. Suffice to state that with the passing years and decades, the medical science has made great strides forward, and today the physicians in and near New Bedford are fully abreast with the modern ideas of the healing art, as it was once popularly styled. In all that is good for the health of the community, New Bedford physicians have ever tried to do their best to aid those outside the profession to clean up and make a city sanitary in all possible respects.