Here are excerpts from Part 2 of "
Suffolk Cty Medical Society " by
Frank Overton, MD published in the April 1940 of LI Forum ---
Osborn Shaw, official historian of Brookhaven Town, has submitted the
names
of early doctors in that town as follows :
Doctor Reed 1741
George Muirson 1741, 1749, 1758,
Benjamin Smith 1741, 1749, 1758. Called Rock Smith because he
lived by the big rock just sound of the pond
Gilbert Smith 1749, 1758
Cyrus Penderson (not George) 1775, 1776. He studied with Dr.
Muirson
and married his daughter.
..........Dr. Abraham Gardiner Thompson was born in NYC in 1816.
He
graduated from Columbia in 1833... and in 1851 came to Islip and
practiced
medicine & pharmacy there , until his death on September 26.
1887.......
.........On page 135 of the old minute book of the Suffolk Cty
Medical Society
abt 1879 ; ..the following gentlemen were elected officers for the
ensuing
year :
David Conklin, President; John Howard, Vice President; Moses
Blatchley,
Secretatry; David Woodhull, Treasurer; John Howard, Moses Blatchley,
Oliver
Brown, Censors & John Gardiner, Delegate to NYS Medical
Society.
Of the founders of the Society, we know little. Dr. David Conklin
practiced
in the vicinity of Riverhead.Dr. Oliver Brown & Dr. Blatchley
were at
Huntington; Dr. John Gardiner, a descendant of Lion Gardiner, of
Gardiner's
Island, sleeps in the old Southold Cemetery beside a large marble
slab with a
lengthly inscription " In Memory of Dr. John Gardiner who died Oct
21, 1823
........
Dr. Gardiner was a native of Cutchogue. During the Revolution he saw
service
on the the American frigate " Confederacy" and after the war,
practiced in
Southold until his death.
Dr. Richard Udall of Islip was born there in 1751 and graduated from
the
NY Medical College. He practiced on the West India Island of Antigua
but
returned to Islip abt 1800 and continued in active pracitice for over
a
quarter of a century.
He died in 1841 at the age of 90.
Dr. Nathaniel Miller was born in EastHampton in 1784. He was licensed
by
the Suffolk Cty Medical Society in 1807 and practiced until his death
in
1863......
Here are excerpts from an interesting article - " The Suffolk
County
Medical Society " by Frank Overton, MD in the April 1940 issue of LI
Forum.
.... The first practicing physican in Suffolk Cty of whom we have a
record was
the Rev. Joshua HOBART, second pastor of the Southold Prebyterian
Church. And
he was born in Hingham, England, in July, 1629 and graduated from
Harvard in
1650 .... and died February 28, 1717, aged 88.
Another pastor - physican who came almost a century after Dr. Hobart
was
Dr. Thoma Paine, who graduated from Yale in 1748 and served the
Cutchogue
parish from 1750 to 1766. He died 15th of October, 1766, aged 43.
A classmate of Dr. Paine was Dr. Barber, who served in the next
parish,
that of Mattituck and Aquebogue, from 1749 until late in the century.
He
graduated medicine at Dartmouth in 1782, but undoubtedly had long
practiced
before that date.
In the old cemetery at Southaven, formerly called Fireplace, there is
a
grave of the Rev. David Rose, who served his parish as pastor and
physican
from 1765 until his death in 1799.
Rev. William Reeve of Southampton is another pastor-physican of
that
time.
.....Dr. Schroeder has an article on Early History of Medicine on
Long
Island, which appeared in the Brooklyn Medical Journal for October,
1905. In
it, he gives the names of about twenty physicans who practiced in
Suffolk Cty
previous to 1822 :
Dr. John Mackie, 1st physican to practice in Southampton, died
1758
Dr. William Smith, native of Moriches, but practiced in
Southampton.
Died in
1775 and his place was taken by his son Dr. John Smith.
Dr. Henry White & Dr. Silas Halsey, both Southampton names.
Samuel H. Rose & Dr. Samuel Latham, Southampton
At Huntington at the end of 18th century :
Dr. Benjamin Y. Pine
Gilbert Potter
Gilbert Smith
James Sanford
Daniel Wiggins
Zophar Platt
Oliver Brown, d. 1815
At East Hampton :
Dr. Ebenezer Sage, 1775 - 1834
Nathaniel Gardner, 1759 - 1804
Aaron T. Gardner
At Smithtown :
Jonathan Havens
Zephaniah Platt, d 1818
At Brookhaven:
Dr. George Penderson
At Islip :
Dr. Richard Udall
At Southold :
Joshua Clark
Kathy
[email protected]
