Violet Ray Generators Sold in Sandusky

During the first half of the twentieth century, thousands of “Violet Ray Generators” were sold in the United States for home use. Advertisements claimed that the device would cure heart disease, paralysis, writer’s cramp, rheumatism, lumbago, and many other ailments. In theory, electricity was supposed to carry revitalizing power to the cells of the body, to enrich the blood and increase oxygen levels. An early instruction booklet is available online. 

 Below is a portion of an ad for the “Renulife Violet Ray High Frequency Generator” which was sold at the Herb and Myers store in Sandusky in 1921. Customers could visit the store to have a treatment before purchasing the product. 

 In the summer and fall of 1921, Ben Sprau was an agent for “Tucker’s Violet Rays” High Frequency Generator. Potential customers were encouraged to write or call for an expert demonstration. 

 Eventually the Violet Ray generators were banned for making false claims, although you can still locate similar devices on the Internet. Visit the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library to view decades of historical newspapers on microfilm. It is both interesting and entertaining to see the products that were sold locally.

Sandusky and the Great Influenza of 1918

As we are living through a world-wide pandemic today, so were the people living in 1918. What is often called the Great Influenza struck the nation, and the world, briefly in the Spring of 1918, and returned with a vengeance in the early Fall. In all, between 50 million and 100 million people died worldwide as a result of the flu, with both the old and the young as its victims. In fact, except for children under five years old, the death rates were highest for people between age 25 and 50. 

The people of Sandusky, and all over the United States, faced multiple challenges at that time: first, a world war that began in 1914, with Americans joining in 1917, and then, as that war was waning, a new war against a killer virus. Sanduskians fought both wars.

Many of the nation's earliest victims were soldiers sent to training camps for the war. (It is believed by some experts that Ground Zero for the 1918 outbreak was in Kansas, probably spreading to a military base there.) The high concentration of soldiers on bases and in transport to battle zones allowed the virus to travel at great speed. And soldiers returning home often unknowingly brought the influenza with them.

Sandusky and Erie County faced a large outbreak, responding in many ways that our similar to our response today. Many events were cancelled and businesses were ordered to close; some that could stay open were under strict rules regarding personal contact. A temporary emergency hospital was opened in the newly constructed Elks Lodge on Adams Street.

The exact number of Erie County residents who died from the flu in 1918-19 is uncertain, but it was at least in the hundreds. The influenza hospital operated for about two months, serving 95 patients with 19 deaths (a mortality rate of 20%). By the Summer of 1919, about 32,000 Ohioans died from influenza, about 25,000 more than would have been expected. Nationally, about 675,000 Americans died from the Great Influenza. 

Of course, we hope the current pandemic will not compare to 1918, but we will need to be vigilant. To keep abreast with the Coronavirus in Ohio, follow https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/.

Account Book of Dr. R.R. McMeens

Before Dr. Robert Ritchie McMeens enlisted for military service in 1861 as a surgeon in the Third Ohio Infantry during the Civil War, he was in private practice as a physician in Sandusky, Ohio for over ten years.

The account book of Dr. McMeens, which covers the period from July 18, 1858 to April 25, 1861, is now in the historical files of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

At the bottom of page 1 in the account book is a listing for O. Follett, most likely publisher Oran Follett, who saw Dr. McMeens in July of 1858. Mr. Follett’s bill was thirty cents.

Someone from the Rush Sloane family saw Dr. McMeens in September of 1858. The bill was $1.50. It appears that the patients may have been Mr. Sloane’s son and wife.

Page 454 is the last page of the account book, dated April 25, 1861. The name of prominent Sandusky businessman W.T. West appears twice on this page. His fees were $1.50 and $2.00.

Sadly, Dr. McMeens died while in military service during the Civil War. The Firelands Pioneer of January 1888 contains an article about his death. Within the article is a reprint of a letter which George G. Shumard, M.D. wrote to Ohio Governor David Tod:

To His Excellency, Gov. Tod, Ohio:

SIR:—It is with feelings of the deepest regret that I have to announce the death of Surgeon R. R. McMeens of the Third Reg., Ohio Vol. Army, which occurred suddenly at Perryville, Ky., on the night of the 30th inst. Surgeon McMeens was among the first to offer his services to his country after the breaking out of the rebellion. Entering the three months service as a regimental surgeon, he was immediately after ordered to Camp Dennison, where his gentlemanly deportment and great professional skill soon won for him the esteem and confidence of his brother officers, at whose request he was appointed Medical Director of the post; all the arduous duties of which office he performed in such a manner as to win for him the warmest commendations of the Surgeon General of the State. From that time until the period of his death, he has continued in active service, filling many important positions in the medical department of the army. Shortly before the battle of Perryville, he was appointed Medical Director to the troops under the command of the lamented Jackson, and after having participated actively in the battle, was detailed to assist in taking care of the wounded at Perryville, in which position his kindness of heart, sound judgment, and great professional skill, enabled him to contribute very largely toward the relief of our suffering soldiers. He has fallen while nobly working at his post; although suffering greatly from disease, he refused to abandon his work, and performed several important surgical operations only a few hours before his death. In his death the army has lost a kind-hearted, faithful and efficient officer; the country a pure patriot, and the medical profession one of its brightest ornaments. I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, GEORGE G. SHUMARD, M. D., Medical Director Danville District.

Historical Items from Sandusky Pharmacies

                       

This cabinet file once used for storing medicine labels is now housed in the attic level of the Follett House Museum. It had been used at the Sloane House Pharmacy, which was on the street level of the Sloane House hotel in Sandusky, beginning about 1890. Several different pharmacists worked in the Sloane House over the years, including H.K. Henkelman, Henkelman & Bechberger; Bechberger & Brown; Bechberger & Kubach, and Kubach and Buderer. Some of remedies on the labels are for Epsom salts, cod liver oil, boric acid and liniment. The label below from a container of pine tar capsules was purchased when Bechberger & Brown were partners in the Sloane House Pharmacy.

This apothecary bottle came from the pharmacy of Charles A. Lehrer, who had his business at the corner of Central Avenue and Decatur Street for several years in the first quarter of the twentieth century. He was the son of former Zion Lutheran Church pastor Rev. J. George Lehrer.

  

    

The compound of licorice powder is from the pharmacy of J.H. Emrich, an early Sandusky pharmacist.

    

This bottle of medicinal oil came from the E. J. Windisch Quality Pharmacy, which was in business in the 800 block of Hayes Avenue from about 1908 to 1925.

  

From 1898 until about 1930 Daniel Schaffer manufactured liniment. Advertisements claimed it to be the “greatest pain killer on earth.”  This advertisement for Schaffer’s Wonderful Liniment appeared in the Sandusky Star Journal on November 17, 1920:

Mihalovitch’s Hungarian Blackberry Juice was manufactured by a liquor dealer in Cincinnati, but was sold locally by nine different pharmacies in Sandusky in 1887. The juice was said to be a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, cholera morbus (gastroenteritis), and all disorders of the bowels.

A Cough Remedy from 1795

Mary Melville donated this 1795 recipe for a cough remedy to the Sandusky Library’s former historical museum many years ago. Mary was the sister of Charles and William Melville who operated a drugstore in the Cooke block in downtown Sandusky in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

A transcription of the recipe for the remedy reads:

Receipt by Dr. James Malone ; take two tea cupfuls of best linseed; four pence worth ____ licorice and half a pound of sun raisens, put all three in two Scott’s pints of water and boil them slowly till the quantity is reduced to a little more than one pint, then add half a pound of sugar candy and strain the whole through a clean cloth and when cold put in half a gill of old rum and as much best vinegar and cork it up in clean bottles. For use, take a large cupful at going to bed and little when the cough is troublesome, this receipt cures the worst of colds in three of four days and is a most balsomich cordial for the lungs without the least danger in the application, and also the best remedy in all consumptions.

July 11, 1795

It is not known exactly how Mary Melville came to be in possession of this vintage cough remedy, but it is interesting to read  a remedy that some of our ancestors may have used to help cure coughs and colds. 

Here is a picture of downtown Sandusky in 1899, when Sandusky’s soldiers were returning from the Spanish American War. The Melville Brothers drugstore was in business in street level of the Cooke block (the building at the corner in the background) at that time.

Walther’s Peptonized Port Sold in Sandusky

In August of 1903 the Sandusky Register featured several advertisements for Walther’s Peptonized Port.  

The ad above stated that Peptonized Port was helpful for “people who are nervous, cannot stand noise, start at the least unusual sound” and “get that fly-to-pieces feeling often.” The ad below informed consumers that the remedy was a combination of port wine and pepsin, with no added drugs or chemicals.

The remedy was considered a good tonic for dyspepsia, indigestion, and recommended for nursing mothers, invalids, and older people. Two sizes were sold in 1903, one for fifty cents, and a larger size for one dollar. Two drugstores that sold Walther’s Peptonized Port in Sandusky were Henkelman & Bechberger and L.A. Biehl. Henkelman & Bechberger operated their drugstore on the street level of the Sloane House hotel in downtown Sandusky.

L. A. Biehl’s drugstore was located at the corner of Hancock and East Monroe Streets.

Dr. Augustus J. Gawne, Inventor

Augustus James Gawne was born in 1843 to Charles and Alice Gawne. From about 1880 to 1910, Dr. A. J. Gawne was a physician in Sandusky, Ohio. He had his office at several different locations in Sandusky. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, his office was on the second floor of the Graham building at the southeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Water Street.

On January 12, 1897, A.J. Gawne was issued a patent for a medical device called a Static Generator.

In an 1898 news article, the Portsmouth Daily Times described the Gawne Static Electric Generator as "one of the greatest inventions of the age." The machine was sold to physicians, and was used for the treatment of acute and chronic aches. Dr. Gawne claimed to have success with the static generator in treating rheumatism, neuralgia, headaches, nervousness, and muscle spasms.

Dr. Gawne was married twice. His first wife, the former Ella Warden, died in 1887 when she was only 39 years of age. In 1893, A.J. Gawne married Sophia Louise Alvord, but according to his death record, that marriage ended in divorce. On June 1, 1910, Dr. Gawne died at Good Samaritan Hospital. Funeral services were held at his residence on Decatur Street, with the Rev. W. Ashton Thompson officiating.

Dr. Gawne was buried next to his first wife in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery.

Medicine in the Civil War: Part Three -- The U.S. Sanitary Commission

The United States Sanitary Commission was founded in 1861. It had doctors who would inspect Union camps and mess tents. The commission also produced eighteen pamphlets on proper sanitation in camp. This included everything from personal hygiene to where the best place to put a latrine was. Primitive conditions in camp were a problem. Sanitation did not exist, and camps were pitched on military strategy, not caring about good water or drainage. Camps had no garbage dumps, and had animal parts from slaughtering everywhere. Then flies came and spread disease. This changed with the Sanitary Commission being founded.

Shortly after the Sanitary Commission was founded, it ordered supplies for the troops from the Quartermaster’s Department. The Commission ordered three million yards of flannel, eight hundred thousand pairs of boots, eight hundred thousand pairs of wool socks, two hundred thousand felt hats, and two hundred thousand haversacks (which are bags with straps that soldiers can use to carry supplies). These supplies were given to soldiers who had lost their own supplies they had brought from home. Unfortunately, this did not stop a shortage from occurring altogether. Soldiers often had to wear the same clothes for weeks on end. In a letter to the Sandusky Register in 1862, Dr. McMeens stated he had worn the same pair of socks and shirt for three weeks.

Unsanitary conditions in camps led to the spread of disease. In a letter from Dr. McMeens in 1862, he discussed what happened to dead horses after a battle. They would lie on the ground for days. This would cause diseases to spread. Getting water was also a problem. Water sources often would have dead horses or cattle laying in them. This made the water undrinkable.

Women who could not leave home collected and made supplies. This included bandages, candles, and cooking. Relief associations were established to bring women together to make these items. The Sanitary Commission served as the head of these and helped orchestrate what supplies were needed and where they would go. In the April 27th, 1861, Sandusky Register, Captain H.G. Depuy of the Sandusky Guards wrote a letter thanking a Mrs. Wilkinson for a donation of 100 rolls of linen strip bandages. “Should we be called upon to meet the enemy in the field of battle many a youth will be saved to bless the donor.” Letters such as this appeared in the Sandusky Register throughout the war, as well as appeals for supplies such as fish or fruit, and appeals for donation drives.

There were also articles in the newspaper instructing women on how to make different medical supplies for the front. The most important one was cloth bandages for soldiers to carry with them to use when wounded and trying to get to a hospital. The instructions said that the cloth should be washed, boiled and ironed without starch; and that there should be no hem. There were three types of bandages that were used the most. The first was a “roller” that was two and a half inches in width, and made of cotton. It could be used for anything. This type of bandage had to be tightly rolled up for easy application. There was another cotton bandage that was larger and referred to as a “many tailed bandage”. It was typically 20 by 20 inches and was used for gunshot wounds. The last type of bandage was made of muslin, not cotton like the others. It was one square yard and could be used to bandage anything and make arm slings.

The Sanitary Commission also helped soldiers return to life after they were out of the war. It would hold sanitary fairs for the public to learn about keeping clean. It also would help outfit ships to become hospital ships.

The Sanitary Commission ended when the war did. The remaining funds were used to purchase bonds. The interest from them was given to disabled soldiers to help support their families. The Commission was a precursor to the American Red Cross. Many people who were with the Sanitary Commission such as Clara Barton helped found the Red Cross.

Medicine in the Civil War: Part Two - Nurses

Nursing during the Civil War started out as a duty done by less sick soldiers in hospitals. Eventually women who were inspired by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War came to hospitals to cheer up troops, and became nurses. This allowed soldiers to go back to the front faster, and concentrate on healing. On top of caring for soldiers nurses also helped entertain, assist in surgery, administer medicine, write letters home for those who could not, and search for supplies.

Before female nurses were allowed in hospitals, young women who lived near the hospitals would visit to help care for and entertain the wounded. They would bring food, alcohol, and flowers. They would also play the piano, sing, and read poetry. This was frequently done on Sunday. After the war had been going on for a while female nurses were more accepted, and recruited so male nurses could return to fight in the war. The nursing service had women from all parts of society.

Dorothea Dix was working as a copy clerk for the U.S. government in Washington D.C. in1862, when she noticed how bad the military hospitals were. She took it upon herself to walk into the office of Acting Surgeon General R. C. Wood and tell him that the War Department did not have adequate resources to treat its soldiers. There were only a few surgeons, not enough nurses -- which meant that soldiers were filling the nursing role -- and no permanent hospitals. She asked to put together a female nursing corps of volunteers under the War Department. She sought the help of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell to do this. She hoped to keep romance out of the army, so her requirements for nurses were very strict. Her requirements, which were published as an article in the Sandusky Register, included: only plain looking women over the age of thirty could apply, married ladies preferred; dresses must be brown or black; women’s clothing could not have any jewelry, and their hair could not have bows or curls; women could not wear hoop skirts. This was because hoops were cumbersome, and made movement in narrow wards difficult. The ban on hoop skirts was even published in the Sandusky Register as an order from the government.

Nursing was not yet a profession and most who took the role learned as they worked. Convalescent soldiers usually filled the role, before women were allowed to work as nurses. Ill soldiers were expected to take care of each other. Only wounded had special treatment from medical staff at the beginning of the war. Many women followed their male family members into service, and then by accident became nurses. Nuns were also nurses. Some doctors liked them the best because they did not question the doctor’s authority. Women nurses were also sought out when it was discovered that a soldier was a woman and she needed treatment.

Female nurses were new in the military. The position was open to any women no matter their class, although upper class women were looked down on if they became nurses. Nursing duties included administering medicine, distributing special diets ordered by the doctor, writing letters, and attending to visitors. In cases where a soldier was dying and he was alone, they would sometimes pretend to be the dying soldier’s relative to make him feel better. Another thing nurses did to make things easier was to fill out a card with the patient’s information and attached it to the head of the patient’s bed for staff to read.

Opponents to female nurses said that they were too weak to help. The strongest of these critics were male doctors. Nurses had to care for wounded not just in hospitals, but in tents, caves, under trees, in fields and in barns. Nurses would go out while the battle was still occurring to take care of the men. After battles the wounded would lie close together for miles. Clara Barton said, “The wounded laid so close it was impossible to move about in the dark. The slightest misstep brought a torrent of groans from some poor mangled fellow in your path.” This was her experience, and men thought that at the sight of such things women would faint. They were wrong.

Female nurses received twelve dollars a month while their male counterparts received twenty. Female nurses were well aware of the difference. Pay was not just an issue for nurses. Doctors had problems receiving their pay also. It would sometimes take months. In June of 1861, Dr. McMeens wrote a letter to the Register. In the letter, he stated that he had been in the Army for two months and had not been paid yet. He then went on to ask his patients who owed him money to pay his wife. They could pay the entire bill or only part of it.

Nurses, because they were so close to patients, could often discover things about the patient that the doctor had missed. This occurred to one local soldier who had received a scalp wound in battle. He said, “She (the nurse) had been engaged in washing the blood from my head and face when she discovered that what had seemed on a superficial view to be the most desperate wound of the head, including the skull was but a mere scalp wound which bled profusely and doubtless made a most unpromising case for surgery at first view.” Cases like this were common. Sometimes because of the circumstances of the war and the way medicine was practiced at the time, things were overlooked and people were not treated properly.

Nurses also served an important function in letter writing. They would write for soldiers who could not. They would also write letters trying to find information about soldiers. One such letter appeared in the Sandusky Register in June of 1863. Sarah L. Porter wrote a letter about a soldier named Joseph Cramer who was in her care at a hospital in Washington D.C. She could not get much information from him before he died, except that he was from Sandusky. After his death, she wrote a letter to the Postmaster of Sandusky, and it was published in the paper. She asked that his friends and family contact her. Medical professionals did this so that personal belongings of soldiers could be sent home, and so people could get closure.

The author Louisa May Alcott was a nurse during the Civil War. Not only did she recount her experiences in a book, she also wrote for newspapers. One article that appeared in the Boston Commonwealth was reprinted in the Sandusky paper. It recounted the story of a soldier who was sick and dying. He had her write a letter to his mother for him, and the article also talked about how his comrades who were in the hospital could not stand to see him die. This article also gave an impression about how female nurses were treated.

As stated before, a lot of soldiers in the hospital were sick, not wounded. Alcott noted in her book Hospital Sketches, “I spent my shining hours washing faces, serving rations, giving medicine and sitting in a very hard chair with pneumonia on one side, diphtheria on the other, two typhoid’s opposite.” Typhoid was one of the more prominent illnesses. Treatment for it was quinine, whiskey, and turpentine. Sometimes all nurses could do was comfort the patient.

By the end of the war, women had helped heal the sick and inspired soldiers to fight. They applied for pensions, and some received medals. Many published their memoirs. Some even went on to start the campaign for women’s rights and the right to vote. The Civil War was a starting point for women to move towards equality.

Medicine in the Civil War: Part One - Doctors (Including Dr. McMeens of Sandusky)

At the beginning of the Civil War, medicine was in a transitional period. Before this time people did not have to go to medical school to become a doctor. They simply had to be a doctor’s apprentice for a period of time. In the 1860’s, medical schools were being founded. Doctors had to attend these schools and then be an apprentice for a time with an already practicing doctor in order to practice medicine. There were several Sandusky residents who were in the medical field during the Civil War. One of these was Dr. Robert R. McMeens (pictured below). He kept up a correspondence with the Sandusky Register describing battles and camp life until his death in late 1862, while serving in a Military hospital.

Shortly after the war started in 1861, Bellevue Hospital Medical College  in New York created a chair devoted to military surgery. The medical establishment knew that disease was the main culprit in war deaths. They wanted to create more qualified surgeons to prevent needless deaths. A handbook for military surgeons also came out around this time. The book was 120 pages long. However, people who wanted to become military surgeons still needed more training than the book offered. In an effort to recruit more surgeons, the Sandusky Register often published the location and times when the Military Surgeon Exam was offered. The paper also printed the requirements. The candidate had to be certified, in good standing, and have five years experience for a surgeon’s mate, and ten years of experience for a surgeon.

Union surgeons captured by Confederate forces were treated well and soon released. This was because the Confederate forces did not have the necessary accommodations to take care of the surgeons. The surgeons usually had their boots taken if they were in good shape. The Confederate army was not well supplied and usually took uniform parts from prisoners or the dead. When the war first started there was one surgeon in a regiment of twelve hundred men on both sides. There were female doctors in the Union Army, including Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. The Confederate Army had no female doctors.

The germ theory of disease had not yet been understood in 1861. Operations were done the same way they had been for the previous fifty years. Surgical instruments were dipped into well water and that was all the sanitizing they received. Wounds were sewn up with unsterilized silk. Sometimes surgeons would moisten the thread with saliva when threading the needle. Doctors would stick their bare hand in a battle wound to feel around for shrapnel or bullets. Because of these practices, death rates were high. For example, 87% of soldiers with abdominal wounds died, 60% with skull wounds died, and 62.6% with chest wounds died. Shoulder wounds were less often fatal, with a 33% mortality rate, and wounds that involved a broken bone usually led to an amputation. There was no anesthesia as we know it today. Whiskey was used to sedate people and help take away pain. It was also thought to help people get their senses back. Another problem was that disease transmission and prevention was not well understood, and many patients in the hospitals were there because they were sick, and not because they were wounded during a battle. Diseases swept through camps and killed soldiers who saw little fighting.

Many hospital workers would contract the illnesses of their patients. The author Louisa May Alcott caught an illness this way while serving as a nurse during the war, and Dr. McMeens caught dysentery while working in a hospital. Workers also suffered from exhaustion that required hospitalization. Dr. McMeens died in October of 1862. Originally attributed to heart disease, later it was believed that his death was caused by exhaustion. He as well as other doctors were known to work through the night treating battle wounded soldiers by candlelight. After his death, his wife continued on the mission of helping soldiers and became deeply involved in aid societies.

In addition to problems with medical supplies, and conditions in the camps, food was a constant problem for the Union forces in the Civil War. Northern rations were hardtack, beans, salt pork, and coffee. Everything was fried in bacon fat over a fire. Fresh local vegetables were rarely available because of price gouging by local farmers. Diet was something that was not always considered, so both sick and healthy people got the same rations. Union hospital staff would go out into the community to find donations of the proper nutritious food for the patients. Sometimes they would encounter Confederate sympathizers and be in danger of being shot at. People back home would be appealed to for supplies. Food problems accompanied by diseases spreading prompted Dr. McMeens to write this in a letter in 1862:

“Young volunteers who left home in robust health, who had comfortable homes surrounded by relations and friends, now on their way back mere skeletons of their former selves.”

To help with rations, notices were put in the Sandusky Register, asking community members to donate food to soldiers. They could drop them off with a member of a unit who happened to be in town. Potatoes, onions, sauerkraut, chicken, butter, and dried or canned fruit were all wanted. Doctors would ration these out to troops, and the soldiers who were in the worst shape received more rations. Dr. Sexton also put a notice in the paper requesting specific items. When rations were cut short the soldiers and hospital staff would hunt in nearby fields. Sometimes local people would come in and sell produce.

Multiple doctors from the area served in the Civil War. They helped soldiers from the area by having donation drives. Some died helping others after battle. They kept up correspondence with the newspaper about events. Patients were subjected to both new and old treatments. Doctors also struggled like the rest of the soldiers with illness, money, and the hardships of war.

Dr. Joseph Caldwell’s Ledger from 1833

In The History of the Fire Lands, by W. W. Williams, we learn that Dr. Joseph Caldwell came to Huron, Ohio in the spring of 1833, and he continued practicing medicine there until his death on June 13, 1866. Mr. Williams wrote that Dr. Caldwell’s death was “much lamented by many friends.”

A page from Dr. Caldwell’s ledger is found in the Business Collections of the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library. A record was kept of the Lewis Hoyt family’s appointments with Dr. Joseph Caldwell from September 1833 through June 1835.

On September 7, 1833, quinine was given to Lewis Hoyt. On September 10, Dr. Caldwell made a house call to the Hoyt family, and medicine was prescribed. Other visits to the doctor were made by Lewis Hoyt and his wife and children. The final item on the ledger was made on June 27, 1835, at which time liniment was given to Mrs. Hoyt. At the bottom of the ledger is an entry for interest for two years, which was listed as being 84 cents. Mr. Hoyt’s son’s account was $3.50. The total for two years of Dr. Caldwell’s medical services for the Hoyt family, including interest, was $20.56.

The Erie County, Ohio Cemetery Census Before 1909 provides the dates of death for Dr. and Mrs. Caldwell as well as for Lewis and Mercy Hoyt. Dr. Joseph Caldwell, who died on June 13, 1866, is buried in Scott Cemetery in Erie County. Mrs. Margaret Caldwell died on October 25, 1863. Stephen Caldwell, son of Joseph and Margaret Caldwell, died of cholera in 1834. He is buried near his parents in Scott Cemetery. Lewis and Mercy Hoyt are buried in Peakes Cemetery in Berlin Township of Erie County. Lewis Hoyt died on November 4, 1853, and Mrs. Mercy Hoyt (listed as Marcy on the tombstone) died at the age of 91 on August 20, 1878. It appears that Dr. Caldwell’s medical services helped Mrs. Hoyt to live a long life, in an era when life expectancy was under age 50.