Young Doctors in Marlborough
On 3 May 1769, however, the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman of nearby Westborough wrote in his diary: “Dr. [Edward] Flynt came from Dr. Dexter, and says the latter will hardly live through the Night.”
Indeed, Dr. Dexter died the next day. On 6 May Parkman reported: “Dr. Dexter was buryed at Marlborough.”
The doctor’s gravestone, shown here courtesy of Find a Grave, says, “He was an Eminent Physician but was Subject unto Death even as other men.”
The doctor’s death left an opening in his town. Two young physicians soon moved into Marlborough, hoping to establish their own practices.
One was Amos Cotting, born in Waltham in 1749 (under the name Cutting, which would have been apt for a surgeon). He graduated from Harvard College in 1767 and then earned his M.A., presumably while studying medicine. Charles Hudson’s history of Marlborough said Cotting came to that town “On the death of Dr. Ebenezer Dexter, 1769,” but he wasn’t on the list of men paying the poll tax in 1770, so he may have arrived later.
The other young doctor was Samuel Curtis, eldest son of the Rev. Philip Curtis of Stoughton. He graduated from Harvard a year before Cotting and also gained an M.A. Curtis was apparently starting to practice medicine in Roxbury when he learned about the sudden opportunity in Marlborough. Hudson quoted from the town’s warning-out records to reveal what happened next:
Dr. Samuel Curtis came to town, June, 1769; came last from Roxbury. Taken in by widow Dexter.The following month, the Rev. Mr. Parkman rode to Marlborough to see a sick relative, and he also recorded: “Visit Mrs. Dexter and Dr. Curtis who lodges there.”
Curtis had advantages over Cotting in any competition to become the town’s favorite physician. He was slightly older, and as son of a minister instead of a farmer he was probably more genteel. But the big edge appears to have been that he was now living in Dr. Dexter’s house, thus endorsed by Dr. Dexter’s wife, all ready to see Dr. Dexter’s patients.
The widow Dexter was still only in her early thirties, with four young sons to care for and an estate to maintain. Then, in early 1771, Lydia Dexter became pregnant.
TOMORROW: Can this marriage be saved?
2 comments:
I believe at this time all graduates of Harvard were awarded an M.A. three years after graduation (assuming they lived that long). I know for certain that was the case when an ancestor of mine graduated in 1775, and this period is only a few years earlier.
There were some formal requirements to earn the M.A., but they were very light compared to the B.A., so indeed it was largely a matter of doing a bit more study and staying out of trouble.
Furthermore, by reciprocity, one could also ask Yale to grant you an M.A. at the same time.
The war disrupted normal college functioning, so the rules might have been even more relaxed for the class of 1775.
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