“He continues, with his usual Success, to carry on his Operations”

The Newport Mercury advertisement I quoted yesterday was just the start of a campaign extolling Dr. John Newman’s cancer cure.

On 3 May, another letter appeared in the newspaper addressed to printer Henry Barber and signed by “Your Constant Readers.” This listed ten more Rhode Islanders who had been cured in the last two months, eight from Newport plus one each from Bristol and North Kingston.

On 28 June, “A Friend to Mankind” reported:

Mr. Benjamin Blossom of Massachusetts State, was sorely afflicted with a Cancer, seated near the eye; which extended itself round both his eye-lids; its progress had been so rapid that the eye-lashes were eaten off, insomuch that in the opinion of good judges it was thought incurable.

However, he applied to the said Doctor, who by his method of cure, in ten days fully extracted the Cancer, without giving the least pain or inconvenience to the eye.

That might have been Benjamin Blossom (1722–1797) of Dartmouth or his son, Benjamin, Jr. (1753–1837), of Fairhaven.

The longest letter yet appeared on 6 September. It was signed “D.G.,” but the writer identified himself (or herself) as the writer of previous “observations on the conduct of Doctor JOHN NEWMAN” published in the paper.

This letter added three more people to the list of Newman’s patients: “Col. Ebenezer Sprout, of Middleborough, Massachusetts State”; “Mr. Elihu Robertson, of Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts State”; and “Mrs. Parker, her place of residence I have forgot.”

According to the letter, the Middleborough man “had a Cancer, which had eaten out one of his eyes, two years before he applied for relief: entirely extracted and will soon be effectually cured.” This could be the militia colonel Ebenezer Sproat, who would die in 1786, or his namesake son (shown above), a former Continental Army officer who would help to lead the settlement of Marietta, Ohio, where he died in 1805. Reportedly the Shawnee called the younger man “Hetuck,” meaning “eye of the buck deer/buckeye,” but authors connect that to his height rather than the prominence of his eyes.

“D.G.” closed by saying: “I am not intimately acquainted with the Doctor, but as his reputation for humanity seems generally acknowledged, I must own I have a great partiality in his favour.” Frankly, I can’t help suspecting that Newman wrote all those letters himself.

Newman himself spoke out in yet another letter dated 22 November:

For the Benefit of the Public.

DOCTOR JOHN NEWMAN advertises his Removal from his former Place of Residence in the Ferry Wharf-Lane, to the House No. 113, in Louis-Street, at the Sign of the Pestle and Mortar: Where he continues, with his usual Success, to carry on his Operations in the Cure of the Cancer, and other Disorders incident to the human Body:

And in a more particular Manner, has discovered a new and safe Method for the Cure of the Venereal Disease, which he accomplishes in Six Days (provided the Patient adheres to his Advice) without the least Inconvenience—and takes this fresh Opportunity of acknowledging to the Public the many Favours received by their most obliged Servant.

I can’t help noting that only the first Newport Mercury letter about Dr. Newman, published the month after the legislature lowered his sentence for corresponding with the enemy, stated that he would offer his cure for free to anyone who couldn’t pay.

COMING UP: The cure from Fort Pitt.

“Lately discovered a late method”

Yesterday’s posting left Dr. John Newman in the fall of 1782, convicted of corresponding with the British enemy by traveling from Newport, Rhode Island, to New York City without approval from American authorities that August.

Newman responded by appealing to the state legislature. His petition declared:

that he is very sorry for his offence; that he has a numerous family, which is much distressed by his confinement; that the fine imposed on him is far beyond his ability to pay, and therefore prayed that he may be liberated and discharged.

Most important, Dr. Newman had developed a following—patients who believed in his medical knowledge and ability to deliver patent medicines from Britain. Indeed, a pharmaceutical shopping trip might have been why he went to New York.

The Rhode Island legislature acknowledged that situation this way: “a number of respectable inhabitants of Newport have requested the interposition of this Assembly for the relief of the said John Newman.”

Therefore, in February 1783 the assembly passed a special law:

It is voted and resolved, that the said John Newman be, and he is hereby, ordered to be discharged from gaol, on the payment of costs attending his prosecution, conviction and confinement; that the said fine be remitted to him; that he give bond for his good behavior for the space of one year, and that said bond be lodged in the hands of the attorney general.

The Treaty of Paris was still not signed. The British military still held New York, Charleston, and Savannah. But Rhode Islanders were ready to forgive visiting with the enemy if some hard-to-find medicines came out of it.

The next month saw the start of what looks like a public-relations campaign to show Dr. Newman serving the new republic. The 15 March Newport Mercury, published by Solomon Southwick and Henry Barber, included this item:

Mr. BARBER,
By inserting the following advertisement in your next Mercury, which is designed for public benefit, you will greatly oblige some of
YOUR CONSTANT READERS.

WE the subscribers, having for a long time past (one of us for 14 years) been sorely afflicted with that fatal disorder, the CANCER, which has made such ravages among the human species, whereby the lives of such, who have been therewith infected, have frequently become a burthen to themselves and friends; do, from motives of humanity, make this public declaration to the world—

that having made other attempts to affect a cure of the Cancer, to no purpose; and having heard that Dr. JOHN NEWMAN, now residing in this Town, had lately discovered a late method, by killing or extracting the Cancer wholly, from the various parts infected, without having recourse to the common custom of cutting and mangling the body, which so often proves ineffectual, we applied to the said Doctor for relief, who, by the blessing of God on his endeavours, has, most wonderfully extracted the Cancer from each of us, and do now enjoy as perfect a state of health as we have been accustomed to for some years past.——

In witness whereof we subscribe our names, in Newport, this 14th of March, 1783.
JAMES TEW,
SAMUEL NICHOLS,
LUCINA LANGLEY.

N.B. Such persons whose circumstances will not afford paying for the cure, the said Doctor, we understand, will administer to them gratis.

The thumbnail image above links to Gauvin Alexander Bailey’s photograph of the Samuel Nichols house in Newport, built around 1760. It’s part of Prof. Bailey’s Colonial Architecture Project, sharing photos of European colonial architecture around the world. An 1883 photo of Lucina Langley’s small house, now gone, can be viewed here at Lost New England.

As for James Tew, he died in February 1784, less than a year after writing about the efficacy of Dr. John Newman’s cancer treatment. To be sure, he was seventy-two.

TOMORROW: More cases.