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MATTOON, J. B. Dr. 1814 – 1900

MATTOON, HEATH, PLANK, DORSETT

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/30/2020 at 14:45:44

The Pioneer Physician Goes.
From the obituary of Dr. J. B. Matoon as published in last week’s Waukon Standard we condense the facts relative to the life of one of the pioneer physicians of N. E. Iowa. His death occurred at Waukon on April 22d.
Dr. Mattoon was born in Amherst, Hampshire county, Mass., Nov. 14, 1814. His grandfather Was General Ebenezer Mattoon, who enlisted in the Revolutionary war from college, and for a time after the war was a law partner of Thomas Paine’s. J. B. Mattoon lived with his grandfather until about eighteen years of age and attended the Amherst academy for about two years, and when nineteen years of age went to Unionville, Lake county, Ohio, and afterward attended the academy at Chardon for about two years, till twenty-one years of age and then studied medicine with Dr. M. P. Sherwood for three years. During this time, in the spring of 1837 he made his first trip west of the lakes to Beloit, Wis., that city then consisting of “Cale Blodgett's" log house and sawmill on Turtle Creek near its junction with Rock river. He returned to Ohio and continuing his medical studies, afterward took a full medical course at the Willoughby University of Lake Erie, afterwards the Cleveland Medical College, graduating therefrom in 1841 with honor. For the next twelve years be practiced his profession in Crawford county, Pennsylvania.
In 1852 he went to California by the overland route and remained there till 1854 when he came east, locating at Freeport, Winnesheik county, Iowa, then expecting that place would be the county seat, and continued in practice there for fourteen years, with the exception of the time occupied in making another overland trip to California while his family remained in Freeport. In 1866 he moved to Waukon and in 1885 he began spending his winters at De Funiak Springs, Fla., and from 1893 made his home there until the fall of 1897, when he returned to Waukon, which he has since called home.
At the time of his death he was the only physician living who was practicing in the four northeast counties of Iowa when he came to this state.
August 3d, 1843, he married Miss D. E. Heath in Crawford county, Pa., who died in Waukon August 15th, 1883. She was a native of New York.
To them were born Caroline, the late Mrs. Levi Plank, Frank W. of Blue Springs, Neb.; Jacob B. of Jennings, Kan., and Eva D., now Mrs. Dorsett, of Mineral Wells, Texas.
For nearly sixty years he had been a member of the I. O. O. F., was one of the charter members of the Waukon Lodge in 1870, and for many years he has been a member of the Masonic ordr.{sic}
Dr. M. was eminently a “doctor of the old school,” the ideal family physician, counselor, and friend. He had the happy faculty of making friends and keeping them. We shall long hold in loving remembrance his many generous and kindly deeds, his tender, sympathetic nature, his cheery greetings. He died having lived a long life in years and thickly strewn with good deeds.

Transcriber's Note: Find a Grave shows he is buried in Oakland Cemetery.


 

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