MacQUIGG, William

MACQUIGG, DUNLAP, SCRIPTURE, AULTMAN

Posted By: Nettie Mae
Date: 1/18/2003 at 13:17:51

Source: The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.

WILLIAM MacQUIGG, M. D.

There is no profession in which its member are brought into closer relations with the people than the medical, and the old family physician is honored wherever he may be. Clinton county is well represented by physicians and surgeons that are an honor to the profession, and none stand higher in the estimation of its citizens than Dr. William MacQuigg, who has been a resident of the county since June 4, 1852, and is the oldest physician, in point of practice, now living within its borders. In the forty-nine years that have passed what changes has he witnessed in the development of the county of his adoption, and of the grand state of which it forms a part.

Dr. MacQuigg was born in the city of Philadelphia, May 14, 1828, and is the son of James and Margaret (Dunlap) MacQuigg, both of whom were natives of Scotland, born near the city of Edinburg. In early life they came to the United States and located in Pennsylvania, which remained their home for some years, and from which state they removed to Muskingum county, Ohio, in 1842. They reared a family of five children, and continued to make Ohio their home until called to their reward.

In the city of his birth the Doctor received his primary education, and in the schools of Ohio he finished his course and laid the foundation for the well stored mind developed by intercourse with his fellow man. Before attaining his majority he began reading medicine under the instruction of Dr. McMillan, of Newark, Ohio, in whose office he continued until the fall of 1850, when he attended a course of lectures in the Medical College at Cleveland, Ohio. While did not then graduate from the medical institution, he commenced the practice of his profession, and in June, 1852, came to Iowa and located in Camanche, then the most important town in Clinton county. At that time the site of the present city of Clinton was a cornfield, while Lyons was but a village of one hundred and fifty inhabitants. Commencing practice here, the Doctor soon had calls from all parts of the county, and for twenty miles around he was in constant demand at the bedside of the sick or in consultation with other physicians,. While his experience was beneficial, and the practical knowledge obtained was very great, he felt that it would be better for him if he should finish his course of lectures, graduate and receive the approval of his alma mater. Accordingly he returned to Cleveland, and in the class of 1860 was graduated from the Cleveland Medical College. Receiving his diploma, he again took up, his residence in Camanche and was actively engaged in practice until 1862, when he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Twenty-sixth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and with the regiment went to the front and for a year and a half served in that capacity, being then compelled to resign on account of ill health.

On the acceptance of his resignation Dr. MacQuigg returned to Camanche, where he resumed his general practice and remained until 1866, when he removed to the city of Lyons, which has since been his permanent home. His reputation as a skillful physician and surgeon being well known in that city, it was not long before calls were numerous, and for about a third of a century he was actively engaged in office and general practice with gratifying success. For the past three years he has endeavored to quietly retire from the field, but many of his old patients will not let him yield to his desire and will continue to visit him at his office and call for him in extreme cases.

Dr. MacQuigg has been twice married, his first union being with Miss Mary Jane Scripture, a native of New York, and after her death he was married, in 1884, to Miss Anna Aultman, a native of Pennsylvania. They reside in a beautiful residence in the city of
Clinton, on a fine elevation, overlooking the Mississippi river, and there the Doctor delights to entertain his friends and talk with them over old times when Iowa was a new state, its inhabitants being few and widely scattered, and then to contrast it with the present, when it ranks as one of the greatest states in the Union, with less illiteracy than any other state.

Dr. MacQuigg is one of the most prominent Masons of the state of Iowa, and has attained the thirty-second degree, being a member of DeMolay Consistory, No. I, of Lyons. Few men are better posted in the work of the order, and none stand higher in its councils. He has now been identified with it for forty-six years, having first united with the blue lodge at Camanche in 1855.

When Dr. MacQuigg first located in Clinton county it was almost a wilderness, there being but few roads, and over its trackless prairies he rode day and night at the call of the distressed. In its improvement and development he has taken no mean part, his best efforts, however, being given to his profession, and as he looks back he can see how the changes were gradually brought about, and how thriving cities and villages have sprung up, and almost every acre of its fertile soil under cultivation. The noble profession of which he is an honored member has made advancements of the which the world never dreamed, and in the onward movement the Doctor has kept step, while never ignoring the experiences of the past. Honored by his professional brethren, and held in the highest esteem by his fellow citizens, he can look back upon a life well spent and with the proud satisfaction of knowing that he has done well his part and that he has the confidence of those with who he has been so long associated.