Dr. A. B. Dobson
DOBSON
Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 2/26/2009 at 21:50:14
Anamosa Journal, reprinted in the Jackson Sentinel, April 9, 1891.
DR. A. B. DOBSON
Maquoketa’s Mayor
A Spiritualist Whose Practical Benevolence Shames Orthodox Pretensions.
The city election in Maquoketa resulted in the election of Dr. A. B. Dobson, formerly well known in this city. In former years he was a frequent visitor in Anamosa. We recollect him as a leader in several spiritual séances where slate-writing and gong-sounding was practiced. At the time he was making money as a clairvoyant physician. He diagnosed a patient’s condition by examining a lock of his hair, a process which involved splitting of some of the hairs to enable the doctor to make a more minute analysis of the disease. On a certain occasion one of the incredulous in Maquoketa sent him a bunch of dog’s hair upon which to exercise his clairvoyant skill. The result caused a broad ripple of laughter to roll through the town, and the affair was made topical in the newspapers to the edification of all the horse-laughers in Jackson County. Dr. Dobson was an extensive advertiser at home and abroad, and though his pretensions were doubted he made money rapidly through the medium of his advertising. He is today regarded as a rich man. His revenue is estimated from $75 to $100 a day. He stands high in popular favor in Maquoketa on account of the generous use of his money. The doctor makes no pretension to orthodox religious belief. He is a thorough dissenter. But he practices in hard cash what the goody-goody fellows practice by word of mouth alone. It has been his custom to give grocery and boot and shoe dealers in the Timber City carte blanche to supply needy persons with flour and shoes, the merchant being allowed to use his own discretion in the matter. At times when there appeared to be unusual destitution among the poor classes hand bills would be posted inviting the needy to call at places designated and enjoy his bounty. He has paid from $50 to $100 a week for this kind of benevolence when there seemed to be occasion for it. In the abundance of good fortune he didn’t become a pious fraud and pinch-penny, as many of the ardently religious do. And thus Dr. Dobson practiced the highest type of Christianity-a Christianity that transcends all the stiff verbiage and penny-herding flummery of mere church formula. Nor was this the only way in which he commended himself to his fellow citizens. He built a large number of tenement houses when they were urgently needed, he donated public drinking fountains and did many other things that heightened copular respect for him. These things, it is said, were done without any attempt at self-glorification, for which reason they were the more impressive. The nomination for mayor was conferred upon him by a citizens’ convention rather democratic in its complexion, and he was elected by an overwhelming majority. –Anamosa Journal.
Dr. Dobson grave
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