J. S. Caswell, b 5 Feb 1843

ROGERS

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 2/23/2004 at 12:00:28

Dr. J. S. Caswell, physician and surgeon of Preston, is one of the leading practitioners of this county and Eastern Iowa. He was born Feb. 5, 1843, in Milton, Chittenden Co., Vt., and is the son of Horace and Lucy (Rogers) Caswell, who were of English descent, and descended from a long line of New England ancestry.

Horace Caswell is an extensive farmer, owning 500 acres of land, which in Vermont forms an exceedingly large landed estate. The family consisted of four children, all sons, of whom our subject is the third. July 24, 1864, the mother passed from earth. The brothers of our subject reside in Vermont, where they are engaged in agriculture, and are numbered among the well-to-do and sustantial men of that region. The eldest served in the United States Navy during the late Rebellion.

Dr. Caswell received the rudiments of his education in the common schools of his native county. This was supplemented by attendance at the academy at Barre, Vt., where he was fitted for college. At the age of twenty years he began reading medicine, and in the fall of 1865 entered the medical department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he took three courses of lectures. Later, returning to the East, he entered the medical department of the University of Vermont, at Burlington, from which institution he was graduated in June of 1870. He then remained at home a few month recruiting, and in February, 1871, began the practice of his chosen profession at Davison Station, Genesee Co., Mich.

In the above mentioned place Dr. Caswell enjoyed a good practice for four years. Then, desirous of becoming more proficient in his profession, he took another course of lectures at Ann Arbor, and afterward spent a year in travel. In 1875 he located in Preston, this county, where, in a very short time, he gained a large and lucrative business, which extends in a wide circle around the town, and also into Clinton County.

The Doctor is recognized as a man of superior ability in his profession, one who is peculiarly accurate in the diagnosis of his cases, which ability enables him to judge almost immediately the proper kind of treatment adapted to his patients. He is wonderfully fortunate in being able to control the diseases peculiar to this region, owing to his knowledge of anatomy, the laws of health, and the various intricate and delicate ramifications of the human system. So well is he regarded by the people of this vicinity that, in the treatment of the most difficult and usually fatal diseases, he is called in consultation with the most eminent physicians of the county. Although not a specialist, his learning, his extensive practical knowledge, and his acquirements have fitted him to treat all the disorders that mankind is heir to.

While at school Dr. Caswell became a thorough chemist, and is thus enabled to call to his aid all the remedies in the great laboratory of nature. He has thus attained to a high rank among the most prominent physicians of Eastern Iowa, and, to his excellent qualities of a physician, are added those of a useful and praiseworthy citizen.

("Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa", originally published in 1889, by the Chapman Brothers, of Chicago, Illinois.)