Hanchett, Alfred P. (1852-1935)

HANCHETT

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 9/22/2019 at 22:37:27

Alfred Phineas Hanchett
(June 16, 1852 - December 8, 1935)

(From the 1891 Biographical History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, p.379)
ALFRED P. HANCHETT, M.D., homeopathic physician and surgeon of Council Bluffs, established himself in practice in this city in January 1881. He was born at Aurora, Illinois, June 16, 1852. His father, David HANCHETT, was a pioneer of Kane County, Illinois, where he settled in 1844. The Doctor is one of five brothers, all but one of whom are physicians in active practice.

The Doctor was reared on a farm and graduated at the High School at Aurora, in 1873, took a scientific and literary course at Wheaton college, and began the study of medicine at Wheaton, with Professor E. II. Pratt, while a student at college. He graduated at the Homeopathic Medical College in Chicago, in 1878 and located first at Marengo, Illinois, where he practiced three years, when he moved to Council Bluffs. The Doctor was married to Miss Grace McMICKEN, a native of Aurora, Illinois, and they have two children.

Dr. HANCHETT has a large and increasing practice. His professional duties demanding an assistant, he associated with him in that capacity, in 1887, Dr. Sarah Smith, formerly his student, and a graduate of Hahnemann College, Chicago, in the class of 1887. He is a member of the Omaha and Council Bluffs Homeopathic Medical Association; Secretary of the Hahnemann Medical Association of Iowa; Member of the Examining Board of the Homeopathic Department of the Iowa State university; Physician and Surgeon to the Iowa State Institution for Deaf and Dumb, and member of the American Institute of Homeopathy.

(from Biographies and Portraits of Progressive Men of Iowa…, by Gue & Shambaugh, 1899, vol.2, p.260-261)
Alfred Phineas Hanchett, one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Council Bluffs, was born in Kanesville, Illinois, June 16, 1852. His early live was spent upon a farm, and his earliest school days at the proverbial “red school house” of the country district. His father, David Hanchett, has always been a farmer, though now retired from active life. He was born in Suffield, Connecticut, where his ancestors had lived for more than 200 years, and through seven generations, of whom he traces his family to one Thomas Hanchett, who came to New England from France to escape religious persecution about the year 1630. David Hanchett left his New England home when a young man, coming to the then “far west,” securing a farm of 500 acres near Aurora, Illinois, which has been his home for more than fifty years. In November 1848 he was married to Miss Fayetta Churchill, who is also living. Her father, Alfred Churchill, was one of the earliest settlers of northern Illinois, coming there in 1833. He was a man of great inventive genius, manufacturing a harvester to be drawn by horses at about the same time that Cyrus McCormick got out his first crude machine for harvesting grain. Two great-grandfathers served with distinction in the Revolutionary Army, one as colonel of a Connecticut regiment; the other as general. Dr. Hanchett is the eldest of five sons and one daughter, all of whom are living. Four of the brothers are physicians engaged actively in the practice of medicine and surgery in western cities; W. H. Hanchett, of Omaha; John L. Hanchett, of Sioux City; James C. Hanchett, of Salt Lake City, and Alfred P. Hanchett, of Council Bluffs. All are recognized as being among the most prominent and successful practitioners in their respective cities. The other brother is an attorney, living at Aurora, Illinois, and doing a large practice before the courts of Kane and Cook Counties. Dr. Hanchett’s school advantages were such as can be had at the country schoolhouse, then the village, and later the high school at Aurora, with one year at Wheaton College. Following this he was engaged in teaching for three years, with the savings from which he pursued his medical studies, graduating from the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College in the spring of 1878.
He first located for the practice of medicine at Marengo, Illinois, where he remained about three years, and built up a good business; but the desire for a larger field, and becoming infected with the western fever, he removed in the spring of 1880 to Council Bluffs, where he has since resided, and has today one of the largest general and consultation practices in western Iowa. The Doctor has always been a staunch republican, though never taking a very active part in politics; he has been for years a member of Excelsior Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons; of Fidelity Council, Royal Arcanum, of which he is also medical examiner. He is also a member and active worker in the American Institute of Homeopathy, the Hahnermann Medical Association of Iowa, the Missouri Valley Homeopathic Medical Association, and several other medical societies. For many years the Doctor and his family have been actively identified with the First Presbyterian Church of Council Bluffs, of which they are members. In September 1878 he was married to Miss Grace McMicken of Aurora, Illinois. They have two sons; Mac W., born May 22, 1881, and Alfred P., born November 19, 1883.