Chilcote, Dr. A.W.

CHILCOTE, WATERS, BALLARD

Posted By: mjv (email)
Date: 9/29/2020 at 14:30:26

Dr. A.W. Chilcote, a resident and prominent citizen of Washington, and whose portrait is presented on the opposite page, furnishes a notable instance of the results attendant upon a life of active and useful endeavor. History has long since established the fact, that our best and greatest men are by no means confined to the ranks of those ennobled by birth, or surrounded from childhood with every facility for education or moral and social culture. The finest natures are, indisputably, those who override with their latent force and mental power every obstacle, and aim, by virtue of their indomitable wills, that honorable precedence among men that, if conferred solely by accident of birth, is far less the merit than the good fortune of its possessor.

Our subject’s father, Ensor Chilcote, of Somerset, Ohio, was a man of moderate fortune; one of the leading citizens in all the high moral reforms of the day, and uncompromising member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, yet with the grace of generosity to make his almost puritanical strictness lovable. His mother, Mary (Waters) Chilcote, was an English woman by birth, but with all the intense devotion of her noble nature she loved her adopted country. Her Christian traits were so manifold and beautiful, that in her home was perpetual sunshine.

With no inheritance save the priceless one of inborn honor and integrity, Dr. Chilcote was born in Somerset, Ohio, in the year 1825. From this period until the fall of 1841, his life was uneventful, except in so far as it laid foundations, broad and deep, whereon to rear the bulwarks of a noble life. His education was confined to the practical and not altogether comprehensive routine peculiar to common schools of that day. Limited as were his educational resources, however, he must have evolved from then the elements of success, for the autumn of 1841 found him and eminently successful teacher in the Curran district in his native county. He continued his supervision of his school for five consecutive winters, three of the intervening summers having been spent in attending school.

In 1844 he commenced the study of medicine under the auspices of Dr. Stone, one of the most successful and popular physicians of his day. He remained a student in the office of Dr. Stone until the spring of 1847, when desiring a more extended experience and knowledge of life, he left his native town, traveling over the greater portion of Western Ohio and the State of Indiana, which at that date had fairly commenced its present attainment of political and social importance. Finding a fresh supply of funds indispensable to the continuation of his journey, he opened a school at Bridgeport, a small town ten miles west of Indianapolis. His peculiar fitness for this work was demonstrated by the very decided effort made to retain him after the expiration of his four months’ term. Having fully resolved, however, upon completing his medical studies without loss of time, he declined the importunities of his patrons, returned to Somerset, and placed himself under the instructions of Dr. Hood, one of its leading physicians.

During the following spring he returned to Indiana, and was united in marriage with Miss J.A. Ballard, the daughter of Mr. John Ballard, of Bridgeport, a prominent man in his town and county, and a member of a large and influential family. Having by this time acquired the title of M D., the subject of this sketch located, with his young wife, in the town of Perkinsville, on White River, and commenced the practice of medicine. At the end of one year, while rapidly acquiring a large and lucrative practice, he found his general health failing and his eyesight becoming so much impaired that abandonment of his profession seemed inevitable. It was a terrible disappointment, in the first flush of gratified ambition, to give up his long cherished hope of attaining eminence in his profession. But with characteristic fortitude and philosophy he yielded to the inevitable, and establishing himself in Danville, Hendricks County, Ind., opened a drug-store. It proved under his efficient management, a fortunate venture, and he was indulging in a fresh anticipations of success, when in 1852, a disastrous fire occurred, sweeping away the greater part of the business portion of the town, destroying utterly his business and his home, and as he was without insurance, leaving him penniless. With the same indomitable energy that sustained them in the first disappointment, the Doctor and his wife placed the remnant of their stock in trade in a one-horse buggy, and, with the undaunted courage, set their faces westward.

Attracted by the fine location and scenery of Washington, then a small town of but 300 inhabitants, the Doctor determined to open a drug-store there. His commencement was necessarily on a very limited scale, but his perseverance and close attention to business could not fail of results. The passing years brought with them the increasing success, until, in 1868, he found himself the proprietor of a business that, for a western town, was exceptionally large and thriving. Having at this period won the unbounded esteem and confidence of his fellow-townsmen, he retired from the drug business and interested himself in the organization of the Farmers and Merchants’ Bank, with a capital of $50,000, since which time it has changed to the Washington National, with a paid-up capital of $100,000, and by good management and careful financiering has already laid up a surplus fund of $50,000 after paying good dividends to its stockholders. Dr. Chilcote has filled the office of President since its organization, and with the unbounded confidence of the people in this institution and its officers, and their safe and honorable management, no bank offers a more safe and secure means for commercial transactions than the Washington National.

The foregoing sketch needs little in the way of summing up. Character, like capital, is earned by long and meritorious effort, and those of the rising generation who desire to emulate Dr. Chilcote’s example and attain his present honorable position, must not forget that the iniatory steps are perseverance, moral courage, and unswerving integrity

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington County, Iowa (1887). Excerpt from Biographical Sketch of Dr. A. W. Chilcote, pages 393-395.
Portrait of Dr. A.W. Chilcote found on page 392.