Blood Work

Newspaper advertisements often contain interesting, sometimes amusing, snippets of history.

Advertisement for R. A. Blood, M.D.
 New London Advocate (September 1872)

One of New London’s early surgeons was the aptly-named Dr. Robert A. Blood (1839–1916). He attended the New London Literary and Scientific Institution (formerly Colby Academy) before the Civil War, joined New Hampshire’s 11th Volunteers, Company F, and, badly wounded at Fredericksburg, was finally discharged in May 1863. He next decided to study medicine, training at Harvard’s medical school before establishing a short-lived practice (1871–1873) in New London. [He left to assume the practice of Dr. H.C. Bickford, his uncle and a New London native, in Charlestown, MA. Beginning in 1896, Dr. Blood served for eight years as the surgeon-general of Massachusetts.]

Today, if you have blood drawn and analyzed at New London Hospital, you might thank Colby-Sawyer students and alumnae. After returning from Christmas break in early 1941, Barbara Jane Baker, a third-year med-tech student from Rye, New York, died of meningitis at the old New London hospital on Main Street (near Pressey Court). In those days, blood samples were sent from the hospital to the college’s laboratory, but Baker's illness went undiagnosed. Her twelve classmates thought, as Barbara reportedly did, that the hospital should have its own facilities.

The first lab, just a bench and microscope located in closet-sized room by the cellar stairs, was formally dedicated with hymns, prayer, and a benediction on April 16, 1941. Although money had been raised, additional equipment was unavailable until after World War II. Dr. Clough Jr. analyzed samples and typed test reports until a part-time technician could be hired in 1942. 

Barbara Jane Baker (1920-1941)

By one reckoning from 1956, the third-year students had made annual donations totaling over $10,000—helping purchase equipment like EKG and BMR machines, a centrifuge, constant-temperature oven and water bath, binocular microscope, colorimeter, and a blood bank refrigerator. As the equipment grew, so did the need for work space, and the lab was relocated to a “slightly larger room” in 1955. In the move to the new County Road hospital building in 1958, the lab was allocated two rooms.

By 1972, the cumulative donations had reached $40,000. Contributions to the Baker Memorial Laboratory Fund continued through the 1970s, with Baker’s former classmates often answering the fundraising call to support "Colby's own charity." In 1980, the balance of the memorial fund was legally transferred from the college to the hospital.

So the next time you are waiting for your name to be called at the Drawing Station, peek through the lab’s window and think of the college students and alumnae that made it possible, starting with B.J. Baker. But when those vials appear with your name on them, you might also think of Dr. Blood.

Sources:

• New London Archives — Colby-Sawyer, New London Hospital, and newspaper collections.
• Granite Monthly, "New Hampshire Necrology", Dr. Robert A. Blood.

Lincoln Logs

Sorting a box of miscellany, we ran across this numbered certificate.

Lincoln Farm Association certificate (1909)

Dated June 17, 1909 and addressed to “Lottie Brown” the text reads, in part:

You have been this day enrolled as an honorary member of the Lincoln Farm Association, a patriotic organization formed by American citizens for the purpose of preserving as a National Park, the farm on which Abraham Lincoln was born.

Here's the story.

Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm (Kentucky) in 1809. As the centennial of this event approached, a group of citizens felt that his birthplace should be preserved for future generations. In fact, the cabin had been moved many times and was exhibited in 1897 at Nashville, Tennessee, where it was united with another from Kentucky—purportedly the cabin in which Jefferson Davis was born. Both cabins were later dismantled and shipped to New York. After an appearance at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, their logs were stored in the basement of a Long Island mansion.

Formed in 1906, the Lincoln Farm Association purchased the Lincoln logs for $1,000 and the Sinking Spring Farm for $3,600. (This was the same year that President Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act, which offered protection for federally-owned sites.) The expensive part of the project was the grand Memorial Building, in which the reconstructed log cabin would be enshrined. Despite donations from over 100,000 people, financial concerns forced the building plans to be scaled down (along with the dimensions of the cabin), but still the cornerstone was not laid by President Roosevelt until 1909. The memorial was dedicated two years later by President Taft, whose signature is printed just above "Mark Twain" on the Lincoln Farm certificate.

Lottie Brown at Low Plain School (c. 1905)

Lottie Brown had just turned twelve years old when she received the certificate, issued to all who donated between 25 cents and $25 to the project. The tenth and youngest child, Lottie attended the Low Plain school at the foot of Seamans Road. Her father was Alston Brown (1847-1938), who joined New Hampshire's First Volunteer Cavalry at the age of 16. He lost his left arm during Wilson's raid on Nottoway Courthouse, Virginia, on June 23, 1864. Six days later he was captured near Stone Creek by Confederate forces and imprisoned for two months. Whether he contributed to the Lincoln Farm project in Lottie’s name, or whether she donated her own money, we cannot know, but we can imagine that the preservation of Lincoln’s memory would have appealed to her family, as it did to the families of so many northern veterans.


Sources:

• National Park Service chronology at www.nps.gov/abli/planyourvisit/sinkingspringfarm.htm
• Alston Brown profile at www.nh.ngb.army.mil/images/stories/History/1st_NH_Cav.pdf

A letter from Andersonville.

Israel Roach letter

The Town Archives holds thousands of letters—some business, some government, some personal. Nearly all have a clear connection to the town of New London, but here's a rare and fascinating exception.

Israel Roach of Danvers, Massachusetts, was 38 years old when he volunteered for the 35th Massachusetts Regiment in 1862. Most of his comrades were more than a dozen years younger. On May 24, 1864, he and eight others from the same regiment were captured at the battle of the North Anna River, Virginia.

They were taken first to Libby Prison in Richmond for processing, but after four days they were moved along with a thousand other prisoners (sixty-five men packed into each boxcar) to Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. They arrived at noon on June 7, 1864 and struggled to find open ground on which to settle in the over-crowded prison.

One month later, Israel wrote this brief letter to his wife, Almira. Dated July 9, 1864, it begins:

...through the mercy of God I am well enough to write to you to day.... I have a strong hope to see you once more on the Earth, although the mortality is fearful here daily. If the government delay[s] paroling those men, there will be few... to transport in a few weeks.

The regimental history of the 35th Massachusetts Volunteers includes the following diary entry of Sgt. Henry Tinsdale on August 21, 1864:

Reverse, with death notice

The weather has been warm and very trying to sick and well. The death rate holds its own; three out of the ninety have died. Among them Israel Roach, of Company F, of our regiment. It was with tearful eyes we of the Thirty-Fifth bore his remains to the gate, pinned the scrap of paper denoting his name and regiment upon his breast, and delivered them to the stolid rebel guard. I have had many pleasant chats with him during our prison days. He had, I think, typhoid fever, and was delirious in his last hours. 

Two or three times a day now can be seen the "dead-wagon"—an old army wagon rigged with staves and railing, into which are piled our dead comrades, as a farmer would pile a load of wood — drawn by four mules around the south-west corner of the stockade to the final resting place. 

Israel Roach's letter was found among the papers of Oren D. Crockett, a New London resident with a keen interest in local and national history—but no known relation to the soldier.