September 2015 P. O. Box 571 Jackson, MO 63755 Volume 35 Number 2 September 2015 The Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society was organized in May 1970, a non-profit organization, its primary purpose is education in the field of genealogy. Membership is open to individuals upon payment of the annual dues of $10, or a couple for $15, per year, beginning in May. Life membership is available for a one-time payment of $250. Web site: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mocgcgs/index.htm The CGCGS Library is located in the Research Room at the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center, 112 East Washington, Jackson, MO and is open during regular Archive Center hours. Our meetings are held at The Cape Girardeau County Archive Center, 112 East Washington in Jackson, MO, bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the fourth Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., unless announced otherwise. CGCGS publishes this quarterly, THE COLLAGE OF CAPE COUNTY, in March, June, September, and December, sent free to members. All members are encouraged to submit articles for publication. Submissions on disk (MS Word, rich text, or text files) or by email (text or rich text format) are encouraged, but not essential. Mail to Bill Eddleman, 1831 Ricardo Drive Cape Girardeau, MO 63701 (email: [email protected]). TABLE OF CONTENTS Dr. Patrick Gilroy: Cape Girardeau Physician and Post Surgeon . page 16 On the Shelf. page 32 Library Report. page 32 Query . page 32 Volume 35 Number 2 Collage of Cape County -16- Dr. Patrick Gilroy Cape Girardeau Physician and Post Surgeon By Ray Nichols, Marble Hill, Missouri [Editor’s Note: We are particularly proud to publish this contribution from member Ray Nichols for several reasons. It is a high-quality summary of the life of an important figure in Cape Girardeau during the Civil War. The article is also very well-documented, and contributes to local genealogy and history. Finally, it makes full use of the Cape Girardeau Weekly Argus, which the Society helped to purchase for the Southeast Missouri State University Archives some years ago. Thank you very much to Mr. Nichols!] Patrick Gilroy was born during March 1827 in Ireland and his future wife Catherine Mooney Gilroy was also born in Ireland in 1827. The Find a Grave website lists Catherine as being born two years earlier but all census records show them as being the same age or a one year difference in age.1 Sometime before June 1848, they immigrated to the United States and settled in Piqua, Miami County, Western Ohio. It was there in June of 1848, their first son Thomas P. Gilroy was born. To date the family has not been found on a passenger list.2 On August 8, 1850, the family was living in Piqua, Washington Township, Miami County, Ohio. They were the 497th family to be enumerated by the census taker but he spelled their surname Killroy. Patrick was a 26 year old carpenter and Catherine was 26 years old. Thomas Gilroy was two years old. Living with the family was Bridget Mooney, Catherine’s eight year old sister who was born in Ireland and had attended school within the year. 3 Medical education in the United States in the early years “was about differences that were both accepted and practiced among all manner of healers.” But, until the 1870s several movements occurred that changed traditional medicine and its therapeutic practices into the “professional schools modeled on the German ideal.” 4 These movements included “democratic medicine” which included commercialization of medical education. The College of Medicine of Maryland in 1807 was the first medical institution formed outside the colleges and universities and medical societies. Competition to this “democratic medicine” soon appeared and among the first was the practice of allopathy, from the Greek word allos, or different, and pathos, meaning disease. In short, allopathy meant treating a disease with remedies that would act contrary to the disease. Competing with this school was Homeopathy or similia similibus curantur meaning like cures like. Homeopathy led to using purgative medicines to treat diarrhea, emitting remedies for vomiting, and opium and other astringents for constipation. Then, the school of botanics entered the scene. This resulted in the use of herbal medicines. The Thomsonians originated with Samuel Thomson (1769-1843) but little was new except for the substitution of botanic medicines for mineral-based drugs. Yet another movement, the eclectics came out of the botanic movement in the 1820s.5 The eclectic movement must have impressed Irish immigrant Patrick Gilroy because some time during 1851-52 he decided to leave the carpentry business and pursue a medical degree from the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. 6 1 www.findagrave.com (January 2015) 2 www.findagrave.com (January 2015) 3 Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.. Roll: 711; Page: 349A. 4 Haller, John S., Jr. Kindly Medicine. Physio-Medicalism in America, 1836-1911. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997), 1. 5 Ibid. 2, 7-9, 11, 13, 18. 6 Felter, Harvey, Wickes, MD. History of the Eclectic Medical Institute Cincinnati, Ohio 1854-1902. (Cincinnati: Alumnal Association of the Eclectic Medical institute, 1902), 172. -17- Collage of Cape County Volume 35 Number 2 7 When Patrick Gilroy enrolled, the college had already “rid itself of Homeopathy.” However, historically the first Homeopathic physicians in the West graduated from the Eclectic and Homeopathic Institute. Gilroy was not able to study under then famous president, Dr. Thomas Vaughan Morrow who died July 16, 1850. Following Dr. Morrow’s death financial concerns caused the Institute to contact the Memphis, Tennessee Medical Institute resulting in five of the members of that faculty resigning and joining the Cincinnati Institute. 8 Upon enrollment, Gilroy was faced with fees of $100, or a well-indorsed note of $125, for a ticket to a full course of lectures, a matriculation fee of $5, a graduation fee of $15 and a Demonstrator’s ticket of $5. The course of lectures included: Theory and Practice of Medicine, Pathology, Surgical Practice and Operative Surgery, Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, Anatomy, Materia Medica and Medical Botany, Chemistry, Pharmacy and Toxicology. 9 Sometime between his graduation and early 1855 the Gilroy family moved to Appleton, Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. On January 29, 1855, Patrick Gilroy purchased and paid $50 cash to Singleton H. and Sarah G. Kimmel, for the following property in Appleton: “Beginning at a stone being the northeast corner of a lot heretofore conveyed to one Martin Born now deceased, thence west along said Born’s line to a stone being the northwest corner of said Born’s lot, thence northeast to the line dividing lots 6 and 7 in the northeast corner of Section 4, in Township 33 North, [Range] 12 East, thence east along said line to the road or street, thence south to the beginning.” The deed was recorded May 19, 1857. Born bought his lot from Kimmel August 2, 1844, and was a blacksmith. The area was settled in 1824 by John McLane and John Scholtz. Located on Apple Creek in Northern Cape Girardeau County, it was first known as Apple Creek Village and later as Appleton. The town was laid out by John McLane and recorded in the Cape Girardeau County Recorder’s office April 2, 1847. The village soon became populated and “…was an active business point during the 50s.” Catherine’s 7 Ibid. pp. 26. 8 Ibid. pp. 31. 9 Ibid. 32, 35. Volume 35 Number 2 Collage of Cape County -18- sister, Bridget made the move with them. The Gilroys would sell the Appleton property to a Samuel Doeing in June of 1863.10 Appleton Town Layout April 1847 (Cape Girardeau County Archives) A second son, John Alfred Gilroy was born in 1858, and then a daughter Katherine Macceutia “Kate” Gilroy was born in March 1860, both in Appleton, Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. 11 10 Cape Girardeau County Recorder’s Office, Deed Book T, 379; Eddleman, Bill, Abstr. Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds, Books M-O, 1846-1850. (Jackson, MO: Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society, 2013), 21, abstracted from Deed Book M, page 281; Goodspeed. History of Southeast Missouri. (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1888), 43; Deed Book Volume 2, pp. 692-3. 11 www.findagrave.com (January 2015) -19- Collage of Cape County Volume 35 Number 2 September 8, 1860 found 36 year old Patrick Gilroy practicing medicine in Appleton, Apple Creek Township, Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. He had accumulated a wealth of $1000 in Real Estate and $1000 in Personal property. Thirty-five year old Catherine is shown on the census along with sons 12 year old Thomas W.[P] Gilroy and three year old John A. Gilroy, six-month old daughter Catherine Gilroy and 15 year old sister-in-law Bridget Mooney. Thomas was in school at the time.12 Eighteen sixty-one saw the war clouds hover over the United States and Southeast Missouri did not escape the coming storm. Being close to the Perry County line, Patrick Gilroy, along with several other Cape Girardeau County men, enrolled in Samuel P. Simpson’s Union 4th Regiment Missouri Six Months Militia Infantry at Perryville, Missouri, on October 10, 1861 and was appointed surgeon in the unit. Simpson’ s regiment served at Pilot Knob and Ironton, Missouri until February 25, 1862, when it was mustered out at Ironton. 13 Upon mustering out of the Six Months Militia Dr. Gilroy moved his family to Cape Girardeau in 1862 and according to an article in the Southeast Missourian took up residence at 223 South Spanish, a two-story brick house.