The World of a 19th Century Country Doctor

~Updated January 2023~

19th century medical practices fascinate me,  and I've always had an interest in the subject.  In fact,  as a youngster,  the doctor on  "Little House on the Prairie"  (Doc Baker)  was my favorite character on the TV show.  But there is one real-life doctor from the past who really piqued my interest:  Dr.  Alonson Howard of Tekonsha,  Michigan  (not far from the Jackson area).
We had our own version of Doc Baker right here in Michigan!  And what a fascinating character he was - a true Victorian doctor in every sense of the word.
The posting you are about to read is not only about Dr.  Howard,  but it is also about the office he practiced out of,  which guests can now visit inside Greenfield Village.
I should like to present here a bit about this amazing man and his practice.
I think you will enjoy it:

Dr. Howard's Office

A visit to the Dr.'s office

This simple Greek Revival structure began as a one-room schoolhouse,  built in 1839 in the rural Michigan town of Tekonsha.  It retained heat better than most buildings of its time as it was built with  'nogging' - that is,  rough bricks placed between the interior and exterior wooden walls to provide insulation,  as well as for protection against fire and infestation from rodents.

Dr. Alonson Howard

In 1840,  the Howard family,  including 17 year old Alonson, migrated to Tekonsha from upstate New York and established a farm they called Windfall that was located just behind the schoolhouse,  hence the original name of the school - Windfall School.  Folks that remembered Howard recalled a gruff,  outspoken individual who got into medical practice because of his friendship with the Pottawatomie tribe of the nearby Indian reservation.  They taught him the use of herbs and roots in treating illnesses,  and he learned to concoct many of the remedies himself. After he had practiced  "doctorin'"  in this fashion for several years,  he earned money to to go school to study medicine.  In this manner,  Dr.  Alonson B.  Howard,  in 1851,  was one of the first to attend and receive his medical degree from the new medical school at the University of Michigan.  Though  "quaint"  by today's standards,  the medicine he practiced was modern and scientific for his time.

Entering the front door
of Dr.  Howard's office

As a practicing physician,  he enjoyed the high respect of the patients he served.  But,  this medical degree did not divorce this pioneer physician from the Indian cures for illness;  he combined everything he knew to treat his patients.
From those that remembered him,  a physical description of the man comes to light:  he was large yet not fat,  his hair was sandy and he had blue eyes.  He was almost never seen without his clay pipe,  even on one of the very few occasions he sat for a tintype,  where it remained in his pocket.  His young niece,  Rita,  loved to watch him mix his powders and medicines and said that his hands would just fly.  For such a ponderous man,  he was amazingly quick in movement.
It was in 1855,  when Tekonsha built a new school,  that Dr.  Howard,  who already owned the farmland in which the old school house sat upon,  bought the building as well.
He remodeled it and created a reception room,  a laboratory,  and a personal office.  While most doctors of the 19th century worked out of their homes,  Dr. Howard had his own doctor's office.

Waiting to see the Doctor.

Known as  "Doc"  Howard,  he became a very respected doctor in Tekonsha and the surrounding communities.  Besides seeing patients in his office,  Doc Howard made housecalls on horseback on his white horse he called  'Mel,'  short for Melchizedek.  He could be seen throughout much of south central Michigan,  riding atop Mel,  saddlebags bouncing off the sides of the horse.  Doc Howard would also ride the train circuit,  treating patients between Marshall,  Battle Creek,  Kalamazoo,  and Coldwater,  as well as other towns north and south of Tekonsha, and even Jackson to the east.

Doc Howard's office in its original location - - see it there?
Yep, right there on the bottom left.

This is that very same spot and same angle  today  
(photo taken by me in early 2022)

By arrangement,  the engineer of the Michigan Central Railroad would begin blowing his whistle after leaving the Burlington Station three miles away and then watch the country road where the tracks crossed a quarter mile south of the doctor's home.  If the engineer saw a white horse racing toward the crossing,  he pulled the train to a stop.  Doc Howard would jump from the horse,  his bag in hand,  give the animal a resounding slap on the rear and yell,  "Go home,  Mel,  go home!"  As the physician climbed aboard the train the horse would turn around and trot off toward home.

The doctor eventually built a hitching post a quarter mile long along his property and it was not unusual to see horse-drawn vehicles hitched along its entire length while patients waited to see him.

Sickly patients waiting to see Doc Howard

Howard treated everything from a toothache to consumption and all ailments in between,  and would perform surgery if needed.  In other words,  he combined the attributes of a chemist,  apothecary,  dentist,  physician,  and surgeon.  He charged a standard twenty five cents for a normal housecall,  but staying the night with a patient would cost two dollars.  He also accepted grain or tallow,  or even labor on his farm for pay.  The cost of medicine was included in the fee.  There are numerous entries of financial transactions:  12 cents for pulling a tooth,  25 cents for filling a tooth,  $2 for sitting all night with a patient,  which he did frequently.

The sick bed in the waiting area of Dr. Howard's office

Sometimes his patient approach was such that it would surely shock a psychiatrist of today.  Stories are numerous from the old-timers who remember Doc Howard and his bluntness with his patients.  For instance,  his niece,  little Rita,  recalled being in his office one afternoon with him when he got his first look at a patient coming into his inner office.  He said very positively,  "God-dee Almighty,  lady!  You're on your way to Glory!"

Looking toward the front entrance in the waiting area

Another time,  while examining a patient he knew when she was a young girl,  he asked her,  "Fanny,  are you married?"  As she replied in the negative he popped,  "Well,  you oughta be!  There's nothing the matter with you.  Go find a good man and marry him!"

I like to come up with scenarios at our reenactments,  and so,  during one of the Civil War Remembrance events I came up with a sick patient scenario:

Poor Jenny...the extreme heat had overtaken her, so her friends, 
Jackie and Carolyn,  brought her to see the local doctor - Doc Howard.

"God-dee Almighty, lady!  You're on your way to Glory!"

"Miss Jackie,  would you fill this bowl I have in my bag with extract of
butternut bark?  I believe that may cure her ills."

The barrels in which you see here are the real deal - 

they originally belonged to Dr.  Howard and were kept inside 

this building,  just as he left them, 

after he passed away in 1883.

And that's how Greenfield Village found them when it was all donated in the 1950s.

This extract should cure Mrs.  Long's ills.

It was a fun little scenario that we did.

AND we did it inside of Doc Howard's original office!

Doc Howard's medicine

As gruff as he was with adults,  he was quite the opposite with children.  He had such a way with the little ones that they liked and remembered him fondly,  with much affection and respect.
But there is a story from a magazine I found in the Benson Ford Research Center collection of the Henry Ford,  written by Rae S.  Corliss in 1955,  that I would like to share here:
Mal,  the white stallion,  raced through the blackness of the stormy night,  jolting the doctor's buggy over rutted mud roads toward the home of Jake Newton.

After the office was first moved into Greenfield Village,  a white horse and doctor's
carriage was often used to accent the appearance of the building.

Jake,  who had driven to the Doctor's home with word the new baby was coming,  had been left far behind in his own carriage.
"Git up,  you blasted white imp,  " Dr.  Alanson B.  Howard had shouted into the cold dripping atmosphere so many times he was becoming hoarse.  At long last,  he abandoned Mal in the Newton drive and stamped in through the side door of the farm house.
"Well,  how's the patient?"  he roared as he slammed the door,  pulled off an old felt hat and in the act dumped a pint of water on the dining room floor.  "Speak up,  child,  speak up---how's your ma?"  he demanded of ten-year-old Lizzie Newton,  who had come into the room at the sound of his footsteps on the porch.
"She's feelin'  a mite better,  Doctor Howard,"  answered the child,  and then as the physician threw his soaked great coat over a chair and started for the bedroom,  came the voice of her mother,  exhausted from the long wait:  "Guess Jake brung you on a wide goose's chase,  Doc.  I don't feel no mite of pain now.  The wee stranger must've dozed off for a spell."
Doc Howard dropped his huge frame into the biggest chair in the room,  wiped the rain from his face with a red checkered handkerchief and began to fumble in his saddlebag.  He was on the case,  and here he would remain until the baby arrived.  It was an old story---ever new---and he loved the life of a country doctor.
"Put a pot of coffee on the stove,  Lizzie."  he called out into the kitchen,  and then added gruffly,  "I don't want none of that warmed up brew left from supper."
It was 18 minutes before midnight on the night of November 2,  1853,  that Doctor Howard reached the Newton home.  He drank black coffee,  catnapped,  ate heartily at meal time,  and played checkers with Jake in the interim before a baby son was born to Sylvia Newton at 10 pm.,  November 4.  He had been on the case for a total of 44 hours.  Jake Newton was charged $5 for the delivery---ultimately paying the bill with a slab of pork and a dozen fat hens for the doctor's table.
This embellished but true story was rural medicine over a century and a half ago.

Looking toward the medicine room.

It is unfortunate that his life ended sadly.  He had been a very active and energetic man all his life.  When he was 61,  he was attacked by the same disease that killed his parents,  known in those days as  "softening of the brain."  Today,  that disease is known as hardening of the arteries.  He knew there was no hope and accepted his fate.
Shortly after his death in 1883,  his wife,  Cynthia,  sent the medical instruments to their son in Arkansas,  who was also a physician.   Mrs.  Howard promptly padlocked the building, which her husband had used as his office for 28 years,  and it remained mostly untouched as Doctor Howard left it until 1956 when their great grandson donated it and its contents to Greenfield Village.

Any doctor who keeps medicine in wooden barrels is all right by me!

According to the great grandson,  "For weeks I worked  (in the office)  at times I could spare.  I used an old tub to put things in and for taking into the house for drying  (there was a leaky roof),  reading and sorting.  I had reached the last tub full when I decided there was nothing of importance in that load and dumped it in the driveway for burning.  Late that night I thought  'you have been careful up to this point,  why be impatient now?'  The next morning I went out and gathered it all up from the driveway.  That tub load was the one that produced  (among other things)  the first account book of Dr.  Howard's.  The book included an itemization of expenses while at the University of Michigan."
The family tried placing the office with a historical group that would preserve it,  to no avail.
"I tried Greenfield Village,  but with no success.  Henry Ford had died and they were very slow about additions."  After numerous tried elsewhere,  "Mother made a stop-over visit in Dearborn and she started things in the right direction.  They  (Greenfield Village)  finally got the idea that we were interested in giving,  not selling,  and from then on things moved.  It was accepted by the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in 1956,  which probably puts our family in the group of the very few that have given something to the Fords' in recent years."
Dr. Howard's Office was open to the public in 1962.

This is not your CVS or Rite Aid pharmacy.
That is an original sign of the good doctor's...

The original furnishings,  financial records,  equipment,  patent medicines,  and medicinal formula books are still contained within the building inside of Greenfield Village.  Wooden kegs,  which he himself painted and labeled for his herbal remedies and most extracts,  still remain and stock the homeopathic laboratory.  And some of what he used was skunk cabbage,  bloodroot,  butternut bark,  white snake root,  spotted lung wart,  juniper,  witch hazel,  dandelion roots,  and numerous others.

The photographs herein show the office not only as it looks in its restored
condition today, but pretty much as it looked in the 19th century.

I've always felt that to know more of the background story of any historic structure and of those who once used or lived in it can add greatly to a visitor's experience.  Otherwise it's just another old building in a museum.
This building - Doc Howard's Office -  is a living testament to not only this Michigan physician,  but to all 19th century practitioners.

I like to think of this posting as another chapter to help bring the past to life for those of us who enjoy studying history.  And Greenfield Village has more of the past than practically any place I know.
I hope you enjoyed it.

Black and white photographs courtesy of The Henry Ford Collection

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To read on other Greenfield Village homes and structures I researched,  please click the following links:

Ackley Covered Bridge 1832
At one time, covered bridges were commonplace. Not so much anymore. But Greenfield Village has one from 1832.

Daggett House  (part one)

Learn about the 18th century house and the family who lived there.

Daggett House  (part two)

This concentrates more on the everyday life of the 18th century Daggett family,  including ledger entries.

Eagle Tavern
Learn about the Eagle Tavern and 19th century travel

Eagle Tavern: Eating Historically 
Taste history while being immersed in the 1850s
 
Firestone Farm at Greenfield Village
Learn about the boyhood home of Harvey Firestone, the tire magnate.

The Giddings House
Revolutionary War and possible George Washington ties are within the hallowed walls of this beautiful stately colonial home.

Mills  

These buildings were once a part of everyday life in American villages and towns and cities - including the Gunsolly Carding Mill,  the Loranger Gristmill,  Farris Windmill,  Hanks Silk Mill,  Cider Mill,  and the Spofford and the Tripps Saw Mills,  all in one post!

Noah Webster House
A quick overview of the life of this fascinating but forgotten Founding Father whose home, which was nearly razed for a parking lot, is now located in Greenfield Village.

The Plympton House
This house,  with its long history  (including American Indians)  has close ties to Paul Revere himself!

Preserving History
Henry Ford did more for preserving everyday life of the 18th and 19th centuries than anyone else! Here's proof.

Tales of Everyday Life in Menlo Park (or Francis Jehl: A Young Boy's Experience Working at Menlo Park)
Menlo Park is brought to life by one who was there. First-hand accounts.

Richart Carriage Shop
This building was much more than a carriage shop in the 19th century!

And for some haunted fun, 
Ghosts of Greenfield Village
Yep - real hauntings take place in this historic Village.

Greenfield Village's Revolutionary War Houses

Yes,  some of the structures that now sit inside Greenfield Village have connections to America's fight for Independence.

Michigan Train Depots:  The Edison Route 

Follow the route that Thomas Edison took as he rode and worked on the rails in the early 1860s,  including the Smiths Creek Depot.

Hallowed Ground: The Original Locations of Greenfield Village Buildings - 

Virtually each structure inside Greenfield Village has come from another location,  I took on a project to seek out the original  locations of many of the local buildings.  

Where they first stood when they were first built.

Revolutionary Greenfield Village...Plus

Homes that played a role in our country's fight for Independence.

Logan County Court House - 

Research has shown that,  as a young attorney,  Abraham Lincoln once practiced law in this walnut clapboard building.  I think this post will make you realize just how close to history you actually are when you step inside.

J.R. Jones General Store

Recreating this store to its 1880s appearance was extremely important as the overall goal,  and so accurately reproduced items were needed to accomplish the end result,  for many original objects were rare or too fragile,  with some being in too poor condition.  

Kitchens Through Time: Putting Our  (female)  Ancestors in Their Place in Time

This post is part history and part family history:  a blending of the two.  And one way to show how you can place your ancestors in their time.

The Beginnings of Greenfield Village 

Saving Americana - that's what Henry Ford did - and in doing so he showed everyone the importance of  everyday life history.  This is how it all began.   

Behind the Scenes at Greenfield Village - Object Placement and Clothing

Nothing is placed randomly inside the structures at Greenfield Village.  The curators carefully consider each and every object before allowing it to become part of the site. 

And the Clothing Studio at The Henry Ford covers over 250 years of fashion  (from 1760 onward)  and is the  premier museum costume shop in the country.

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