Practicing Medicine

Frontier healthcare providers were stretched thin and had few resources for healing patients.

Frontier:

Dr. Wanton H. Parker, (1802 – 1849), doctor

Dr. Wanton H. Parker (1802-1849), like other doctors of the 1840s, mostly traveled to the homes of his patients. A New York native, Wanton settled in Stouts Grove in 1840 where he provided medical care to his neighbors.

Contracting contagious diseases was a doctor’s greatest risk. Wanton died from cholera in 1849, after contracting it from a patient. He was only 47 years old and left behind a wife and five children.

Wanton’s brother, Dr. James E. Parker (1811-1879), practiced medicine in Wilkesborough, near present-day Danvers. After the death of his brother, James used the medical kit below that originally belonged to Wanton.

Portrait of light-skinned man with ear length hair and a beard that starts below the mouth. — James E. Parker

View this object in Matterport

This surgical kit was typical for the period during which Wanton and James practiced medicine. James passed it on to Bloomington’s Dr. Lee Smith, who may have used it during the Civil War.

Donated by: Antoinette Pond
728.19

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