Nancy Rafferty with photos of Dr. Nathan Thomas.
Since retiring from medical practice one year ago, I’ve been meeting weekly with Dr. Lloyd Appell and researching the first doctors in Kalamazoo County. With the help of Nancy Rafferty and the Schoolcraft Historical Society (SHS) we discovered a wealth of information on Dr. Nathan Thomas who came to Schoolcraft in 1830. This is the first of three articles about Dr. Nathan Thomas, his medical practice, his family’s participation in the Underground Railroad and the work of the SHS to preserve the original Thomas home.
Dr. Nathan Thomas was one of the first physicians in Western Michigan. He travelled from Mount Pleasant, Ohio, to Prairie Ronde on horseback to look for a place to practice and invest in farmland in 1830. After checking out Prairie Ronde (later to become Schoolcraft) he continued on horseback three more days to Chicago. He described Chicago as “3 old houses and a fort” so he returned to Prairie Ronde, thinking the prospects were better! There were 60 families on the prairie and “not a single shingled roofed house in the county”
The area was populated quickly and Dr. Thomas had a very busy medical practice. Most patients were seen in their homes with travel to each place on horseback.
“During the sickly seasons in 1833 and 1834 my time was completely occupied that I did not usually get through the business of the day until after midnight, and then if calls were left written on the slate which was screwed on my office door, I did not sleep until they were attended to. Frequently those calls consumed the rest of the night, with no opportunity of sleeping the next day, and so it continued through the busiest part of the year.”
Medicine was primitive. He had to use a candle to illuminate a throat exam in the middle of the day because the log cabin he was visiting was so dark. Death of children and young adults was much more common.
Travel itself could be difficult. After a couple hours of riding in the dark to White Pigeon he discovered he had gotten disoriented, ridden in a circle and ended up where he had started.
Another evening riding north of Vicksburg it was so dark he could no longer navigate and had to wait and rest until dawn but owls kept him awake. He fell asleep on horseback on one call and ended up in Paw Paw, the location of the previous night’s call. rather than where he intended two miles away. In 1835, he recalled a black bear crossing his path and climbing a tree. On a four-mile nighttime ride to deliver a baby, he marveled at a meteor shower.
As horse riders know, riding can be therapeutic.” Occasionally I became so depressed in spirits and exhausted from loss of sleep, irregularity of meals, etc. that I felt like yielding to the force of circumstances, under the delusive impression that I had not the strength to mount my horse or proceed further; but when I was once seated in the saddle and fully started, the motion of the horse and the bracing effect of the atmosphere soon dispelled all depressing influences both mental and physical and a fine flow of spirits was the result.”
Dr. Thomas married Pamela Brown in 1840 and built a home and office for them in Schoolcraft. They had 4 children, Avis, Stanton, Ella and Malcolm. Dr. Thomas retired from practice in the winter of 1852-1853 after 23 years in practice. This first home of the Thomases was also a station on the Underground Railroad and has been preserved by the Schoolcraft Historical Society. More on that in the next article.
