"Cyrus Hamlin, the home's new owner, was himself descended from sturdy stock. He was born in 1802, in Livermore, Maine, a town founded by his maternal grandfather. The family moved to Paris, Maine when he was just a young boy. His father's father, Eleazer Hamlin, commanded a body of Continental minutemen which included his sons, Africa, America, Europe and Asia.
As a young man, Cyrus assumed the responsibilities of the family farm. At the age of 22 howerver, he contracted tuberculosis, putting him in a condition too weak for this duty. He chose instead to follow in the footsteps of his father, Cyrus, who was a doctor as well as a farmer in Paris. His father would see him graduate from Bowdoin College, Maine Medical School in 1828, but died of pneumonia just a year later. He settled in Calais as a physician, also becoming for a time the president of the St. Croix Bank. He earned a footnote in medical journals for the part he played in solving a local mystery recounted in The Annals of Calais Maine;
Early in 1835, a strange sickness, baffling all medical skills, broke out in Calais and St. Stephen. The symptoms were pain, weakness and constipation, loss of appetite and sleep, partial paralysis, nausea, &c. During February, March and April, hundreds were sick in the same way; the best treatment did little good; and some twenty or thirty persons died. No age or class was exempt from the malady. At length poison was suspected in an invoice of sugar imported by James Frink, from Barbados. It was a nice looking article, and being sold at retail, it was used in many families, and freely taken by the sick, in their food and medicine; but on being subjected to analysis by a Boston chemist, it was found to contain a fatal per cent. of lead! The secret was divulged. The people ceased using the sugar, and the strange sickness slowly disappeared; though some have suffered from its effects to the present day. Subsequently, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin while visiting Barbados to regain his health, traced the sugar to the plantation where it was manufactured. On investigation he found that some of the syrup from which the sugar was made, had remained in lead-coated cauldrons until it fermented, in which state it decomposed and absorbed the poison lead. No blame was attached to the ignorant planter; but no more of his sugar ever came to St. Stephen; and some people never after really relished any kind of West India sweetening.'
"In 1834 Cyrus sold the cottage to his sister, Vesta, and her husband Dr. Job Holmes. A lifelong bachelor, he would meet his fate as one of the pioneers of the colonization of Texas - a victim of the common mosquito. In 1838, his friend, James Swan, chartered a vessel and with a full cargo and a colony of thirty young men, including Dr. Hamlin, sailed from eastern Maine for the port of Galveston. Hamlin's passport, granted August 12, 1838, describes him; forehead-high, eyes-bluish grey, nose-long, mouth-common, chin-ordinary, hair-light, complexion-light, face-common.
Seven months after their arrival, in mid-June of 1839, Hamlin succumbed along with one-third of the colony, to an epidemic of yellow fever, a disease whose mode of transmission was little understood by the medical profession at the time. After nearly three years of trying experiences, Mr. Swan would abandon his southern ambitions and return to his home in Maine."
(FineArtistmade description of the Dr. Holmes Cottage Museum (Part 2)
Cyrus was the son of Cyrus Hamlin and Anna Livermore.
As a young man, Cyrus assumed the responsibilities of the family farm. At the age of 22 howerver, he contracted tuberculosis, putting him in a condition too weak for this duty. He chose instead to follow in the footsteps of his father, Cyrus, who was a doctor as well as a farmer in Paris. His father would see him graduate from Bowdoin College, Maine Medical School in 1828, but died of pneumonia just a year later. He settled in Calais as a physician, also becoming for a time the president of the St. Croix Bank. He earned a footnote in medical journals for the part he played in solving a local mystery recounted in The Annals of Calais Maine;
Early in 1835, a strange sickness, baffling all medical skills, broke out in Calais and St. Stephen. The symptoms were pain, weakness and constipation, loss of appetite and sleep, partial paralysis, nausea, &c. During February, March and April, hundreds were sick in the same way; the best treatment did little good; and some twenty or thirty persons died. No age or class was exempt from the malady. At length poison was suspected in an invoice of sugar imported by James Frink, from Barbados. It was a nice looking article, and being sold at retail, it was used in many families, and freely taken by the sick, in their food and medicine; but on being subjected to analysis by a Boston chemist, it was found to contain a fatal per cent. of lead! The secret was divulged. The people ceased using the sugar, and the strange sickness slowly disappeared; though some have suffered from its effects to the present day. Subsequently, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin while visiting Barbados to regain his health, traced the sugar to the plantation where it was manufactured. On investigation he found that some of the syrup from which the sugar was made, had remained in lead-coated cauldrons until it fermented, in which state it decomposed and absorbed the poison lead. No blame was attached to the ignorant planter; but no more of his sugar ever came to St. Stephen; and some people never after really relished any kind of West India sweetening.'
"In 1834 Cyrus sold the cottage to his sister, Vesta, and her husband Dr. Job Holmes. A lifelong bachelor, he would meet his fate as one of the pioneers of the colonization of Texas - a victim of the common mosquito. In 1838, his friend, James Swan, chartered a vessel and with a full cargo and a colony of thirty young men, including Dr. Hamlin, sailed from eastern Maine for the port of Galveston. Hamlin's passport, granted August 12, 1838, describes him; forehead-high, eyes-bluish grey, nose-long, mouth-common, chin-ordinary, hair-light, complexion-light, face-common.
Seven months after their arrival, in mid-June of 1839, Hamlin succumbed along with one-third of the colony, to an epidemic of yellow fever, a disease whose mode of transmission was little understood by the medical profession at the time. After nearly three years of trying experiences, Mr. Swan would abandon his southern ambitions and return to his home in Maine."
(FineArtistmade description of the Dr. Holmes Cottage Museum (Part 2)
Cyrus was the son of Cyrus Hamlin and Anna Livermore.
"Cyrus Hamlin, the home's new owner, was himself descended from sturdy stock. He was born in 1802, in Livermore, Maine, a town founded by his maternal grandfather. The family moved to Paris, Maine when he was just a young boy. His father's father, Eleazer Hamlin, commanded a body of Continental minutemen which included his sons, Africa, America, Europe and Asia.
As a young man, Cyrus assumed the responsibilities of the family farm. At the age of 22 howerver, he contracted tuberculosis, putting him in a condition too weak for this duty. He chose instead to follow in the footsteps of his father, Cyrus, who was a doctor as well as a farmer in Paris. His father would see him graduate from Bowdoin College, Maine Medical School in 1828, but died of pneumonia just a year later. He settled in Calais as a physician, also becoming for a time the president of the St. Croix Bank. He earned a footnote in medical journals for the part he played in solving a local mystery recounted in The Annals of Calais Maine;
Early in 1835, a strange sickness, baffling all medical skills, broke out in Calais and St. Stephen. The symptoms were pain, weakness and constipation, loss of appetite and sleep, partial paralysis, nausea, &c. During February, March and April, hundreds were sick in the same way; the best treatment did little good; and some twenty or thirty persons died. No age or class was exempt from the malady. At length poison was suspected in an invoice of sugar imported by James Frink, from Barbados. It was a nice looking article, and being sold at retail, it was used in many families, and freely taken by the sick, in their food and medicine; but on being subjected to analysis by a Boston chemist, it was found to contain a fatal per cent. of lead! The secret was divulged. The people ceased using the sugar, and the strange sickness slowly disappeared; though some have suffered from its effects to the present day. Subsequently, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin while visiting Barbados to regain his health, traced the sugar to the plantation where it was manufactured. On investigation he found that some of the syrup from which the sugar was made, had remained in lead-coated cauldrons until it fermented, in which state it decomposed and absorbed the poison lead. No blame was attached to the ignorant planter; but no more of his sugar ever came to St. Stephen; and some people never after really relished any kind of West India sweetening.'
"In 1834 Cyrus sold the cottage to his sister, Vesta, and her husband Dr. Job Holmes. A lifelong bachelor, he would meet his fate as one of the pioneers of the colonization of Texas - a victim of the common mosquito. In 1838, his friend, James Swan, chartered a vessel and with a full cargo and a colony of thirty young men, including Dr. Hamlin, sailed from eastern Maine for the port of Galveston. Hamlin's passport, granted August 12, 1838, describes him; forehead-high, eyes-bluish grey, nose-long, mouth-common, chin-ordinary, hair-light, complexion-light, face-common.
Seven months after their arrival, in mid-June of 1839, Hamlin succumbed along with one-third of the colony, to an epidemic of yellow fever, a disease whose mode of transmission was little understood by the medical profession at the time. After nearly three years of trying experiences, Mr. Swan would abandon his southern ambitions and return to his home in Maine."
(FineArtistmade description of the Dr. Holmes Cottage Museum (Part 2)
Cyrus was the son of Cyrus Hamlin and Anna Livermore.
As a young man, Cyrus assumed the responsibilities of the family farm. At the age of 22 howerver, he contracted tuberculosis, putting him in a condition too weak for this duty. He chose instead to follow in the footsteps of his father, Cyrus, who was a doctor as well as a farmer in Paris. His father would see him graduate from Bowdoin College, Maine Medical School in 1828, but died of pneumonia just a year later. He settled in Calais as a physician, also becoming for a time the president of the St. Croix Bank. He earned a footnote in medical journals for the part he played in solving a local mystery recounted in The Annals of Calais Maine;
Early in 1835, a strange sickness, baffling all medical skills, broke out in Calais and St. Stephen. The symptoms were pain, weakness and constipation, loss of appetite and sleep, partial paralysis, nausea, &c. During February, March and April, hundreds were sick in the same way; the best treatment did little good; and some twenty or thirty persons died. No age or class was exempt from the malady. At length poison was suspected in an invoice of sugar imported by James Frink, from Barbados. It was a nice looking article, and being sold at retail, it was used in many families, and freely taken by the sick, in their food and medicine; but on being subjected to analysis by a Boston chemist, it was found to contain a fatal per cent. of lead! The secret was divulged. The people ceased using the sugar, and the strange sickness slowly disappeared; though some have suffered from its effects to the present day. Subsequently, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin while visiting Barbados to regain his health, traced the sugar to the plantation where it was manufactured. On investigation he found that some of the syrup from which the sugar was made, had remained in lead-coated cauldrons until it fermented, in which state it decomposed and absorbed the poison lead. No blame was attached to the ignorant planter; but no more of his sugar ever came to St. Stephen; and some people never after really relished any kind of West India sweetening.'
"In 1834 Cyrus sold the cottage to his sister, Vesta, and her husband Dr. Job Holmes. A lifelong bachelor, he would meet his fate as one of the pioneers of the colonization of Texas - a victim of the common mosquito. In 1838, his friend, James Swan, chartered a vessel and with a full cargo and a colony of thirty young men, including Dr. Hamlin, sailed from eastern Maine for the port of Galveston. Hamlin's passport, granted August 12, 1838, describes him; forehead-high, eyes-bluish grey, nose-long, mouth-common, chin-ordinary, hair-light, complexion-light, face-common.
Seven months after their arrival, in mid-June of 1839, Hamlin succumbed along with one-third of the colony, to an epidemic of yellow fever, a disease whose mode of transmission was little understood by the medical profession at the time. After nearly three years of trying experiences, Mr. Swan would abandon his southern ambitions and return to his home in Maine."
(FineArtistmade description of the Dr. Holmes Cottage Museum (Part 2)
Cyrus was the son of Cyrus Hamlin and Anna Livermore.
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