Gilroy was not kind to early physicians
Early promotional brochures claiming that Gilroyans seldom got
sick must have been right. New doctors found the warm, salubrious
climate had a chilling financial effect. A succession of physicians
arrived, only to hang out a shingle and then wait. When patients
didn’t come flocking to fill the waiting room, they soon departed
for greener pastures.
The first doctor, David Huber, was a physician, pharmacist and
surveyor. He arrived in 1858 when the population 300 settlement was
stilled called Pleasant Valley. He operated his practice out of his
residence on Fifth Street, near the fire department. In 1867, Dr.
Huber helped map out the town and served on the community’s first
Board of Trustees. He also named Gilroy’s first streets, including
one for his daughter, Rosanna.
Gilroy was not kind to early physicians
Early promotional brochures claiming that Gilroyans seldom got sick must have been right. New doctors found the warm, salubrious climate had a chilling financial effect. A succession of physicians arrived, only to hang out a shingle and then wait. When patients didn’t come flocking to fill the waiting room, they soon departed for greener pastures.
The first doctor, David Huber, was a physician, pharmacist and surveyor. He arrived in 1858 when the population 300 settlement was stilled called Pleasant Valley. He operated his practice out of his residence on Fifth Street, near the fire department. In 1867, Dr. Huber helped map out the town and served on the community’s first Board of Trustees. He also named Gilroy’s first streets, including one for his daughter, Rosanna.
Dr. Charles Kean Farley, Gilroy’s second physician, arrived in 1868. Originally from Alabama, he had first came West during the Gold Rush. He was followed the same year by Dr. Anson Sprague whose offices were located on Monterey Street in rented space at M.E. Hunter’s Jewelry Store, located opposite the Williams Hotel.
In 1877, physician and surgeon J.R. Reilly arrived and set up a practice, which lasted for several years. He combined skills with a colleague to treat an injury in November 1877 when, according to a newspaper report, ÒA few days ago Drs. Farley and Reilly performed a surgical operation on the leg of Clarence Mathews, a boy 13 years of age. Through the decay of the tibia bone, between the ankle and the knee, it was found necessary to amputate
the leg at the lower part of the femur, near the joint. The boy is doing well, with excellent prospects of recovery.Ó
Since the population’s general good health meant fewer doctor visits, debts collection was a problem. Plagued by nonpayment of medical bills, Doctor Farley published notices in the local newspaper, begging patients to settle accounts. ÒTo my patrons, I am owing money and have to pay interest at the rate of 1-1/2 per cent a month. Come and pay my bills and relieve me of this interest, and I can accommodate you with as much time as you want,Ó he advertised, in the Jan. 20, 1877 Gilroy Advocate. Dr. Sprague published a similar plea in the same issue, ÒMust come on time. All persons indebted to Dr. Sprague are once more notified and for the last time, that old accounts must be settled. Now is the time to save further cost and trouble. Delays are dangerous,Ó he pleaded.
Dr. Beamer, whose office was located on Monterey Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, had a brief and unfortunate stay in town. In 1868, he made a house call at a family farm north of town to treat a little girl diagnosed with smallpox. Soon after, the doctor contracted the disease and quickly died.
To help fund their medical practice, many early doctors also compounded and sold their own drugs. Dr. Harvey Morey, who arrived in 1867, was an early physician-pharmacist. In 1885, he was joined by a druggist-dentist, Dr. Clarence Weaver, who subsequently purchased the drug store from him. Dr. Morey retired from medicine in 1888 for health reasons and bought a fruit orchard outside Gilroy, where he farmed for many years.
Dr. Weaver, who advertised his pharmacy as the Òsuccessor to H.C. Morey,Ó sold medicines in conjunction with his dental practice until 1889, when his brother-in-law, George Wentz, joined him as a partner. By 1899, the pharmacy occupied too much of Dr. Weaver’s time. He sold the business to Wentz and from that time on practiced only dental work. The Wentz Rexall Pharmacy building, with its popular soda fountain, was relocated in 1928 to the corner of Monterey and Fifth Streets, in the building currently occupied as Sue’s Coffee House.
Dr. James Franklin Johnson practiced briefly in Gilroy, from 1868-1871. He apparently left town after his wife, a daughter of pioneer Julius Martin, divorced him. The couple’s son, Edward Franklin Johnson, began a mini-dynasty of Johnson pharmacists when he opened Johnson’s Drug Store on Monterey St. in 1896. His older son, Martin and later his second son Garrett, operated the pharmacy until Garrett’s death in 1971.
Although a medical professional, Dr. Berryman Bryant was an entrepreneur. He had left Alabama to mine in the Sierra during the Gold Rush, but found operating a hotel more profitable. After moving to Gilroy in 1852 to raise sheep, he practiced medicine off and on in Gilroy, Hollister and San Jose, also engaging in banking and real estate. He was a very wealthy man for his era, and wisely invested his earnings to bolster the medical practice.
Dr. Bryant was joined in 1883 by a younger partner, Illinois native Dr. Heverland R. Chesbro. Chesbro was drawn by the fact that the office’s average daily patient income was between $20 and $30, making the partnership’s projected annual income around $7,800. Despite the high figures, Gilroy’s climate again interfered with business, forcing Dr. Chesbro to find extra work during the winter of 1885 as a resort physician at Paraiso Springs near Soledad. In 1888, Dr. Bryant decided to retire and sold the Gilroy practice to Dr. Chesbro, along with a long list of paying patients.
Dr. James W. Thayer was a fixture for decades in Gilroy. Originally from New York, he graduated from medical school in Iowa and came to Gilroy in 1889. Besides his regular practice, he served as the local Southern Pacific Railroad doctor from 1890-1905 and 1916-1926. As with many local physicians, he was active in civic life, serving numerous terms on the City Council and as Gilroy’s Health Officer from 1894-1905. As Treasurer of the Library Board, he was instrumental in persuading Andrew Carnegie to give Gilroy a library.
Dr. Jonas Clark arrived in 1892, joining Dr. Thayer for his first 5 years. He conducted the first operation for appendicitis in the county and practiced continuously except the years 1910-13 when he was Superintendent of the Santa Clara County Hospital. Besides establishing Gilroy’s first private hospital in 1898, he received many honors during his lifetime including fellowship in the American College of Surgeons. In 1903 he established a training school for nurses, the only such facility between San Jose and Santa Barbara.
Alas for poor Dr. Edward L. Parramore, who came to town in 1888. Like his predecessors, he operated a joint physician’s office and pharmacy. The practice lasted four years. He departed, he explained, because there were already too many doctors in town.
