Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1050

NAME SCUDDER 1028 SEAMAN Congress, 1777-1779, and a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and wrote a stir- ring letter (a copy of which is preserved) in their defence to John Hart, speaker of the Assembly of New Jersey. Towards the close of the seventeenth cen- tury the Andersons came from Scotland in the Old Caledonia, and bought large tracts of land on Manalapan Heights. It was a member of this family, Isabella Anderson, whom Dr. Scudder married. Wickes relates the story (pages 391 and 392 of his work) as told him by Scudder's granddaughter, "The beautiful heiress rode to church on horse- back," the story runs, "Young Scudder had his eye out. She alighted from her horse, fastened him to a tree by a staple which had been driven there, then walked up and into the church. Then was Dr. Scudder's time to work. He approached her horse, disarranged the equipments and entangled the bridle. After the closing of the church, Isabella walked down to the place where stood her horse. Young Scudder, of fine appearance, dignified and graceful, being on the alert, sprang to her assistance, adjusted matters all well then assisted the damsel to mount, and directly ascended his own steed. As they had to travel the same road, which was nearly four miles, I think he was too gallant to let her travel alone, but rode by her side for pro- tection home. Their houses were not far distant. Thus began the courtship which ter- minated in marriage." Scudder's interests were far-reaching and his services given to many causes; he was trustee of the College of New Jersey (now Prince- ton University) 1778-1781 and a ruling elder in Old Tennent Church at Freehold. He met his death, at the age of forty- eight, through an accidental shot aimed at General David Forman who was with him, during a skirmish with a party of refugees, ,at Black Rock, Monmouth County, October 16, 1781, three days before the surrender at Yorktown. He was buried in Old Tennent Churchyard, and his gravestone records that he "fell in the defence of his country." His wife survived him little over a year, dying at the age of forty-five, December 24, 1782. John Anderson Scudder, Nathaniel's eldest son, was born March 22, 17S9. He graduated at Princeton (1775) and studied medicine. He served in the Revolutionary War as surgeon's mate, was a member of the State Assembly and represented New Jersey in Congress for the unexpired term of James Cox who died in 1810. He moved to Kentucky, then set- tled in Indiana, where he practised. Another son was Joseph, who married a daughter of Phihp Johnson (colonel of the First New Jersey Regiment, and killed at the Battle of Long Island). He graduated at Princeton in 1778 and became a distinguished lawyer. His son was the noted missionary and physician, John Scudder (1793-1855), born in Freehold, September 3, 1793. He gradu- ated at Princeton in 1811, and at the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1813, practising in New York. Going as a missionary to India in 1819 he became a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and settled at Ceylon, where he was missionary and physician. He founded a hospital, schools and churches. All of his seven sons and two daughters became missionaries. He wrote several books and tracts. He died at the CApe of Good Hope, January 13, 1855. His son, Henry Martyn, born in Ceylon, February 5, 1822, graduated at the University of New York in 1840, and at Union Theological Sem- inary in 1843, and returned to India as a missionary where he practised medicine, also. Jared Waterbury, another son, born in Ceylon in 1830, graduated at Western Reserve College in 1850 and at New Brunswick Theo- logical Seminary in 1855, and served as a missionary in India. Silas Doremus (1833-1877), still another son, born in Ceylon, November 6, 1833, gradu- ated at Rutgers College in 1856, studied medi- cine and was licensed to practise in New York City. He went to India as a medical missionary and after thirteen years returned to this country because of ill-health, dying in Brooklyn, New York, December 10, 1877. Howard A. Kelly. History of Medicine in New Jersey, Stephen Wickes, Newark, N. J., 1879. Appleton's Cyclop, of Amer. Biog., 1888, vol. v. Seaman, Valentine (1770-1817) Valentine Seaman, a New York physician, was the fourth son of Willet Seaman, a merchant, and descendant from John Seaman who arrived from England and settled in Hempstead, Long Island, about 1660. Valen- tine Seaman was born in North Hempstead, April 2, 1770. The City Almshouse was the only insti- tution where medical instruction could be had, and Valentine, after studying with Nichols Romayne (q. v.), entered there as resident physician. In 1792 he took his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania, and was made one of the surgeons to the New York Hospital in 1796, a post he held until his death. I