Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/228

CHANNING amused the doctor very much although he had been taken in.

He was devoted to his family and brought up five grandchildren, sons and daughters of his son, William Ellery, after their mother's death, involving some sacrifices on his part as he had passed through a laborious life and was fond of quietude among his books. These grandchildren relate as a treasured recollection how he used to play horse and jump rope with them in a thoroughly boyish spirit, even at an advanced age.

In appearance, Dr. Channing was of medium height, of substantial build, florid complexion, with blue-gray eyes. His temper was somewhat quick when excited by anything that he considered an injustice, but was well under control.

There is a portrait of him painted by Ames about the year 1860, which is a fair likeness. He was a Unitarian and a great admirer of his brother, William Ellery Channing, the clergyman, and a joke which he made in connection with him has appeared in various papers even to the present time. Someone calling at his house asked for Dr. Channing and on hearing the inquiry the doctor said, "Which Dr. Channing? My brother preaches and I practise."

Dr. Channing was married twice, first to Barbara Higginson Perkins, daughter of Samuel G. Perkins, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and second to Elizabeth Wainwright, of the Boston family of that name. He had one son, William Ellery second, the poet who died at Concord in December, 1901, and three daughters. Dr. Channing died July 27, 1876 at Brookline, very peacefully, after a short illness, at the age of ninety years and three months.

 Channing, William Francis (1820–1901)

William Francis Channing. son of Rev. William Ellery Channing, was born in Boston, February 22, 1820. He began to study at Harvard, but deciding to follow medicine went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he took an M. D. in 1844, offering a thesis on the "Application of Chemistry to Physiology." Previous to graduating, during 1841–42, he was assistant on the first geological survey of New Hampshire, and in 1847 served in a similar capacity on the survey of the copper region of Lake Superior. From 1842 to 1843 he was associated with  (q. v.) in the editorship of the Latimer Journal in Boston. As an inventor Dr. Channing was associated with Moses G. Farmer in perfecting the American fire alarm telegraph from 1845 to 1851; in 1865 he patented a ship railway for the inter-oceanic transit of ships, and in 1877 invented a portable electromagnetic telephone.

He contributed to the American Journal of Science and published with Prof. John Bacon, Jr., "Davis's Manual of Magnetism," 1841; "Notes on the Medical Application of Electricity," 1849; and "The American Fire-Alarm Telegraph," 1855.

During the abolition movement he was a leader among the agitators.

He died in Boston March 20, 1901.



Chapman, Alvan Wentworth (1809–1899)

Alvan Wentworth Chapman, botanist, was born at Southampton, Massachusetts, September 28, 1809, and died at his home in Apalachicola, Florida, April 6, 1899, in his ninetieth year. The son of Paul and Ruth Pomeroy Chapman, he entered Amherst College at seventeen, graduating with honor in 1830. A few months later he became a teacher in a family on Whitemarsh Island, near Savannah, Georgia, where he spent two years; he was then elected principal of the academy at Washington, Georgia, and it was while at this place that he began the study of medicine, with Dr. Albert Reese. The study was continued at Savannah and Washington, Ga. (1830–1836).

It was in the winter of 1835–36 that he entered upon the practice of his profession in Florida, first at Quincy, then at Marianna, and finally, for more than half a century, at Apalachicola. It was in 1846, about the time that he settled at Apalachicola, that he received the honorary degree of M. D. from the Louisville Medical Institute. In 1886, the University of North Carolina conferred upon him the degree of LL. D.

Before leaving Massachusetts, young Chapman was greatly interested in the natural sciences, especially botany, entomology, and meteorology. As years passed by, he devoted more and more attention to botany, until it occupied all of the time that he could spare from his busy professional life. In 1860, after several years of hard and thorough work, he published his "Flora of the Southern United States;" this, in several editions, was for