PART 3
"The Muskoka Story," by Beatrice Scovell is a folk historian's dream book
"The first doctor to come to Huntsville was Dr. Howland. Captain George Hunt arranged for him to come here in 1875, for a salary of one thousand dollars a year. When he came, there wee less than a dozen families living in the town."
The passage above was written by Beatrice Scovell, in her book from the mid 1980's, entitled "The Muskoka Story." Her father was Dr. Charles Casselman, and her mother was from the pioneering Ware family of the region. Beatrice, by her own admission, was a better story teller than an actual historian, and delightfully so, for a folk historian like me. By the way, Dr. Howland, while vacationing on Canoe Lake, in July 1917, observed the body of Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson floating between Little and Big Wapameo Islands. He was first to look at the recovered body pulled on shore. Thus, he became part of the longstanding Tom Thomson mystery, as it is still alleged the artist was murdered and then dumped into the lake by one of his acquaintance.
"For the first ten years, the people here had been without a doctor. The nearest one was in Bracebridge, thirty miles away," writes Beatrice Scovell. Keep in mind, as with folk historians and story-tellers, some of the material may not be one hundred percent accurate and the claims are often unsubstantiated. But as many writers have subscribed, to "never let facts get in the way of telling a good story."
"Dr. Howland was one of the early Muskoka pioneers who helped to build up the area. The year he arrived, he started a newspaper, called the Huntsville Liberal. It was first printed in Bracebridge. In 1877, Mr. F.W. Clearwater, from Whitby, Ontario, brought a small printing plant to the village, and the paper was published here. When Mr. Clearwater took over the paper. It was re-named The Forester.
"The Forester was used to arouse the people's interest in getting the railroad, on its way to Parry Sound, to pass through Huntsville, rather than through Hoodstown, which was at the top of Vernon Lake. After the railroad went through Huntsville, Hoodstown was never built up. Dr. Howland never wanted anything for himself. His whole plan was to make Huntsville a good place to live in. He saved all the money he could to be able to build a hospital. Dr. Howland was never tired of talking about Huntsville and what it was going to be like. Mr. Rice once told me at the time, soon after he came to Huntsville, that he took ill in the night. He was taken into the Howland house, and the doctor came down to the door in his big white nightgown. When some medicine had been given to Mr. Rice, the doctor kept them there, to talk about this wonderful Muskoka. He said that Mr. Rice would never be sorry that he had come to live here. Mr. Rice admitted that he was, in fact, never sorry he had come here, and said that he would stay here as long as he lived."
The folk historian, Beatrice Scovell adds to her story, that "In 1899, Mr. George Hutchinson asked Mr. Herman Rice to join him in publishing The Forester.
"Dr. Hart was the second doctor to come to Huntsville. He came in 1884. He saw the need for a hospital, and had the frame building on Chaffey Street, east of the bridge, ready for the next year. Dr. Howland was annoyed to think someone else had built the hospital he had planned to build. There was no need for two hospitals, but as soon as he had the money, he built the brick hospital. The Howland hospital was just west of the bridge. Both hospitals trained nurses. Martha Hood trained in the Hart Hospital, and she married Dr. Hart. Both doctors went to the Lumber Mill camps, where for five dollars a year, each man was given any treatment he needed at the hospitals. About 1904, my father was asked by Dr. Howland to come and help him run the hospital. He had put on weight, and when he weighed three hundred pounds, it was hard for him to do all that was needed.
"A man from one of the lumber camps was in the hospital, having his leg amputated. When the operation was over, Dr. Howland, opened the back door of the operating room and threw the leg out, into the swamp that was behind the hospital. My father had the man sign an affidavit that this had happened, for some day, there might be a leg bone found floating in the pond, and then what a commotion there would be in the town. People would think there had been a murder at some time, and that the body, or part of it, had been dumped in that pond. Many years later, that was what happened. The man whose leg it was, was still living; and he was brought back to town to tell the authorities about it."
Beatrice recalls of her father, that "When my father graduated from University in Toronto, in 1900, he had got his M.A.; but he was never a Methodist Minister, and never preached a sermon. He used the knowledge he had gained for his patients. When one of his patients was going to die, and was afraid of death, he would stay and talk to them, until the person was no longer afraid. My father believed that death was only a one-way trip into another place, and that life still went on. When a Catholic woman in the country had a new baby, and was afraid the baby would die without being Christened, he baptized the newborn baby.
"One of his degrees was that of a dental doctor. So many people in Muskoka were without the money to go to a dentist, that a lot of teeth eventually had to be pulled out. So he learned to try to save teeth for the sake of those who could not afford a dentist. In the country, where there was no electricity, he used the instruments which dentists had used in the times gone by. He had to pay a fee to be allowed to practice as a dentist, but he felt it was worth it, for he hated to see a person with teeth missing, that could have been saved."
At a school reunion many years later, Beatrice Scovell was approached by a man who told me he had known my father, and that he had helped him with an injury suffered in an accident. "He had gone sleigh-riding, belly-back, down a hill and run into something. He told me my father made a wooden piece to hold his broken jaw together. Then I told him how I had watched my father working on that device. I did not tell him how I had been a help in making that piece of wood that worked so well. It happened that someone had borrowed the clamps that we used to hold the boards that were used in making quilts. They were always hung on a nail in the pantry, so that everyone knew where they were if anyone wanted to borrow them. The clamps were returned to my mother, but she was sick in bed. I was told to take them downstairs and put them in their place. I woke up in the night and remembered I had forgotten to do it. So I got up and took the clamps downstairs. There I saw my father working away at a piece of wood. When he saw me with the clamps in my hand, he said, 'That is the idea I needed, to make something that would hold the jaw bone firm until it set. That is the answer to my prayer for help. Did you know that is the way prayers are answered?'
"I did not like to think that someone, somewhere, used me to leave the clamps upstairs, for me to bring them down for you to see when you needed to look at them, and make what you need for the broken jawbone. I did not like that at all. This man went on to tell me that a dentist had made him a small set of false teeth, to use once his jawbone was set, and he could chew food again. While the bone was setting, he was only given liquids which he could swallow immediately. I remember my father going in every day to see how this patient was managing. It was a long time before the days when broken bones were set in plaster casts. In those days, when a person broke a leg, they were sometimes laid up in bed, with a leg fastened to the ceiling, so that the broken bone could grow together again without anything preventing it."
She writes of her father, "There was never any bill sent from our house to people who had very little money. When the man of the family had died, and there was little money left to keep the family, my father would often take a receipt in to them. He would tell them that the doctor's bill had been paid already. He could get by and make them believe him."
The demands on the good doctor's time were severe, and he worried constantly about the care of his patients, and whether he was doing enough to safeguard their recovery. "After three years, in and out of Toronto Hospitals, my father died. He was buried near the grave of Dr. Hart; you can see both graves together."
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