Postlethwaite, James

JAMES POSTLETHWAITE.

James Postlethwaite, the subject of this memoir, was the seventh son of Samuel and Matilda Postlethwaite, citizens of Carlisle, Cumberland Co., Pa. He was born in that town on the 12th of January, 1776. His father, Col. Samuel Postlethwaite, was a plain, sensible citizen, who was respected for inflexible integrity, and very much liked on account of his mild, friendly, and amiable disposition. He died at an advanced age, in his garden, of an attack of apoplexy. He was born in this country, but was of English descent. Goldthwaite, Cowperthwaite, Thistlethwaite, and Postlethwaite are all names of Teutonic origin, and not uncommon in Yorkshire and the north of England.

The maiden name of the mother of Dr. Postlethwaite was Matilda Rose. Her father was a lawyer, distinguished in his profession for unusual ability.

Pre-eminent among the early physicians of Westmoreland was Dr. James Postlethwaite.

It is a loss to the little world of Western Pennsylvania, says his biographer,** that Dr. Postlethwaite had no fidus Achates to preserve and transmit his colloquial remarks, for they are certainly more worthy of a place in libraries than a large part of the "Conversations" and "Recollections," "Ana," "Table-Talk" that have been recorded and preserved for future generations. But all this is somewhat digressive, and so revenons a nos moutons.

James Postlethwaite was placed at a very early age at a grammar school, which was under the superintendence of the celebrated Ross, a most accurate and learned linguist, whose grammar of the Latin language was so long the one used in American academies and colleges, and where the accidence of Latin is so simplified and its acquisition so facilitated that it has all the information contained in the Scottish and English classical grammars, without any of their laborious and painful pedantry. With such a preceptor, Teucro auspice et Teucro duce, how could Postlethwaite fail to attain an extesive and critical knowledge of Latinity?

Dickinson College, at Carlisle, was then regarded as one of the best institutions of learning in the United States. It was then under the control of the Presbyterian denomination, at that time the most wealthy and numerous body of Christians in Pennsylvania. For more than a score of years it has been in the hands of the Methodists, and, without meaning any disrespect to that religious sect, it may be stated that Dickinson has degenerated from its former high character. It may be that hitherto Methodism has depended too much upon divine assistance, and neglected the carnal means for the acquisition of knowledge. This neglect or contempt of mere human or secular knowledge is not sustained by the authority or examples of Holy Scripture, for worldly wisdom and useful knowledge are subjects of fine and frequent praise in the sacred writings. Moses was imbued with the profound erudition of the priesthood of Egypt, and the Apostle Paul knew so well the histrionic literature of Greece that he could embellish his discourses with extracts from their dramatice writers as readily as an, English divine can adorn his sermons with quotations from Shakspeare: for example the following line from Euripides, which, quoted by the apostle, and thus made well known, has passed into a proverb in nearly all Christendom, "Evil communications corrupt good manners."

When Dr. Postlethwaite was a youth a liberal education was then far more limited than it is at present. For instance, Dr. Postlethwaite was considered to be well educated in his day, and yet, although a first-class Latinist, he knew nothing of Greek beyond the alphabet. For enlarged and liberal education at that time the American people had not the opulence, the books, or the speedy and constant communication with the old seats of learning in Europe. Often, too, the pressing necessities of existence, limited means, and large families forced men upon the stage of life before they had acquired a complete preparation.

At an early age James Postlethwaite left college, and in June, 1792, commenced the study of medicine in the office of Samuel A. McCoskey, a successful and popular practitioner in Carlisle. The extent of his acquirements at his time of life was a matter of general astonishment. He was indebted for them in part to himself, and in part to nature. His ardor in pursuit of knowledge was indefatigable, and the ease with which he unfolded the intricacies and evolved the complications of any subject, no matter how recondite, appeared not like the effect of study, but like acts of intuitive apprehension.

Sir Walter Scott had not yet shown mankind what wonders could be worked in the field of romantic fiction, and the sun of Lord Byron had not arisen to attract and awe the learned world by its lurid splendors. The genius, learning, and taste of Robertson, Hume, Goldsmith, Smollett, Gibbon, and Rollin had illuminated and popularized historical researches, and this renascency of this kind of learning in the latter half of the last century, along with a natural inclination of mind on the part of James Postlethwaite, had caused the careful perusal of history to be a daily duty with him, and by the change itself constituted an amusement in the intervals of severe professional study that ultimately tended to the invigoration of his mental powers, while at the same time it furnished him with a fund of accurate and extensive historical information, which armed him cap-a-pie in religious and political controversy. Of all the muses he liked Clio best, the heroic muse of history, and his heart kept time to the grand strain wherewith the poet salutes her, and which bursts upon the ear like a full band of martial music,—

"Quem Deum, or Heroa lyra, vel acri
Tibia sumus celebrare, Clio?"

In 1795 and 1796, James Postlethwaite went to Philadelphia to obtain medical instruction in the University, and its rolls bear evidence of his matriculation. He had the rare felicity of listening to the wisdom of those Esculapian sages who first gave the medical school of Philadelphia the high reputation it has since enjoyed. These eminent physicians and lecturers were Drs. Shippen, Wistar, and Benjamin Rush, who were seldom equaled and never surpassed by those who succeeded them.

In 1794 there had been an insurrection in Western Pennsylvania to resist the payment of a small tax laid upon whiskey by the Federal government. Although a youth in years, yet a man in knowledge, James Postlethwaite had accompanied the military expedition west to quell the rebellious rising in the capacity of an assistant surgeon. He so well liked the country west of the mountains that when he had finished his medical education he resolved to locate himself in Westmoreland County.

In 1797, mounted on horseback, he directed his course towards the new home of his destination. He did not depart joyously, like a young man full of animal spirits and the love of adventure. It was with a heavy heart, and eyes moistened with tears that he halted on a hill westward of his native place and took a long, mournful, lingering look over it and its beautiful scenery. Nearly all love their native places, but Carlisle had reasons peculiar to herself for the attachment of her children. Carlisle was the centre of an intelligent, handsome, and well-mannered population, in a rich and highly-cultivated agricultural district. It possessed one of the best institutions of learning in the United States. It had been a British military station before the Revolution; there were remains of old-fashioned, old-world manners, and when Dr. Postlethwaite migrated there were still reminiscences of ruffle-shirted, silk-stockinged, periwigged, red-coated officers, who had jigged and jilted, floundered, flounced, and fluttered before the deluge of the Revolution among the fair dames and damsels of the valley of the Cumberland. But though Carlisle be a bonny town, Dr. Postlethwaite was forced to leave it, and at length found himself located in the quiet and sequestered village of Greensburg, in the backwoods county of Westmoreland. However, his body only was in Greensburg, for his heart was in, the environs of Carlisle, in the safe custody of Miss Elizabeth, daughter of James and Margaret Smith, old and highly-respected citizens of Cumberland County, who resided near Carlisle. To recover joint possession of this important corporeal appurtenance, Dr. Postlethwaite returned to Cumberland and was married on the 11th of April, 1799, to the aforesaid Miss Smith. There are very few couples that ever suited one another better than his lady and Dr. Postlethwaite, and they lived in a state of uninterrupted connubial happiness until their separation by his death. This marriage had been one of affection, not of convenience or interest. They possessed health, quiet, and competence, and were blessed with a family of healthy, handsome children.

When Postlethwaite first established himself as a medical practitioner in Greensburg, being a conscientious man, he felt the full responsibility of his duties, and so he arduously studied the best authors of the old school of medicine,— Cullen, Sydenham, Fordyce, Rush, Darwin, and Abernethy. In addition to the mental exertion necessary for this professional study, he, in common with other country physicians, was forced to undergo an amount of bodily labor equal to that of a coach-horse. It will be remembered that when Dr. Postlethwaite began to practice medicine in Westmoreland, and for a score of years afterwards, there were not even turnpike roads. Travel by steam, both on water and land, was unknown, and conveyance was slow, laborious, and expensive. Population was sparse, the country wild and covered with forest, and the roads rough, crooked, hilly, and dangerous. The shops of apothecaries and medical prescriptions were rare or unknown, and every village physician was obliged to carry his drug-shop in his saddle-bags. In addition to his ordinary duties, a country physician was expected to pull teeth, bleed, extract wild hairs, and usher children into this world of woe, or, in other words, act as physician, surgeon, optician, dentist, nurse, and man-midwife.

In Scott’s story of "The Surgeon’s Daughter" there is a description of the rough life of a village doctor in a rural district of Scotland, which is not altogether unsuited for that of a medical practitioner in Westmoreland in the beginning of the present century. The Scottish country doctor, like the ghostly lover in Burger’s German ballad of Leonore, mounts his horse at midnight, and traverses in the darkness paths which to those unaccustomed to them seem formidable even in daylight.

"Let the wind howl through bush and tree,
This night he must away;
The steed is wight, the spur is bright,
He cannot stay till day.
"And hurry! hurry! off he rides
As fast as fast might be
Spurn’d from the courser’s thund’ring heels
The flashing pebbles flee."

For these nocturnal rides through a wild and rough country, at the risk of life and limb, the compensation was very inadequate to the toil and danger. Besides attending to all the cases in his own vicinity, the country physician was at the command of every one within a circuit of forty miles.

The celebrated traveler, Mungo Park, who had experienced both courses of life, gave the preference to traveling as a discoverer in the deserts of Africa to wandering by night and day as a medical practitioner in the wilds of a country district in Scotland.

All this is bad enough, and perhaps the description is too highly colored to suit our country; but still it was no amusement for ladies to ride in a dark and stormy night, in a matter of life and death, over shocking roads, through the long and dark woods of Westmoreland.

Dr. Postlethwaite soon obtained a good practice, and throughout his life stood at the head of his profession in Westmoreland. But his education, his obscure location in a backwoods village, in absence of suitable incitements to ambitious exertions, and the diversion of his mind to studies outside of his profession prevented Dr. Postlethwaite from attaining the highest medical position, such a status, for example, as that held by Addison, of Pittsburgh. In addition to what knowledge could be gained in this country, the eminent physician, Addison, had studied surgery in Edinburgh, chemistry in Leyden, and walked the hospitals in London. Moreover, in a city there are more opportunities of information than in the country. The rewards and honors of persons eminent in the profession are much greater; and as there is more competition the faculties must be concentrated on professional studies, and not applied to, extraneous subjects, or allowed to stand in a state of stagnation. But according to good and sound opinion, the professional standing of Dr. Postlethwaite was highly respectable. He was well versed in the doctrines of the old and established school of medicine. He had clear perceptions of the nature and seat of morbid action, and great readiness in the application of suitable therapeutical means to relieve pain and remove disease.

In discharging the duties of his profession his deportment was always extremely kind. He appeared to feel deep sympathy with suffering humanity, and this attracted to him the hearts of his patients. To his professional brethren his conduct was always urbane, and he towered as far above the low backbiting and petty jealousies of his profession as the summit of a snow-clad mountain above the unwholesome vapors that settle at the foot. In dealing with patients he presented an example of high-toned integrity and charitable feeling now almost unknown in the profession. He was not an avaricious man, yet he asked a fair compensation for his services, and at one time of his life was willing and anxious to accumulate a competence "for the glorious privilege of being independent."

But though willing enough to take the advice of honest Iago, and "put money in his purse," he has been known to lose a wealthy and liberal patient by insisting upon total abstinence from strong drink as a necessary condition before he would agree to continue his professional attendance, and by endeavoring to convince the gentleman that health and the use of ardent spirits are incompatible. He was known to attend, with all the kindness of a woman, and without hope of any pecuniary return, upon an unfortunate and wretched man who was raving with delirium tremens.

Having emigrated to this county when land was "cheap as dirt," and having had a good practice for thirty years, had Postlethwaite been as avaricious as he was talented, or had he flayed patients alive, as is now the practice of a portion of the profession, instead of a few thousand, he might have died worth several hundred thousand dollars. There is much standard or conventional joking, about the fleecing of clients by lawyers; but the doctors now often improve on the practice of the other learned profession, and, in addition to the robbing of patients, they act on the sentiment of some sanguinary gentlemen of the highway that "dead men tell no tales."

Dr. Postlethwaite was an honorable, truthful, and courageous gentleman, who discharged the duties of his profession with care and sincerity, to the best of his knowledge and ability; but yet he never held what nature designated as his proper place, the highest position in his profession. With the whole force of his strong and acute intellect directed upon medicine, he ought to have been a doctor whose ipse dixit would have passed without contradiction. But he had no professional enthusiasm, and, instead of medicine, the main inclination of his mind was towards politics and religion.

When Postlethwaite was just emerging from youth into manhood two great political parties, known as Federalists and Democrats, came into existence. Dr. James Postlethwaite, both from education and conviction, became a decided Federalist. He gave his first vote to the Federal party, and adhered to it until it passed out of existence. After he had married and taken a position in society he became a copious and careful reader of political books and newspapers, and kept full and accurate notes of the results. So conversant was he with American political history that he had few equals and no superior in that kind of information. He knew well the history and reason of every article in the Federal Constitution, and he was as well or better acquainted with Hamilton, Adams, and other leading Federalist writers than with Wistar, Rush, and the eminent expounders of the medical profession. His fugitive contributions on political subjects would fill a volume, and are worthy of collection and republication. They were first published in the Greensburg anti-Democratic papers, and in the old Pittsburgh Gazette.

The newspaper contributions by which he acquired the greatest local notoriety are to be found in a controversy which he maintained with the Hon. Richard Coulter upon the subject of the administration of John Quincy Adams, in connection with the election of Jackson to the Presidency. It occurred during the Presidency of Adams, and excited so deep and general an interest that the newspapers in which the dispute was published were in anxious and extensive requisition. Judge Coulter’s articles were published in the Westmoreland Republican and Farmer’s Chronicle, edited by Frederick A. Wise; those of Postlethwaite appeared in the Greensburg Gazette, then under the editorial management of John Black.

Judge Coulter and Postlethwaite were the two ablest men in their professions and the first citizens in the social circle in which they lived, and so the controversy excited as much interest as an encounter between two choice lances, two champion knights, in the days of chivalry. As is usual in such cases, the respective friends of the two gentlemen claimed for either of them the honor of victory, but the combatants themselves were willing to have it considered as a drawn battle. Each confessed that he had put forth his whole strength, and had found an antagonist worthy of his steel. At this distance of time, and with the changes produced by it, one would be better able to form a just judgment of the merits of the distinguished adversaries in the controversy.

While Dr. Postlethwaite detested Gen. Jackson, he admired Daniel Webster. When a young man, and before he became religious, Dr. Postlethwaite sometimes deviated into a common custom of "gentlemen of the old school" and interpolated a few oaths into his conversation. His profession of religion and moral convictions led him to abandon this habit, and yet an instance is drawn where his irascible temperament and his hatred of Gen. Jackson led him to relapse into a slight paroxysm of profanity. "About the years 1838 and 1839"— so a gentleman relates from his personal remembrance— "I sometimes consulted him as a physician. One day in conversation Webster became the subject, and the doctor lauded him as the greatest of living statesmen. I repeated a sarcastic remark, attributed to John Randolph, ‘Daniel Webster is highly talented, but utterly corrupt; like a rotten mackerel in moonlight, or putrid meat in the dark, he shines and stinks, and stinks and shines.’ The sarcasm excited the indignation of the doctor. He pronounced Randolph ‘an accursed caitiff, incapable of any great and good action.’ He defended Webster from the charge of being corrupt; and asserted that ‘Andrew Jackson was the author of that d----d infamous falsehood.’ Jackson feared and hated Webster, and wished to counteract the influence of his talents by falsehoods about his moral character. He then denounced Jackson as the worst man of the age,— a compound of cunning and ferocity. ‘His flatterers call him "the old Roman,"— the noblest Roman of them all.’ Of all the Romans, remarked the doctor, ‘he most closely resembles Caius Marius after he had imbued his hands in the blood of his fellow-citizens and trampled upon the liberties of his country.’"

Of the force and severity of Dr. Postlethwaite’s satirical talents some idea may be conveyed by the following piece of information, obtained from a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity. An attempt was made to establish in Washington County, Pa., a newspaper with the name of The Democratic Eagle and Banner of the Cross. It was intended to promulgate and defend the principles of the most intense Democracy and the most liberal Christianity. Of both these Dr. Postlethwaite was the uncompromising enemy, and so he assailed the scheme in the Pittsburgh Gazette with such sarcasm and humor that at one blow he entirely annihilated it. In one of his figures he made the eagle go flying away with the cross in his beak.

One day, while discussing politics in a group of men, an impudent Democratic lawyer remarked to Postlethwaite in a sneering manner, "Obscurity is said to be an element in sublimity. Your arguments, doctor, should be sublime, for they are above my comprehension."

"Sir," said Postlethwaite, "I have given you my arguments, but I cannot furnish you with intellect enough to understand them."

After the Federal party ceased to exist as a political organization, Postlethwaite became an anti-Mason, and used his pen against secret societies. The Democrats had identified their party with Masonry, and so anti-Masonry was opposition to Democracy. For a time the Masonic brotherhood dwindled into insignificance, and the anti-Masons abandoned their party association. Dr. Postlethwaite became a Whig, and as he had given his first, so he gave his last vote against the Democratic party. Had the Federals continued to exist as a party, he never would have voted with any other political organization.

Dr. Postlethwaite was never an open and avowed skeptic, but, on the other hand, he was not a merely traditional Christian. His mind was too inquisitive and his disposition too bold to accept religion by prescription. The full vigor of his remarkable intellect was put forth to examine the internal and external evidences of Christianity, and the conclusions were faith in the Christian system, and reliance upon it for salvation. In the conviction of such a mind virtue gained a brilliant advantage, for on the side of religion there were henceforth arrayed good character, industrious habits, an acute and active intellect, and extensive information.

His parents were Episcopalians, and Postlethwaite, by education and baptism had been a nominal member of the Church of England, hut after his marriage and location in Westmoreland County he left the Episcopalian denomination and connected himself with the Presbyterians. He was admitted to membership during the pastorship of the Rev. William Speer, who for twenty years had charge of the churches of Unity and Greensburg.

The conversion of Dr. Postlethwaite was produced by the study of the Bible, the Westminster Catechism, and ecclesiastical history. With minds of the liberal kind change in politics and religion is not astonishing. They are accustomed to reason and open to conviction. There is a common habit with the mass of the people to denounce those who change their opinions under the names of "apostate" and "turncoat." In good truth mankind are indebted for many benefits and blessings to turn-coats. But for a change of opinion Paul would have died a Pharisee, Martin Luther a Roman Catholic, and John Wesley a zealous member of the Church of England. But for change of opinion Adams and Jefferson, Franklin and Washington would have died loyal subjects to the king of England.

Dr. Postlethwaite was so well acquainted with ecclesiastical history and polemical literature that there were few clergymen equal and none superior to him in this kind of information. It appears that from his arrival at his majority his mind had been much occupied with theological metaphysics. Two old letters, written to him by a brother, one in 1813, and the other in 1821, in both of which religion is the main subject, are still extant. The letters give evidence of thought, reading, and correct scholarship. It appears that Dr. Postlethwaite had a brother Samuel, who had gone to the South and located himself at Natchez, Miss., where he was engaged, with other persons, in the manufacture of salt and the raising and shipping of cotton. He held slaves, and says that he will endeavor to increase his stock. "You seem," he writes to James, "to entertain terrible ideas of our situation here. I think that it is the finest country in the world, and that there is nothing to apprehend from the kind of property we hold. I am endeavoring to increase my force from eighty to one hundred."

Samuel was a decided Federalist in politics, and opposed the war of 1812 and the administration of Madison. In his letter of 1821 he excuses himself to his brother for not openly connecting himself with a Christian Church and making a profession of religion. In his letter of 1813 he discusses, in answer to James, the profound metaphysical doctrine of the mode in which God rules the universe.

James Postlethwaite (as appears in a quotation in Samuel’s letter) maintained the opinion that "nothing happens, nationally or individually, without the express knowledge, permission, and direction of the Supreme Governor of the universe."

His brother Samuel, on the contrary, was "inclined to believe that the universe is governed by not partial and particular but general laws; that man is endowed with reason and free will, and that this belief is perfectly consistent with the dignity and wisdom of an omnipotent and omniscient Deity."***

In this metaphysical dispute, carried on between two brothers in 1813, flagrante bello, during the last war with England, James Postlethwaite occupied the orthodox Christian position, while Samuel leaned towards the philosophers. Alas for the vanity of this world, its wealth and wisdom, both Postlethwaites, like Harry Percy, are long ago food for worms.

James Postlethwaite was tall in stature, straight, and well formed. He was about six feet in height, and in his prime of life weighed over two hundred pounds. His address was polished and dignified, and his countenance was noble and commanding. His nose was as Roman as that of Cato, the Censor. His eye was hazel in color. It was small, but keen and penetrating, and when excited in conversation it often kindled until it shot a fiery radiance. The Yankees or New England men compared Webster to a Deity. He was called "the God-like Daniel." When he was in England the ladies pronounced him to be a "very handsome man." One who saw Dr. Postlethwaite and Daniel Webster walking and talking together on the Main Street of Greensburg, felt confident that Postlethwaite was superior to him in all the qualities that constitute manly beauty or personal perfection. If a painter had been solicited to depict upon canvas a beau ideal of the grave, pious, most respectable, and eloquent citizen whom Virgil has so beautifully described, he might have painted the likeness of James Postiethwaite.(4*)

Dr. Postllethwaite had a number of brothers, several of whom emigrated to and lived in the South. He had four daughters and three sons. The oldest daughter married the distinguished lawyer and politician, Charles Ogle, of Somerset. The second, Emily, died unmarried. The third, Matilda, married the Rev. W.W. Woodend, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Saltsburg, Indiana Co., and the fourth, Sydney, married Dr. Alfred T. King, of Greensburg. His oldest son, William, settled in Somerset; his second, Alexander, went to Natchez, and died there; and Samuel, the youngest, died a bachelor in the State of Illinois. The Postlethwaites are all gone from Westmoreland.

James Postlethwaite died in Greensburg, Westmoreland Co., on the 17th of November, 1842, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. In his last years he received consolation from his religion, for, notwithstanding his high-toned temper and pride of character, he became a Christian of the most simple, humble, and child-like faith. He always listened to his spiritual instructor with the deepest deference, both from the pulpit and his own fireside. He was buried in the Presbyterian graveyard, now the St. Clair Cemetery. They who know personally or otherwise his qualities and his virtues may well wonder why there is no memorial over the grave of James Postlethwaite.

*** The ideas of Samuel Postlethwaite are beautifully versified in Pope’s "Essay on Man:"

"Remember, Man, the universal cause
Acts not by partial but by general laws:

He sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble bursts and now a world."

(4*) "Ac, veluti magno in populo saepe coorta est,
Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus—
Jamque faces et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat;
Tum, pietate gravem ac mentis si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectsque aribus adstant,
Ille regit dictis animos, et pectore mulcet."