John Pascal Paolli Peck, M.D.
John Pascal Paoli Peck, M.D., was born at Richmond, Ontario County, New York, August 15, 1820. His parents were David H. And Hannah S. Peck, natives of New London, Connecticut. The great-grandfather on the mother's side was Gabriel Sistare, a native of Barcelona, Spain, and the material great-grandmother was an American lady of Scotch and Irish parentage. The ancestors on the father's side were English with a mixture of French blood, the first, William Peck, emigrating to this country in 1635, and being one of the founders of Norwich, in that colony.
John P. P. Peck was educated in the common schools and at Mayville Academy, Mayville, New York. He began the study of medicine in Mayville, in 1838, and attended the Geneva Medical College, at Geneva, New York, securing his diploma in 1841, in March. He is full of self-denial and perseverance, and was obliged to earn the money to get his education. He was clerk in a drug-store in the Summers, to help pay his board and tuition, and he taught school in the Winters. He had a taste for commercial business from his boyhood, and was diverted from that course by his desire to get an education. He began practice in Warren County, Pennsylvania, in 1841, and removed to Sharon, Ohio, in 1843, where he followed his profession for ten years longer, having succeeded so well as to be able to begin dealing in real estate and money loaning. His success continued, and in 1856 he removed to the city of Hamilton, and opened a private bank, which he successfully carried on till 1862, when he organized, in connection with its present cashier, J.B. Cornell, and S.D. Fitton, assistant cashier, and other prominent and wealthy gentlemen, the First National Bank of Hamilton, and was elected one of the directors and its first cashier. While in the business of banking he purchased the West Hamilton Flouring Mills, and carried on the manufacture of flour. He also had some transactions in real estate, and in 1861 he purchased and controlled the Hamilton Telegraph, a weekly newspaper, for a brief period, turning it to the support of the war for the Union.
In 1864 he quitted the business of banking and went into the country, spending two years in farming, stock-raising, and manufacturing timber. This not being successful, he set about organizing and putting into operation the Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati, which was organized in February, 1867. Dr. Peck was elected a director and vice-president. This position he held for nine years, and as general agent secured to the company a very large amount of insurance and nearly five hundred thousand dollars' worth of cash premiums, putting his company on a safe footing as a solid and successful institution. He was also for many years a director and treasurer of the Butler Fire Insurance Company of Hamilton. In 1876 he abandoned the insurance business, purchasing largely of real estate in Butler County and elsewhere, and began transactions again in real estate in Butler County, and in lending money, which is still successfully carried on. He has made two additions to the town of Hamilton. South Hamilton, with its two additions, numbering about fifteen hundred lots, was laid out by him. More than fifty houses have been put up, and twenty more are in process of building the present season. In 1871 he began the planting and cultivation of the black locust for timber purposes, having two farms near Cincinnati exclusively occupied with them, comprising about a hundred and fifty thousand trees. They are thrifty and will, it is anticipated, be worth $100,000 within five years.
Dr. Peck enlisted in 1864 in the hundred days' volunteers, and served for that time by proxy, and now hold a certificate of honorable discharge. He became a Mason in 1858, at Hamilton, taking the degrees of chapter and council. He visited Europe in 1871, traveling in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and went there again in 1876, and again in 1881. He united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845, and has acted as a steward in its society ever since. He was married in 1843 to Miss Dorothea Reick, in 1855 to Mrs. Eliza Alston Marshall, and in 1858 to his present wife, Frances Fitton, having three sons by the first marriage and three sons by the last. His life has been one of activity and enterprise.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.