James B. Sprague
J. B. Sprague, London, a prominent physician and surgeon of London, was born in Harmony Township, Clark County, Ohio, June 15, 1821. His father, James Sprague, was a native of Massachusetts and came to Ohio about 1816 or 1818. He was an early pioneer of Clark County, residing eight miles east of Springfield until his death. He was born December 9, 1784, and died July 10, 1844, leaving an estate of 360 acres. and considerable personal property. He married Polly Bailey, a native of New Hampshire. Eight children were given them, five daughters and three sons. Six of these are living to-day, four daughters and two sons. Mrs. Sprague departed this life in 1871 or 1872. James B. Sprague was reared on a farm, receiving a high school education. He taught school in early life for seven years at different intervals, and during the latter part of this time studied medicine for two years with Dr. Rogers (now deceased), of Springfield, Ohio. He then took a course of lectures, studied another year, then a second course of lectures, and in 1851 graduated from the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati. He first located at Vienna Cross Roads, Clark County, Ohio, and after a few years engaged in the practice of his profession with Dr. Burkley Gillett, of Springfield. The latter died a year later, and our subject then went to Plattsburg, and subsequently to Vienna Cross Roads once more. In 1871, he came to London, where he has since resided, and been engaged in attending to a very fair practice. In June, 1862, Dr. Sprague went into the United States service, as Assistant Surgeon of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving in that position nearly three years. By his own consent, he was detailed as surgeon of a colored regiment. They were located on the banks of a stream in the South, and soon after the measles and small-pox broke out among them. Dr. Sprague vaccinated over four hundred of them, and never lost a main by either disease, although some of the men had both diseases at the same time. He remained with them two or three months and then returned home. Dr. Sprague was formerly and is now a member of the Clark County Medical Society, and is also connected with the State and Madison Societies of a like nature. He is thoroughly Democratic in his political views, and once, while a resident of Clark County, served as Justice of the Peace. He was married, November 8, 1843, to Sarah, daughter of Isaac Chamberlain, an old and respected pioneer of Clark County. Of the six children born to Dr. and Mrs. Sprague, only two are living -- Cecelia F. (wife of William H. Wragg, of Plattsburg, Clark County, Ohio), and Milton C. (a graduate of the Cincinnati Medical College, and a practicing physician of Somerford, this county). Dr. Sprague has been a member of the Masonic order since about 1845, having been initiated at Fielding Lodge, South Charleston, Ohio. He is now a member of the Lodge, Chapter and Council at London, and of Mt. Vernon Commandery at Columbus. He has taken the first eighteen and the Scottish Rite degrees, and will soon advance, if his life is spared to the thirty-second degree. His connection with the I.OO.F. has been equally as long and honorable.
From HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY - W. H. Beers [Chicago, 1883]
James B. Sprague, M.D., of London, who first won distinction as assistant surgeon in the army during the war, is a man of rare personal worth, of wide experience as a physician, and stands high in professional and social circles in Madison County, where he is well known and honored.
Dr. Sprague was born in Clarke County, June 15, 1821, and his parents were James and Polly (Bailey) Sprague, who were natives respectively of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and were fine representatives of the old New England stock that has borne such an important part in the upbuilding of the great Commonwealth of Ohio. Hither the father came in 1812, and resumed his occupation as a farmer on the rich virgin soil of Clarke County, where he purchased three hundred and twenty acres of land. His first work was to build a log house for the shelter of his family, which he replaced later in life by a handsome brick residence. He was a man of fine physique, standing six feet and two inches in his stockings, and he was gifted with great strength. He possessed good mental ability, was a clear-headed business man, and was one of the wealthy citizens of his county. He was a Democrat, with an intelligent comprehension of the political situation in his day. He lived to dance with his grandchildren, and was of a ripe old age when he died. His children were eight in number, and six of them are yet living: Leonard B., Mrs. Orisa Rice, James B., Mrs. Percy Wallingsford, Mrs. Maria McMahon, and Mrs. Mary E. Cameron.
The subject of this life record spent the first twenty years of his life on his father's farm. His early education was obtained in the district schools of his native county, and he subsequently became a student at the Springfield High School, attending there three years in all, teaching at intervals to get money to pay his expenses. His father dying, he was appointed one of the administrators of the estate, and left school to attend to his duties, living on the farm until the estate was settled. He sold his share of the property to his brother Leonard, as he had determined to prepare himself for the medical profession, toward which his tastes inclined him. He entered upon his studies with Dr. Robert Rodgers, of Springfield, and was with him three years. By that time he was so well up in his studies that he at once took high rank in his classes when he entered the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, from which he was graduated in March, 1851. He established himself at Vienna Cross Roads in his native county, and remained there until June, 1862. He was then offered tlie position of assistant surgeon of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Infantry, and for three years he labored incessantly among the sick and dying soldiers on Southern battle-fields, doing all in his power to allay suffering and to stay the hand of death, and many a poor boy had cause to thank him for a life saved or a death-bed robbed of its pain. But such devotion to his duties told severely on his own health, and he utterljy broke down, so that he was discharged and sent home on a bed. He subsequently returned to the South in the same capacity, under a contract with Col. Lathrop, of Cincinnati, and was absent two months.
Although obtained at such a terrible cost, our subject's experience as an army surgeon has been invaluable to him in his subsequent practice, and he has risen to greater prominence in his profession by reason of it. He continued his practice in his native county until 1871, when he sold out there and came to London to make his future home. His residence is on South Oak Street, and he has his office in the same lot. He is the oldest practitioner in the village, whither his fame had preceded him, and he has all the patients that he can attend to, both in the village and in the country. He is as devoted to his profession as when he first entered it with all the vigor, high hopes and ambitions of early manhood, and has kept pace with the times in regard to the progress made in the medical world by means of new discoveries and inventions. He has been singularly successful in dealing with diliicult and dangerous cases. It is said of him that in forty years' practice he has had more cases of obstetrics, in all probability than any other physician in the county, and yet he has never lost but one patient, whom the Doctor thinks was poisoned by an attendant.
Dr. Sprague was married, in 1843, to Miss Sarah Chamberlain, of Clarke County, and a daughter of Isaac and Polly (Harriman) Chamberlain. They were natives of New Hampsiiire, and came to Ohio in the early years of its settlement. They kept a hotel for some years, and later lived on a farm until death, always making their home in Clarke County after coming to this State. They had six children, two of whom are living: Mattie and Mrs Sprague. The marriage of our subject and his wife, which has been a union of true felicity, has been hallowed to them by the birth of two children: Mrs. C. F. Wragg, of Clarke County, who is the mother of four children: Frank, Palmer, Leona and Charles; and Milton C, a physician and surgeon of Madison County, who married Miss Alice Hurd and has two children: Clarence and Annie.
Our subject and his wife are regarded as valuable acquisitions to the community, and in them the Universalist Church has two devoted members. The Doctor is prominent in medical circles as one of the Examining Board of Physicians for Pensions, appointed thereto by President Harrison, and as a leading member of the State Medical Society, in which he has held all the oflices. He belongs to Lyon Post No. 121, G. A. R., of which he is surgeon; and he is also an Odd Fellow and a Mason, being the oldest Mason in London, a Scottish Rite member, having taken the thirty-second degree in Masonry. Politically, he is a Democrat.
From PORTRAIT & BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF FAYETTE, PICKAWAY AND MADISON COUNTIES, OHIO - Chapman Bros. [Chicago, 1892]