John Nutt, M.D.
John Nutt, M.D., Chicago, Ill. John Nutt was the younger of two sons, Joseph and John, and only children of Aaron and Martha (Craig, formerly Pedrick) Nutt, and was born on the old homestead in Centerville, Montgomery Co., Ohio, March 3, 1823. His parents were natives of New Jersey, and were respectively widower and widow; at the time of their marriage, January 11, 1818, by James Russell. Esq., of Centerville. Aaron Nutt was left fatherless at an early age. His mother marrying again, the boy, Aaron, was apprenticed to John Lippencott, a tailor of 1776, for a term of seven years, serving his employer nearly that time on the tailor-guard. At about this period, the armies of the Revolution, under the command old Gen. Washington, were very active in the State of New Jersey, and as these were indeed trying times for our country, and soldiers were much needed, both old and young were earnestly solicited to join the American forces. It was at this juncture that Lippencott was drafted into the military service, and Aaron Nutt’s apprenticeship about to expire, that Lippencott made this proposition to him, that if he would enter the army and serve his, Lippencott’s time out, he would in turn set him free. The proposition was accepted, and Nutt joined a military company commanded by his cousin, Capt. Israel Shreve. The evening before the battle of Monmouth, the company had a little skirmish with a company of English light horse, and came off victorious. Nutt was quite near the English Captain, and saw the American soldier shoot him in the breast. he fell from his horse and jumped a fence and fell dead by the side of it. Nutt, in looking at him after death, pronounced him the handsomest man he ever saw. next day, the main battle was fought, the day, and excessively hot one, the Americans three off their coats and knapsacks, as they marched into the field, forty-eight abreast. After the battle, twelve wagons loaded with bread and drawn by oxen were brought on the ground for the Americans. After this, Nutt’s military service was in riding as a scout and driving team; of the latter, he did a large amount. He never asked for or received any pension, but assisted many others in procuring theirs. On Tuesday, the 4th day of May, 1779, he was married to Mary Archer, daughter of Joseph and Sarah Archer, of New Jersey. From this union there were nine children, of whom none are now living. Three died in early life, the remaining six lived to be heads of families. The father used to take great pleasure in standing on his own premises and look at the smoke curling out of the chimneys of five of his children -- the sixth one lived some four miles distant. In 1786, he removed with his family from New Jersey to Pennsylvania where he remained only a few years, and then moved to Kentucky, living at different points, among which the following places are remembered: On the Dry Ridge he lived a long time, keeping a tavern there; did the same in the town of Versailles; from Kentucky he removed to what is now Centerville, Montgomery Co., Ohio, in the spring of 1798, having previously been there with surveyors in February, 1796, and selected his land. here he settled in wilderness of woods, and where in his new abode he remained with only a slight change of habitation during the balance of his life. Surrounded with a large circle of truly worthy friends and relatives who were always interested in his presence, as he so often gladdened the hours with earnest recitals of events of which he had not infrequently been an active participant.
He was a man of eminently correct habits of life, possessing a very superior constitution, temperate, industrious and of a cheerful disposition, even marked to the end, and when warned of approaching dissolution seemed ready and willing to meet the change. The disease of which he died was, though not of frequent occurrence, incident to old age, and in this case, as was pronounced by his skillful and ever attentive physician, Dr. A. B. Price, one of the most extraordinary cases of the kind ever known to the profession. The pain, which was very severe, was first manifested in the left eye, which after awhile completely destroyed the organ. The pain then passed to the heel and great toe of the right foot, then successively until all the toes were in a like manner involved, then the foot mortified, was drawn up and dried until all seemed as hard and lifeless as stone, and blackened with the deadly progress of the disease, which continued for a period of many months, at the closing of which time a distinct point or line of demarkation appeared with in four inches of the knee. Death of the foot and leg below having already occurred and here separation of not only the living from the dead flesh, but also the larger bone was already manifest, so that earnest hopes were strongly entertained that an arrest was probable, and that an improved condition might be looked for; but at the close of about the ninth month the power of the constitution could stand the pressure no longer, and gradually yielding, death kindly terminated this protracted struggle June 2, 1842, an thus passed the life of a man aged eighty-three years ten months and sixteen days, who had never known what real sickness was, and even used his tobacco up to within a few days of the last. His remains are buried in the old cemetery one-half mile north of Centerville, between of the graves of his two wives. Peace to their remains.
John, after the death of his father, remained at home with his bereaved mother, working the little farm and attending and teaching school, and so continued until the last of August, 1845, when, on solicitation of Dr. John Evans, then of Indianapolis, Ind., he accepted a kind invitation to study medicine with him. So, bidding adieu to his old home and all of its surroundings, he embarked on board the Voress line of the stage coaches for what then seemed to be the far-distant West. here he commenced his medical studies, spending the winters, however, at Chicago, attending Rush Medical College, from which institution he graduated in the spring of 1848. Returning to Indianapolis, he made application to the commissioners of the hospital for the insane for the place of assistant physician, and being successful in due time received the desired appointment, and early thereafter entered upon the duties of the office in this then new State institution, and soon had the satisfaction of assisting in the reception of the first patients ever admitted to treatment in that place. In October, 1851, he severed his connection with the hospital and, marrying Annie, the youngest daughter of David and Rachael Evans, of Waynesville, Ohio, moved within a few days thereafter to the city of Chicago, Ill., where, with a devoted wife and four comely boys, he now remains comfortably living in Glencoe, one of the city’s most beautiful suburbs, overlooking both far and wide the cooling waters of Lake Michigan.
From The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, W.H. Beers & Co., 1882