APPLETON APPLETON
Moses, the son of Isaac and Mary Adams Appleton, was born May 17, 1773, and graduated at Dartmouth College in the class of 1791 in company with his brother Josiah, who was in delicate health. After graduating, Moses taught school in Medford and Boston, Massachusetts, studied medicine with Governor Brooks, and obtained a fellowship in the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1798.
It happened that Appleton had at Dartmouth a classmate and fellow townsman named Reuben Kidder, who after graduating had studied law and was practising in Winslow, Maine. While teaching, Appleton wrote to Kidder about Waterville as a place for a young doctor, asking him if there were enough business to attract people; if there were any drug shop near, and if the roads were good or bad, for he did not like the idea of riding over rough roads to see patients. Kidder replied that there were six shops, thirty buildings, and about 1000 people living in log houses; that there was no drug shop nearer than one in Hallowell, twenty miles below, and that the roads to the south were fine, those to the north poor, and in the spring and fall, all alike were muddy. Kidder added that there was already one physician on the spot, Dr. Obadiah Williams, but that he wanted Appleton to come and would help him. He determinated his letter by saying that he was just putting up a building and that Appleton could have half of it for a dwelling house and consulting room if he would only come at once, as he had heard of other physicians making inquiries about settling there.
Encouraged by this, Moses went at once to Waterville and remained there the rest of his life. Dr. Williams, who was one of the remarkable pioneer physicians of the Kennebec Valley, was a great aid, became Appleton's first patient, gave him many introductions, and to complete his good works, as some people said, died in less than three years, leaving Appleton as the only physician in a flourishing town. He improved the opportunity and became an expert physician, working hard from the start, had ninety-six patients the first year, rode in every direction for years, and soon became beloved by everyone with whom he came in contact.
He was one of the early members of the Maine Medical Society, founded with the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, and was a frequent attendant at its meetings, although having to ride far to attend them.
Among the items contributing to the life of such a man, we find noted in his books that Dr. Williams sat for him as his first patient and had a tooth extracted for which the good man insisted upon paying a small fee for the sake of good luck. Elsewhere we read of his treating a shoemaker and his family for a year in return for boots and shoes as well as for furnishing a Mr. Matthews with medicines for a year in return for two cords of wood, sawed, split, and piled. After obtaining a competency, Dr. Appleton married Miss Annie Clark, daughter of Col. Clark, of St. Georges, Maine, in 1801.
Dr. Appleton was generous, yet accumulated money, and was founder and president of the first bank in the town. He was religious in his way, and, although not a praying doctor, was not afraid to read prayers in the absence of a regular preacher and to read from a book of printed sermons something appropriate for the day. Much may be said of Dr. Appleton as an excellent physician and surgeon, and as a writer for the infrequent medical journals of that day, but enough has been said to prove that he had a fine field offered him, that a great opportunity came to him, which he grasped and became a great man for the times in which he lived. It is not often that any physician acts alone for so many years as the only man in an emergency, and yet leaves so pleasant memories. He worked hard, labored long, and deserved as his just reward all the gains that came. He died gently at the last, May 5, 1849, aged seventy-six, worn out with
