George Bacon Wood, the eldest[1] son of Richard Wood and Elizabeth Bacon, was born at Greenwich, Cumberland County, New Jersey, on the 13th of March, 1797. James Wood, the first of the name of whom there is any mention, emigrated from Bristol, England, to Philadelphia, in the beginning of the eighteenth century; and his two sons settled on Snow Creek, near Greenwich. They were members of the Society of Friends, as were so many of the emigrants to this part of the country, in those early days. One of them, Richard Wood, the great grandfather of Dr. Wood, became a judge of the county in 1748; and the family appears to have always had some prominence there. Dr. Wood's father was an extensive land owner and cultivator; but all his children, of whom there were five—four sons and one daughter—subsequently removed to Philadelphia. George Bacon received the rudiments of his education in the city of New York, where he remained several years; completing his studies, however, at the University of Pennsylvania, whence he proceeded A.M., in 1815.
Adopting medicine as the business of his life, he began its study under the direction of Dr. Joseph Parrish, to whom he had been warmly commended by his father; and graduated with great honor at the Commencement held in the spring of 1818. His Thesis, on dyspepsia, was much praised, both for style and treatment; and he was told by Professor Chapman that it was one of the best practical disputations he had ever read.
The closest friendship immediately sprang up between the preceptor and his pupil, unlike as they were in so many traits of mind and person; and, being founded on mutual respect,
- ↑ The youngest, Horatio C. Wood, died during the month just passed.
