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Champaign County, Illinois

Biography of Winston Somers, M.D.

SOURCE: "Early History and Pioneers of Champaign County, Illinois," by Milton W. Mathews and Lewis A. McLean, editors of the Champaign County Herald, published by the Champaign County Herald, 1886

SURNAMES: HAYNES, SOMERS

WINSTON SOMERS, M.D. Doctor Somers, the pioneer physician of Urbana, was born in the year 1800, near Rockford, Surry county, North Carolina. He received a fair education in the common schools at the place of his birth, and taught school in North Carolina, where Miss Mary Graves HAYNES went to school with him. She afterward, in 1829, married him. She was born in Stokes county, in February, 1811. Their children were all born in North Carolina. William H., the eldest, is now a resident of San Diego, California, (his portrait and biography appeas elsewhere); James W., is a member of the Board of Review of the Pension office, at Washington, (see his portrait and biography in another column); John W., is a druggist at Ida Grove, Iowa; Joseph W. is traveling for an agricultural implement house, but resides in Urbana. Doctor Somers came alone on horseback from North Carolina, here, in 1843. On his way, in the mountains of North Carolina, he stopped at a humble log house over night. Toward morning the Doctor thought he heard significant movements of the family and he got up, took his horse and went on his way. He feared they were going to rob him. The next day he stopped at a little town and waited for a gunsmith to make him two revolvers. He had previously been unarmed. These curious old primitive pistols were in the family for many years. Doctor Somers, after inspecting this wild prairie country made up his mind that this was where he would make a permanent home for himself and family. He returned to North Carolina and brought his family. He loaded his limited worldly effects into wagons and with three horses he brought them and his family, consisting of his wife and four boys, to this wild and uncultivated prairie. His oldest son, William H., was then thirteen years old and his youngest, Joseph, was five. When he arrived here, his capital, so far as money was concerned, had been reduced to the limited sum of seventy-five cents, but he had a brave heart, indomitable energy and good business capacity. He, of course, soon bought land and utilized his boys (a part of his capital) in farming, while he practiced his profession in a circuit of fifty miles in diameter, Urbana being the center. He had to visit patients on the Middle Fork, and at Rantoul, Sadorus, Homer, and many times would be gone from home for days at a time visiting the sick, riding in a gig or sleigh, carrying his saddlebags with a small stock of medicines, there being no drug store nearer than Danville.

The denizen of to-day, who looks upon a local and near by population of 10,000, who traverses paved streets, lighted by gas and electricity, who sees and mingles with people of the highest culture and looks upon the massive and imposing building of the State University, here located, will find it difficult to correctly imagine the Urbana of 1843, when the Somers family pitched its tent, strangers in a strange land. Instead of the evidences of our advanced civilization visible on every hand, as now, they only looked out upon a hamlet of a dozen small houses and cabins, built in a thicket of hazel brush and on the border of a boundless uninhabited prairie. Instead of a teeming population, busy in the shops, offices, and on the farms, they encountered the few pioneers here at that day, supplemented by wolves and other "varmints" of the wilderness, who made successful warfare upon the chicken roosts and pig-sties of the settlers. Instead of the advanced common schools now existing and flourishing all over the county, crowned by a great University, located but a mile from their home, this family saw only here and there a log school house, and the pay schools kept by ambulatory school masters of the Sam Crane variety. Such was the home to which Dr. Somers brought his family. After several years of arduous labor he went to Rush Medical college and graduated with high honors in 1853. He then practiced a year in the hospital in Chicago, after which he resumed his life work in Urbana. He was the first clerk of the circuit court of Surry county, North Carolina, the former incumbents having held the office under title derived from the king of Great Britain. He was a member of the Board of Enrollment for this district, at Danville, during the war. Before resigning he made a voluminous report of the operations of the board, to the Provost Marshal General, U.S.A., which was published in an official volume, by Dr. J. H. Baxter, Chicago, Medical Purveyor, who wrote Dr. Somers a highly complimentary letter thanking him for his contribution to medical science. He never read a novel in his life and opposed novel reading always. At the age of fifty he began and mastered the Greek and Hebrew languages so he could read the Bible in the original text. He was in the banking business, for a short time, with his son William. He died in 1871, leaving for his widow ample provision for her comfort the remainder of her days. She resides at the old home, now in her 76th year and in excellent health. He was very decided in his opinions, liberal in his religious views, but very earnest in the support of his favorite doctrines. He was a member and one of the founders of the Universalist church, in Urbana, and always contributed liberally to advance the cause he had so much at heart. He was anti-slavery in his views, even before he left the south, and was one of the earliest and most uncompromising republicans. He lived an earnest, energetic life and was of the stuff of which hardy pioneers are made. He was emphatically the architect of his own fortune. He achieved a high rank in his profession and left a record for earnest endeavor and manly enterprise that should be an example to the young men of our day.

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