The Lowell Star, Aug. 17, 1872, page 5, column 3, had a list of soldiers who were supporters of Grant in that election. Among them was E.R. Bacon of the 100th Ill.
This information comes from the Sept. 14, 1872, Lowell Star, page 5, column 2:
from the Lowell Star, October 12, 1872, page 5, column 1:
According to a newspaper story, Dr. Bacon lost two barns worth $1,000 in Lowell's great 1898 fire in the business district.
From Ball, T.H., editor. Encyclopedia of Genealogy and Biography
of Lake County, Indiana with a Compendium of History 1834-1904.
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1904. pp. 528-529:
Obituary
DR. E.R. BACON About 1870 a young veteran of the then recent Civil War, who with his brother had been enlisted in the medical corps of the Union Army, and assigned to the Army at Cumberland, which had been mostly engaged in battles in Tennessee, came to Lowell.
On locating here he first established one of the first drug stores here which was located on the present site of the Masonic Temple building. His above mentioned brother located and practiced in Lockport, near Joliet, Ill.
This then, young doctor here met and won his bride, Martha Sanger, the only daughter of James Sanger, Sr.
Our subject then finished his medical course at the Chicago Medical College where he was at the time of the great Chicago fire in 1871. He afterwards alluded to that scene as resembling (Chicago was then comparatively small) a huge burning brickyard, with its streets all aglow like the door of a brick kiln.
Upon receiving his college diploma, he first established his office in his drug store here; then proceeded to have built his home and adjoining office, on the corner of the then "County Road" and Freemont St., protected from the holocaust of the 1890 fire which completely destroyed all buildings on Commercial Avenue, the destruction extended down the avenue to the brick opera building which still stands at the corner of Mill street.
The Doctor's residence was only saved by spouting water from the hose lines from his underground residential water facilities fed from his windmill tower tank there; the town not having any organized volunteer fire department at that time but which organization was soon thereupon established, as was the water works, both of which have since been a highly beneficent boon to the town and southern Lake County.
The doctor's practice, as well as those before and subsequent was very extensive, even in the "horse and buggy days", when this subject kept three or four driving horses in his two barns on his premises, which required a constant hostler in attendance. For instance, he was known to have been called about half way to Lockport, Ill., to meet his before-mentioned brother, also a doctor, in consultation and treatment of dangerous cases. He likewise had among his patients the renowned Kent family at Kentland. Thus he traveled night or day throughout cold and darkness, mud and mire, summer's heat and storms as well as pleasant weather, always bearing a good natured feature, which caused his many patients to say to him that his presence helped them as much as the medicine he delivered, for this was in an early period before patients were handed written prescriptions.
He, like the former mentioned doctors, supplied the medicines given to his patients, and his well-remembered characteristic was to tell his patient how the medicine would act upon the system. In a few amusing instances he was heard to say to some of them, "You don't need medicine -- just drink a dipper of well-warmed water a short time before breakfast and you will be O.K."
One of the most remarkable and successful surgery cases was related to a well-remembered former young townsman, Clifford Halsted, who was critically injured by a mule's kick on his forehead, depressing the skull bone and rendering this patient unconscious for days. The Doctor, without assistance, by a series of elevating the bone by careful degrees, restored same to its proper place, and the patient's life was saved.
This doctor lived until within the year 1906, passing away at the age of 66.
Go to Eponetus Reed Bacon, "Pioneer History Index," for further information.
Return to Civil War Veterans
Return to Lowell History
Return to Biographies
Contact referenc@lowellpl.lib.in.us