by Shannon Butler Living in this Covid era, we are all concerned with sickness and health, perhaps more than usual. So let us take a moment to look at a hospital that has been somewhat forgotten, though it has been repurposed for educational pursuits: the Bowne Memorial Hospital. At the turn of the 20th century, there was another health concern that had no cure, and was transmitted through droplets. This disease was known as Tuberculosis (or if you want the romantic Victorian term, Consumption). Patients with TB who went untreated had a 50% chance of dying within several years of contraction. People tended to avoid those with TB, and there was certainly a need for places to house these patients while continuing to work on therapy and finding a cure. Samuel W. Bowne was a merchant and chemist from New York City, and by the late 19th century, he had managed to make a good deal of money selling Scott’s Emulsion, which was said to help the immune system, amongst other things. When Bowne died in 1910, his wife Nettie wanted to find a cause to contribute some of her husband’s wealth to. Nettie found inspiration from her cousin, prominent member [...]

by Shannon Butler Over the past few months all of us have watched with great interest as day by day bits and pieces of the Cheney Memorial Building at the Hudson River State Hospital came crashing to the ground. Clouds of smoke, piles of brick, and chunks of steel mixing together in a massive mess that has now all but disappeared from our landscape. The building took two years to complete, cost over $9 million in construction costs, and stood for less than 70 years. So now that it’s gone and new creations are forming in its wake, let us take a look at the man the building was named for, Dr. Clarence O. Cheney. Cheney was born right here in Poughkeepsie on July 10th 1887. His father Albert O. Cheney had served in the 5th New York Infantry during the Civil War and later established a grocery on Main Street here in Poughkeepsie. His mother, Caroline was from the Adriance family and they lived at no. 88 Garden street. Cheney was educated in local schools including Poughkeepsie High School where he served as the Class President for the class of 03’ and then he headed off to Columbia University. He [...]

by Shannon Butler “Nothing contributes more, perhaps, to preserve a constitution healthy, and to restore it when disordered, than a calm dispassionate state of mind” – From The Means of Preserving Health and Preventing Diseases by Dr. Shadrach Ricketson, 1806. With everyone being more conscience of health and well-being today, we thought we would take this time to look at some of the health issues of the past and how they were dealt with right here in Dutchess County. Here in the Local History collection are several old books relating to diseases and medicine along with a large collection of old hospital reports from several of the hospitals in the area. Some of our earliest pieces concern the work of Dr. Hunting Sherrill, a doctor who practiced both in Hyde Park and Poughkeepsie and served as the President of the Dutchess Medical Society. Sherrill was born in Stanford NY in 1783 and studied medicine at the Geneva College. He came to practice in Hyde Park in 1809 and married Margaret Mulford in Staatsburg in 1811. In our collection we have a book that contains two addresses that Sherrill gave before the Dutchess Medical Society in 1819 and 1825. In the first, [...]