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Trails to the Past Bristol County Rhode Island Men of Progress of Rhode Island and Providence Part 3 CANFIELD, Herman, A. M., M. D., of the Hopeworth Sanitarium, Bristol, was born in Medina, Ohio, April 17, 1853, son of Herman and S. A. Martha (Treat) Canfield. The Canfields came from France to England in 1350, and settled in Yorkshire. From there they came to Milford, Connecticut, about 1640. Dr. Canfield's great grandfather, Colonel Samuel Canfield, served on Washington's staff in the Revolutionary War. His grandfather, Herman Canfield, removed to the Western Reserve early in the present century, and founded the town of Canfield, Ohio. His father, Herman Canfield, was a lawyer and located in Medina, where he held in succession all of the town and county offices, and when serving as Mayor was elected State Representative, and later was a State Senator. At the fall of Sumter he was appointed Major, and soon after Lieutenant-Colonel, of the Seventy-second Ohio, and was in command of his regiment when shot and killed at the battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg landing. Dr. Canfield's mother's family, the Treats, came to East Hartford, Connecticut, from England. His great-grandfather Treat was Governor of Connecticut and a member of Washington's staff during the Revolution; his grand-father Treat removed to Ohio about 1840, and is now living in Denver, Colorado, at the age of ninety-nine years. The Canfields were all professional men, the Treats always in business. The father of our subject, when Senator, introduced a bill establishing the State Idiot Asylum of Ohio, and was President of that institution at the time of his death ; he was a strong Abolitionist, and was the head in his part of the state of the underground railway between the slave states and Canada. After his death his widow went South to care for sick and wounded soldiers, and at the close of the war established the Canfield Colored Orphan Asylum at Memphis, Tennessee. Afterwards she had charge of the Division of Orphan Asylums, Industrial Schools and Charities in the Bureau of Education at Washington. She died at Honeworth in 1890, from the effects of exposure in her work for the soldiers during the war. During the war the subject of this sketch spent most of his time at the front with his mother in caring for soldiers, so that he grew up in hospitals, and became personally acquainted with Grant. Sherman and other prominent generals of the war in the West. He obtained his early education in private schools, completed his preparation for college in the grammar school at Gambier, Ohio, and graduated in 1874, at Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin, from which institution he received the degree of A. M. in 1877. In the fall of 1874 he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, received his degree from the University of New York, Medical Department, in 1876, was admitted, after a severe competitive examination, as Junior Assistant Fourth Medical Division on the staff of Bellevue Hospital in New York city, and in 1878 went abroad and studied at Wurtzburgh, Berlin, under Virchow, and also in London. While in Bellevue Hospital he was appointed to the care of a practice in Cold Spring, New York, and latter was appointed to collect and care for an exhibit to represent Medical Education, by request of the United States Commissioner of Education, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. He also served for a time at the head of the Bellevue Emergency Obstetrical Hospital. In the spring of 1S79 he located in Cleveland, Ohio; but wishing to open a sanitarium, he removed with his wife and child, in the same year, to Bristol, Rhode Island. Dr. Canfield is emphatically a self-made man. He began his business life in Bristol with twelve dollars in his pocket and no other financial resources. After practicing two years in order to get something to start a sanitarium upon, he rented the General Burnside estate and opened his' institution with one room. In eighteen months the business had outgrown its quarters, and Dr. Canfield bought his present estate. The house then contained seven rooms, and has since been extended to forty-five rooms, with accommodation for thirty patients; other buildings have from time to time been added, so that it is now one of the best and most complete sanitariums in the East. In 1885 he took his brother, Dr. William E. Canfield, into partnership, and the firm name has since been Canfield & Canfield. Dr. Canfield has spent four or five winters abroad, and is now establishing a sanitarium at the Hot Springs in Jamaica, British West Indies, and another at Cartago, Costa Rica. His labors are entirely devoted to his specialty of nervous diseases, and besides his sanitarium work much of his time is spent in consultation with physicians all over New England. Aside from the business part of Hopeworth, it is a rule of the Sanitarium to care always for two deserving patients who are unable to meet the regular charges. The institution is rapidly growing, and is even- year obliged to extend its accommodations. The record of Dr. Canfield's professional career commences with his services in the United States Sanitary Commission and United States Christian Commission during the war. He was House Physician at Bellevue Hospital, New York, in 1878; House Physician of Bellevue Emergency Obstetrical Hospital in 1879 ; and has been Physician in charge of Hopeworth Sanitarium since 1883. He is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, Providence Medical Association the Society of Internes of Bellevue Hospital, the Military Order of Loyal Legion and the Providence Athletic Club. He has always been a Republican, but while actively interested in politics has never sought nor held public office. Dr. Canfield was married, April 13,1878, to Ella M. Kendall of Windsor Locks, Connecticut; they have two children; Herman and Roderick Canfield. JENCKES, John, State Senator from Barrington, was born in Providence, August 30, 1848, son of Daniel C. and Elizabeth D. (Randall) Jenckes. He is a great-grandson of John Jenckes, who was a member of the Legislature from 1773 to 1789 and was one of a committee to act in any sudden emergency when the Assembly was not in session, with full power to take all necessary measures for the safety of the colony. He is a great-great-grandson of Nicholas Cooke, Governor of Rhode Island during the Revolution, and also a great-great-grandson of Colonel Elisha Mowry of Revolutionary times. He is also a direct descendant in the seventh generation from Roger Williams. His early education was obtained at the Woodstock Academy and in the Providence high school. For some years he was associated with his father, Daniel C. Jenckes, in active business in Providence, in commercial fertilizers and masons' materials, a business founded in 1844, and carried on successfully for over forty years. He removed to Barrington in 1870. Mr. Jenckes was elected Representative to the Legislature from Barrington in 1893, was elected Senator in 1894 and re-elected in 1895 and again in 1896. He is a member of the Providence Athletic Association and of the Rhode Island Yacht Club, also of the Rhode Island Sons of the American Revolution. In politics he is a Republican. He was married, June 15, 1875, to Ida, daughter of Acting Master R. L. Kelly, United States Navy, who was killed at the taking of Port Hudson, Miss., in 1863; they have two children: Alice and A. Katherine Jenckes.
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