The Doctor Who Went West
Cyrus Hamlin Coolidge was born on May 11, likely in 1800, but occasionally recorded as 1799, 1802, and even 1803, at Canton, Maine, where he grew up as someone “inclined to study.” He entered Bowdoin as a sophomore at the age of 22. He boarded at the home of Mrs. J. Grow’s his first year and then spent his junior and senior years in Maine Hall. All three of his years at Bowdoin he roomed with Richmond Bradford, suggesting that the two men were friends. Coolidge was a member of the Athenean Society at Bowdoin. Between 1822 and 1824 he was fined four times for neglect of his work and absences from the college. However, he only seemed to misbehave when he was joined by most of his peers, rather than on his own. Coolidge’s academic prowess was attested to at the Class Exhibition in 1825 when he was invited to participate in a conference on “The Characters of Luther, Calvin, and Knox as Reformers” alongside John S. C. Abbott and Alfred Mason. The Canton man graduated fifteenth in the Class of 1825 and delivered a dissertation at Commencement entitled, “The Public Services of Alexander Hamilton.”
After graduating from Bowdoin, Coolidge continued with his studies. He received a Master’s degree in 1828 and studied at Dartmouth College in 1829 as a medical student. He then returned to Canton in 1830 and continued to study medicine under his uncle, the physician Dr. Cornelius Holland. He was able to obtain a medical degree and started practicing as a physician at Canton Point. In 1841, Coolidge moved to Buckfield, Maine, where he replaced Dr. William Comstock as the town physician. He purchased Comstock’s farm in 1842 and, alongside his medicinal practice, had dealings in the world of business. He was known in Buckfield as, “a man of blunt speech and many peculiarities of character, but was regarded as a very good physician.” While he was in Buckfield, Coolidge married and had children, one of whom was named Charles Archelaus Coolidge. Coolidge also became a freemason.
Ten years after arriving in Buckfield, Coolidge decided to uproot his life and move to California. He spent eight years travelling around the state, before settling in Austin, Nevada, in 1860. He practiced medicine there for six years before moving again to Amador, California, in 1866. He died there in 1871 at the age of 71. Much of Coolidge’s family remained in the Canton area, attended Bowdoin, and became doctors, including his son Charles.