Samuel Crowell, 1857-1929
Crowell lived at 8 Monadnock Street, Dorchester. H was involved with the Dorchester Free Dispensary at Fields corner. In 1918, He was president of the Dorchester Medical society
From American Series of Popular Biographies. Massachusetts Edition. This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Boston: Graves & Steinbarger, 1891)
SAMUEL CROWELL, M.D., who has been engaged in the successful practice of his profession in Dorchester for the last fifteen years, was born in Dennis, Barnstable County, Mass., December 16, 1857, a son of Samuel and Mary H. (Crowell) Crowell. He comes of old New England stock, being a descendant of John Crowe, born in England or Wales, who was in Charlestown in 1635. In 1639 John Crowe, Anthony Thatcher, and Thomas Howes were grantees from the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the town of Yarmouth, on the Cape. The line of descent is traced from John Crowe, through Thomas Crowell, born as early as 1645; his son, John Crowell, who resided at Bass Ponds, now West Dennis; Thomas, also of Bass Ponds, who was born in 1691, and died in 1777; to Edward, born in 1718, who served as sergeant in Abijah Barnes’s company, Colonel Nat Freeman’s regiment, during the Revolutionary War, and died in 1813. His son Elisha, who was born in 1753, and died in 1836, was followed by Elisha, second, Dr. Crowell’s grandfather, who was born in Dennis, Mass., in 1789, and died in 1853. All or most of the ancestors above named were sea-faring men.
Samuel Crowell, son of Elisha, second, and father of Dr. Crowell, was born in Dennis, September 15, 1812. By the time he had reached the age of nineteen he was master of a coasting-vessel; and, when he was twenty-one, he had accumulated a capital of a thousand dollars. He continued to follow the sea until he was forty-five years old, at which time he engaged in the wholesale fish business in New York; and he subsequently followed that occupation during the rest of his life, which terminated September 28, 1870. His wife, Mary, who was born in Dennis, April 4, 1824, and who is still living, is a daughter of Aaron and Polly (Howes) Crowell. Her father, born April 3, 1783, was a son of Aaron, second, born in 1738, whose father, Aaron, first, born in 1711, was a son of Jeremiah, born in 1670. Jeremiah Crowell was a son of John Crowell, of Nobscussett (the Indian name of Dennnis), born about 1638, who was a son of John Crowe. Aaron Crowell, second, was a prize master on board of a brigantine privateer commanded by Samuel Crowell. He died in 1831. Dr. Crowell’s mother was one of twelve children. His father was a Deacon in the Presbyterian church of Dennis.
Samuel Crowell, the direct subject of this sketch, was educated in the Chauncy Hall School in Boston, graduating therefrom in 1876, and subsequently for two years attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then on account of failing health he spent some time in the South. On his return he entered the Harvard Medical School, and was graduated there in 1885. He afterward went to Vienna, where he attended the clinics of some of the celebrated professors, and studied the practical side of his profession in the hospitals. Entering upon the duties of his profession in Dorchester in 1885, he has since been very successful, having built up a large practice.
Dr. Crowell is a member of various societies, including the Massachusetts Medical, the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, the Dorchester Medical Club, and the Clinical Club. He is also surgeon of the Woman’s Charity Club Hospital and the New England Baptist Hospital, and consulting surgeon of the Soldiers’ Home in Chelsea. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and belongs to Union Lodge, F. & A.M.;* Dorchester Chapter, R.A.M.,** of which he is a charter member and in which he has filled all the chairs; and to Boston Commandery.
He was married April 11, 1883, to Miss Marie Crowell Lincoln, a daughter of Captain David and Clarissa Lincoln, of Brewster. Her father was born on December 1, 1810, and died July 21, 1873. Her mother, Clarissa (Paddack) Crowell, was born June 28, 1821, and died February 6, 1883. She was a daughter of Captain Seth Crowell, born October 17, 1792, a seafaring man, who fought in the War of 1812, and was captured by the British and confined in Dartmoor Prison. Captain Seth Crowell established the First National Bank of Yarmouth, Mass. His father was Nathan Crowell, born May 29, 1766, who was a son of Christopher Crowell, born April 18, 1737. (See History of Barnstable, Mass., page 550.) This Christopher was a son of Christopher Crowell, of Secuit Neck, born in 1698, whose father was John Crowell, of Nobscussett, born in 1662, who was a son of John Crowell, second, who was a son of John Crowe.
Dr. and Mrs. Crowell are the parents of three children, all sons: Lincoln, born October 30, 1884; Samuel, March 15, 1887; and David, September 16, 1893.
*F. & A.M. Free and Accepted Masons.
**R.A.M. Royal Arch Masons.