My Genealogy Hound

DR. SOL MAUDLIN. The value to any community of a professional man is not marked merely by his learning and skill, his proficiency in medical and surgical practice, but also by his character, both private and professional, his honorable adherence to medical ethics, and his personal integrity and benevolence of purpose. When a physician combines these characteristics, it is with pleasure that we record his life work, and such a man do we find in Dr. Sol Maudlin. This gentleman, who is one of the prominent physicians of Berrien County, is also one of its most active and substantial business men. He has been practicing medicine in this county since 1867, and for twenty-six years he has been kept busy following his profession. Since 1885 he has only been doing a large office practice. As he operates a farm of sixty-six acres, he is also engaged quite extensively in fruit-raising.

Dr. Maudlin is a product of Indiana, born in Henry County August 27, 1832, and is the eldest of nine children born to Barnabas and Martha (Hodge) Maudlin, natives respectively of North Carolina and Virginia. The parents were married in the Old Dominion, and there the father followed agricultural pursuits for some time. At an early day they removed to Indiana, and the father’s death occurred in St. Joseph County. He was a member of the Church of Friends. Dr. Maudlin received his literary education in Henry and Madison Counties, Ind., and when twenty-seven years of age he attended his first course of lectures at the Eclectic Medical School, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The breaking out of the war put a stop to his medical studies for the time being, and November 5, 1861, he enlisted in Company G, Fifteenth United States Infantry, and was attached to the Army of the Cumberland.

Our subject enlisted as a private and participated in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Florence and Stone River. He was injured at the battle of Corinth, but returned to the army shortly afterward and participated in the other battles mentioned, besides numerous skirmishes. Although captured at Nashville, Tenn., he only remained a prisoner nine days, when he succeeded in making his escape. The Doctor was then in the battle of Lookout Mountain, during Hooker’s charge, and, being stationed in the bend of the river, had a fine view of it all. He was discharged on the 7th of November, 1864, on Lookout Mountain, within the Georgia line, and went direct from there to Muscatine, Iowa. After remaining in that city for four months, he returned to Indiana and began practicing his profession.

Having chosen the eclectic system, our subject had rather uphill work in those days, for nothing was considered correct but the allopathic. Gradually he worked himself into a good practice, and there remained until 1868, when he came to Michigan and located in Berrien County. The country was new and heavily timbered at that time, and the principal business of the early settlers was lumbering. The wood was shipped to Chicago, and, as there were no railroads passing through the county, boating on the lake was in a prosperous condition. Fruit-growers had but just started, and that only so far as peaches were concerned. As soon as located, the Doctor opened up his practice, and, as he was well up with the times in medical lore, and had the ability to apply his knowledge at the proper time and in the proper place, it is not to be wondered at that he had a large practice. In 1881 he engaged in the mercantile business, and has since carried it on, doing an annual business of from $10,000 to $15,000. He also raises peaches, plums, pears, apples, and much small fruit on his farm, and is one of the wide-awake, thorough-going men of the county.

The Doctor has been twice married, first in 1867, to Miss Josephine Gregory, of New York, and one child was born of this union, Mary, wife of George Hann, of Grand Rapids, Mich. Mrs. Maudlin died on the 24th of February, 1875, and on March 1 of the following year Dr. Maudlin married Mrs. Carrie V. Whipple, nee Watson, a native of Indiana. Two children were born to the marriage, but only one is now surviving, Erna, who is at home. The Doctor is a member of Lake Lodge No. 143, I. O. O. F. He is a Republican in politics, but has never been an aspirant for political preferment. Of a decidedly practical turn of mind, he has a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and is very popular.