| Description |
: |
MEMOIR
of
DOCTOR VAN DE VASTINE JAMISON
-------------------
Van de Vastine Jamison was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on the 24thday of March, 1765. He was the son of Robert Jamison, whose ancestors, for several generations, had lived in that State. There is no record of their settlement in this country. They were originally Scotch, and belonged to the Presbyterian Church.---They left Scotland during the arbitrary administration of Lauderdale and first settled in the North of Ireland. From thence, the family about the commencement of the last century, emigrated to America and settled in the province of Pennsylvania.
...
Read More
|
MEMOIR
of
DOCTOR VAN DE VASTINE JAMISON
-------------------
Van de Vastine Jamison was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on the 24thday of March, 1765. He was the son of Robert Jamison, whose ancestors, for several generations, had lived in that State. There is no record of their settlement in this country. They were originally Scotch, and belonged to the Presbyterian Church.---They left Scotland during the arbitrary administration of Lauderdale and first settled in the North of Ireland. From thence, the family about the commencement of the last century, emigrated to America and settled in the province of Pennsylvania.
Robert Jamison married Mary, the daughter of Abram Van de Vastine, from whom the subject of this Memoir derived his Christian name. Abram Van de Vastine was by birth a Swiss, and, it is conjectured, belonged to the Helvitic Church. It is certain that his daughter, after her marriage, became a member of the Presbyterian Church. From Pennsylvania Robert Jamison removed to Virginia, and settled in Loudon county, where his children were educated, and where he and his wife both died—the latter in the year 1798 and the former in 1800.
Robert Jamison was a man of competent means, though not of large fortune. He gave his children the best education which his neighborhood afforded at that time; he appears to have been a man of little thrift, as he was able to give no material aid to his children upon their settlement in life. The subject of this Memoir spoke seldom of his father. To his mother he often alluded in terms of glowing filial affection, and to her he was chiefly indebted for those early lessons of virtue and piety which he practiced throughout his life, and which he endeavored to impress so deeply on the minds of his children.
He left Virginia before the death of his parents, and came to Darlington District in South Carolina, where he studied medicine with his brother-in law, Dr. James Pliny Wilson, of Society Hill, who had married his eldest sister, Martha. About 1793, he commenced his study of medicine, which he prosecuted three years; he then settled in Orangeburg Court House, and commenced the practice of his profession, sometime during the year 1796. In 1798, he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of General Jacob Rumph, a planter of the neighborhood. Shortly after his marriage, he settled at White Hill, a plantation of considerable extent, about six miles eastward of Orangeburg, on the road leading to Belleville.
He was fortunate in his marriage. His wife was then only fifteen. She was a woman of remarkable personal attractions, and she brought to the discharge of her various duties of wife, mother, friend and mistress, an unperturbable sweetness of temper, frugality, diligence, and the most exemplary piety. Before her marriage, she became a member of the Methodist Church, and she continued in it till her death. The predominant characteristic of her moral nature was her piety. It appeared to influence every act and thought of her life. It was sometimes carried even to excess. Although it was never exhibited in any outward manifestation of religious fervour, as is frequently seen among the members of that communion, yet it sometimes arose even to ecstacy, and sometimes it prostrated her into the deepest self abasement. Though subject to such exaltations and depressions of spirit----and which the slightest incident would sometimes bring on,--- in general, her disposition was cheerful, hopeful and happy and she diffused, throughout the small circle of which she was the centre, the delightful influence of her gentle nature, which is still felt, after the lapse of nearly forty years.
When Doctor Jamison commenced the practice of his profession at Orangeburg he had little or no competition. In truth, his practice was only limited to his inability to attend to the calls made upon him. His professional circuit extended on one side to the Santee River, and on the opposite to the Savannah, northward into Lexington District as far as Granby, and he was often sent for by persons living at Charleston, Colleton and Beaufort Districts. His visits were made on horseback. Wheeled carriages were almost unknown, and neighborhood roads were little more than “bridlepaths,” extending from one settlement to another.--- The amount of physical labor which he endured in attending to such an extensive practice, was very great; but he was sustained by a vigorous constitution and robust health. ---He appears to have carefully studied the nature of the diseases particular to the climate, and such was the confidence reposed in his professional skill, that when from age and infirmities he was unable to visit his former patients, they took his prescriptions without hesitation or doubt, when he would only conjecture the nature of the disease. Out of many instances which would illustrate his success as a physician, I will only mention one. In the year 1816, when several younger physicians had occupied a portion of the field of his former practice, the whole country was attacked by a fatal epidemic, popularly known by the name of the “cold plague.” It was a kind of pneumonia or pleurisy:---a greatly excited pulse was one of the invariable symptoms of the disease, and blood-letting appeared to be the treatment best suited to alleviate the violence; but Doctor Jamison soon discovered that bleeding was fatal, and to as many as he could not visit, and to such of his friends as were not yet attacked, he sent word that bleeding should not be resorted to in any instance, no matter what might be the apparent necessity of such treatment; and his management of the epidemic was attended by singular success.
He seems to have succeeded in his agricultural pursuits. On his plantation at White Hill there was an extensive vein of lime-stone which he opened and worked during his life-time, and he made it profitable by supplying lime to his neighbors, for all the uses to which it is applied, but especially to the planters of indigo, who used it extensively in the manufacture of that dye---at that time an important article of commerce, and one of the great staples of the country. He seldom rested, and every moment of his time and occupied by one pursuit he employed in the other,
In the year 1804, he was elected a member of the House of Representative from Orange Parish, and he continued in that body during two terms, until the fall of 1808, when he declined a re-election. He was never again a candidate, but at the fall elections of 1818, he was returned, without his consent or knowledge, under the following circumstances: he had removed at that time to the adjoining Parish of St. Matthew, but he continued to hold the bulk of his property in Orange Parish. A few days before the elections of that year, a party of gentlemen had met together at Orangeburg Court House, and the conversation turning on the want of qualification in the candidates then offering themselves for the House of Representatives for the Parish of Orange, one of the parties observed, “Let us run Doctor Jamison.” The proposition was at once assented to by all who were present, and they agreed that they would have his name announced at each poll of the Parish and the following Monday. It was done accordingly, and he was elected by a considerable majority. He served out the term, and then withdrew forever from the public service.
In September of the year 1836, he was attacked by sudden chills. They returned from time to time, and gradually wore away his remaining vital functions, and he expired without pain, on the 15th day of December, 1836, in the 72d year of his age. He was buried at White Hill, by the side of his wife and the two little boys who had preceded them.
______________________________
Doctor Jamison, in stature, was above the middle height, and well proportioned in form. His constitution was robust, and his health never failed him, unit it entirely gave way from overwork. – His skin was fair, his eyes blue, his hair light and curled, and his face singularly expressive of the emotions that passed within him. –His temperament was sanguine and somewhat mercurial. In his youth and adulthood, he always required active employment. What he undertook, he determined to accomplish, and the secret of his success, in life may be ascribed to that excellent maxim which he practiced throughout the active part of his career, “Whatever thy hand finedth to do, do it with thy might.”
He had formed a very extensive acquaintance with the prominent men of his time in this State, and he knew them well; but in general, he was disposed to estimate men too much as they ought to be, rather than as they were, and therefore, his confidence was sometimes misplaced, and in his dealings with them he was sometimes overreached.
He could never refuse an alms or a benevolence of any kind. He never canvassed the claim, if the pretence was a charity, and he often gave without stint, when his own necessities would seem to require greater reserve. He was, therefore, frequently imposed on by the designing, and or false appearances of want; but I have seen him smile upon discovering an imposture practices upon his charitable feelings—intimating that we must needs give to all, that we may not overlook the deserving---and in his practice he conformed to the advice of one of the Apocryphal writers: “Turn not away thine eye from the needy, and give him none occasion to curse thee.”
Though formed rather for active exertion than contemplation, he was fond of books, and he collected a library, considerable in number and value, for a country gentleman, at a time when books were high-priced and not easily obtained. In the latter part of his life, when his infirmities released him from labour, he read a great deal, and it became, after his children married and settled away from him, his chief, if not sole, resource. He was fortunate in retaining his eyesight, and as it often happens to very old persons, he could read without the use of spectacles, some years before his death, the small print of a common edition of the Bible.
In his intercourse with his fellow-men, he so acted as to leave behind him, an unkind feeling or recollection in the breast of no living creature. As a husband, he was fond and constant; as a father, though firm in the matters of duty, he was kind and indulgent to excess; as a friend, generous and self-sacrificing; as a master; just and little –exacting; and I think I may justly use, in summing up his character as a man, and with little alteration, the words of Doctor Blair, who collects in a small compass, those features of the mind and heart which constitute the true honour of man. “He had a mind superior to fear, to selfish interest and corruption; a mind governed by the principles of uniform rectitude and integrity; the same in prosperity and adversity, which no bribe could seduce or terror oversaw; neither by pleasure melted into effeminacy, nor by distress sunk into dejection. One who, in no situation in life, was either ashamed or afraid of discharging his duty, and acting his proper part with firmness and constancy; true to the God whom he worshipped, and true to the faith which he professed to believe; full of affection to his brethren of mankind; faithful to his friends, generous to his enemies, warm with compassion to the unfortunate; self-denying to the little private interests and pleasures, but zealous for public interests and happiness; magnanimous, without being proud; humble, without being mean; just without being harsh; simple in his manners, but manly in his feelings; and whose word you could entirely rely; whose professions of kindness were the effusions of his heart; one, in fine, whom, independent of any views of advantage, you would choose for a superior, would trust in as a friend, and could love as a brother. “
I have mentioned that Doctor Jamison became a member of the church about the year 1804. He was then forty years of age. It was twenty years later---when he was sixty---that I knew him best. For it was at that time, or a little afterwords, that I completed my literary education and returned home. From that time until his death I knew him more intimately than any one else. When at home, I was constantly with him, and when I left him to commence the study of a profession at Orangeburg, I not only saw him at short intervals of time, but I transacted all his business, wrote all his letters, and in sort, performed for him almost every act that one person could do for another. It was during this period that his religious convictions exhibited themselves in their greatest purity and beauty. He had withdrawn from any rude contact with the world. He had finished his labours. He had accumulated a competence for his old age, and something for his children. He felt that his work was done in this world, and that little was left to him but to make his great preparation to leave it with propriety, and in a manner the most becoming his high professions. I have carefully examined my recollection of this period of my intercourse with him, and I do not hesitate to say, that I can recall no expression or act of his, that I ever knew, that I could have undone; no word; that I ever heard, that would have unsaid.
In all of his habits he was regular and uniform. His acts of closet and family devotion were never neglected. His first act, each day, was private prayer, and his last at night. Family prayer, in the morning and before retiring to his chamber at night, and never omitted, if he had strength to perform it—no matter what might be the occasion; no matter what company might be in the house; no matter what might be the zeal or indifference of the persons present, to such services. I have seen him drag himself from his chamber in the morning, to perform that act of duty and go back immediately to his bed—exhausted by the effort. When he was unable to leave his chamber, the family was assembled and the service performed there. Secret prayer was his great resource. It was the ailment of his moral nature –his tonic. When some incident annoyed him, when he was disgusted by some embarrassment, or grieved by some calamity, he sought refuge in prayer and sleep; for it was the felicity of his years; that when disturbed by the petty cares and vexations of life, he could drive them away in sleep, and arise, either forgetting them altogether, or so strengthened as to support them with fortitude.
To the religious creeds in general, I think he was indifferent. He was deeply impressed and satisfied with the truths contained in his own. He treated the doctrines, the forms and ceremonies of all Protestant churches with great respect. But candour forces me to acknowledge that, towards the doctrines and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, he was not so tolerant. He had a sort of hereditary hostility to the doctrines of that church—probably derived through his Presbyterian ancestors from the times of John Knox and the Convenanters, and the expatriation of his family—possibly from the bias of his own early education --- which is true he seldom exhibited but which I am sure he nevertheless entertained. He exacted from me a promise, when a boy, never to read the skeptical writings of Tom Paine.
Of all the vice resulting from habit, he disliked swearing and profanity the most. No servant or dependant ever dared to utter an oath in his presence. Even his neighbors—and among them some the most addicted to that habit—knowing his aversion to the practice, always forbore from using such expletives in his presence, although I never knew him to reprove any one for it, unless it might be one for whose morals and deportment he felt himself responsible.
He was particularly strict in his observance of the Sabbath.—With him it was a day sacred to religious offices and meditations.—In nothing was he so strict with his children as he was with their conduct and employment on that day. Play-things, toy-books, newspapers were prohibited. All exercises were forbidden, and such was the impression produced on them by his respect for the Sabbath, that to this day, their observance of it—notwithstanding the difference of their views of the Christian Sabbath, as a religious institution –is only a little less strict than his own.
He was graciously permitted a long preparation for death,---In that light he regarded it, and when he saw it approaching, he looked steadfastly upon it without awe or shrinking. He did not wish for death, because he possessed many comforts and enjoyments on earth, but he did not desire to prolong his life, as he was prepared for his summons, and he felt that nothing more was left for him to do.
__________________________
His remains repose in the family burial ground at White Hill, under a plain marble slab, with the inscription commemorating the virtues of a well-spent and useful life, and concluding with the exclamation of Aeneas, on beholding at Carthage, the picture of Priam: “ Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi.”
[The "Memoir of Dr. Vastine Jamison" was written in the early 1850's by Jamison's son, David Flavel Jamison. The memoir was published and distributed locally.]
|
