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SPARHAWK, GEORGE E. E., M.D., was born at Rochester, Vt., on the 20th day of February, 1829. His father, Rev.
Samuel Sparhawk, was a Congregational clergyman, of Scotch descent, and was born in Templeton, Mass., on the 1st
day of January, 1801, and died at Pittsfield, Vt., in November, 1869. The subject of this sketch attended the Orange
County Grammar School at Randolph, Vt., and the West Randolph Academy, from which latter institution he was graduated
in 1850. He was the better enabled to take this excellent course from the fact that his father removed to West
Randolph in 1842. In the mean time, and up to 1850, he taught school a portion of each year for six successive
years, in this manner displaying that diligence and independence of character which were afterward the chief factors
of his success. In 1849 he began to study medicine under Dr. Gibson, of Sharon, Vt., continuing his teaching until
1852. In March, 1852, he entered the Vermont Medical College at Woodstock, Vt., and after the dose of that spring
term entered the office of Dr. William F. Guernsey, of Philadelphia, Pa. In the fall of that year he began his
studies in the Homoeopathic Medical College of Philadelphia, then the only homoeopathic college in the world, from
which he was graduated in March, 1853. In June following he began practicing at Rochester, Vt., in company with
Dr. H. W. Hamilton, with whom he remained until January, 1854, when he assumed exclusive control of the business.
He was the pioneer of his school of medicine in that section of the State, where he continued with a growing practice
until 1856, when he associated himself with Dr. C. B. Currier, to whom he afterward sold his business, and on account
of the failing health of his wife removed to West Randolph, Vt., that she could be near her friends and relatives
while she lived. In the spring of 1857 he opened an office in Gaysville, Vt., where he made weekly visits, which
he continued until the death of his wife in December, 1858. He then made that place his home, and immediately began
a practice of most unusual extent of territory and of profit. From the time of his arrival in Gaysville until he
left there in 1878, his ride covered a circuit having a radius of about forty miles. In June, 1878, he came to
Burlington for a few days, and continued his visits until the 25th of the following November, when he made his
permanent removal here, having already established an extensive and lucrative practice. Although he has won a remarkable
record of success as a general practitioner, he has been drawn by his natural and acquired skill into a considerable
specialty in gyncology, and all diseases pertaining thereto. His reputation in this department of medical practice
is not confined to Burlington, nor even to the State. He is frequently called upon from distant points as counsel
in complicated cases more frequently, indeed, than the many and pressing demands of his Burlington and Chittenden
county patients permit him to respond to. He has attained an enviable prominence in his own profession and school,
and since the beginning of his professional career he has taken a most active part in the promotion of its principles
and the establishment of institutions looking to that end. He is the oldest homceopathic physician in the State.
He aided in founding the Vermont Homceopathic Medical Society in 1854, and did much valuable work in obtaining
a charter for the State Society, which was granted by the Legislature in 1858. He has been honored by elections
to nearly every office within its gift. He has been its president, secretary and treasurer, and is now its corresponding
secretary. In 1859 he joined the American Institute of Homceopathy, which is, as its name indicates, a society
of national extent and jurisdiction, and in 1884 became a senior member thereof. He is also a member of the American
Obstetrical Society, since its recent organization, in 1883, under the laws of the State of New York. He has been
a regular contributor to the Homoeopathic Journal of Obstetrics since that magazine was established in 1879, and
an occasional contributor to many other medical journals and magazines.
Dr. Sparhawk has been prominently identified with the Masonic order for more than twenty years, and has taken the
various degrees both of the Master Masons and the Royal Arch Masons, and is a charter member of the White River
Lodge No. go, at Bethel, Vt., of which body he was treasurer while he remained in that vicinity. In 1875 he took
the first fourteen degrees of the order called the Scottish Rite, and in 1882 the remaining degrees up to the thirty
third.
Dr. Sparhawk's political preferences are decidedly Republican, though he has little to do with politics except
to keep well informed upon political movements in his county, State and the nation, and to vote intelligently.
At Rochester, however, his interest in the cause of education induced him to accept for years repeated elections
to the quasi political office of superintendent of common schools. In pursuance of the time honored traditions
of the family, and of his own belief, he is a regular attendant at the Congregational Church.
He has been twice married; first, on the 4th of March, 1854, to Miss Lucy Ann Griswold, of Randolph, Vt., who died
of consumption in December, 1858, and the second time, on the r8th of June, 1867, to Miss Mary A. Hendee, of Pittsford,
Vt. He has had two sons. of whom the younger, Fred, who was born on the 5th of December, 1870, died on the 26th
of October, 1879; and the elder, Sam, who was born on the 6th of September, 1869, still lives with his parents.
From:
History of Chittenden County, Vermont
Edited by: W. S. Rann
D. Mason & Co., Publishers
Syracuse, New York. 1886
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