United Methodist Men’s Program Archive

 

October 6, 2009

“I can’t do this anymore,” declared Dr. Edward Stonestreet as he examined recruits for the Union Army in October 1862. While ensuring these men were fit for duty, Dr. Stonestreet was also called in September 1862 to take charge of a temporary hospital at the Courthouse in Rockville. Seeing how men returned from battle was too much. During the battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Maryland, 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after 12 hours of savage combat on September 17, 1862. Dr. Stonestreet served as a Contract Surgeon for the Army until June 1863. During this time, he was physician to the 6th Michigan Cavalry Regiment, which served a pivotal role in the battle at Gettysburg. In June, he returned to his general practice in Rockville and surrounding towns.

 

At its monthly meeting on October 5, the United Methodist Men were treated to a moving portrayal of Dr. Stonestreet’s life as a physician and surgeon by Clarence Hickey of the Montgomery County Historical Society. Dressed to personify Dr. Stonestreet, Clarence described the hour-long buggy ride to Olney along bumpy, rutted roads from his home and clinic in Rockville. He said he was happy to visit our church briefly while on his way to a house call at the Farquhar farm in Norbeck. He has been the family physician for the Farquhar’s family of seven children (whom he delivered) and five farm hands for many years. He said he would probably stay the night with the Farquhars and that would be his pay for this visit. 

 

Dr. Stonestreet became a doctor after graduating from the Rockville Academy and apprenticing with Dr. William McGruder of Frederick. He then studied for two more years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he graduated with distinction in March 1852. During the two years he lived and worked in the Baltimore Infirmary, a 150-bed hospital treating all varieties of acute and chronic illnesses. The Infirmary was the center of clinical teaching where Dr. Stonestreet learned surgery from Dr. Nathan Smith, UMD Professor of Surgery. Dr. Stonestreet used his two-year experience at the Infirmary to write up six case studies for his doctoral thesis. 

 

After four years of education and experience, Dr. Stonestreet set up a general physician practice in Rockville. He served the Rockville area for 52 years until his death in 1903. His obituary proclaimed his humanitarian practice and charity to the needy and announced his death as a public bereavement. 

 

Clarence Hickey is an interpretive docent at the Stonestreet Museum of 19th Century Medicine, located near the Courthouse in Rockville. He has written a book on Dr. Stonestreet, which will be published soon by the Montgomery County Historical Society. 

 

—Ray Johnson, UMM Secretary