For most of my family’s history, this prompt would have been an easy one to answer, as I have written often about farm life. But while researching the Curry family, I came across some interesting finds regarding Nicholas Ray, another brother-in-law of Robert Curry.
I have yet to find a marriage record for Nicholas Ray and Mary A. Curry, but the Ray family appears in the 1850 census in the household of George and Amanda Cunningham, Amanda being Robert’s sister. George was a blacksmith, but Nicholas gave his occupation as “Physician.”
He may have been only an in-law, but having a doctor in the family could not have hurt. Was he educated in Europe or trained at one of the growing number of American medical schools? So far, there is no evidence of either. I did locate him again in the 1860 census, still listed as a physician, but this time in a different household and without any family members.
What happened to the family afterward is less clear. Mary and two of the sons—Atella and Annibal (or perhaps Atilla and Hannibal, or maybe one was actually a daughter named Anabel?)—seem to disappear from the record. Another daughter, Louisa, shows up in Illinois, where she married Mathew Thompson, and later appears in Iowa. From Louisa’s death record, we learn that Nicholas was born in Kentucky and that Louisa's mother’s maiden surname was Curry, also born in Kentucky. The informant, Louisa’s daughter Anabel, did not know her grandmother Curry’s first name, suggesting that Mary may have died young and that Louisa had been separated from much of the Curry family.
This is where it gets interesting.
In A History of Northeast Missouri, we learn that Nicholas was among the Kentuckians who helped found the town of Madison in Monroe County and that he served as its first physician. Records show that he was also appointed postmaster in 1846.
Yet Nicholas seems to have encountered some trouble despite his apparent standing in the community. In September 1848, he was indicted by a grand jury for practicing medicine without a license and posted bond the following day. At his circuit court trial in April 1849, he requested a jury trial, but the state dropped the charges and assessed no court costs.
Exoneration.
The fact that he was still practicing medicine at least eleven years later suggests the episode did little damage to his reputation. Whether formally trained or largely self-taught, he provided medical care on the Missouri frontier when few others were available. Perhaps competitors hoped to push him aside, but he clearly had enough community support to prevail.
Aside from some land sales in the 1850s and his appearance in the 1860 census, Nicholas then seems to fade from the historical record. The last mention of his wife Mary is in an 1854 land transaction. With surviving records so incomplete, much remains unknown, but his work was important to that young settlement, and his part in the Kentucky-to-Missouri migration remains part of its history.
Book:
Williams, Walter, ed. A History of Northeast Missouri, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1913
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