ARTHUR WELLSLEY SAXE, A.M. M. D.
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: KEITH, JUDSON,
Arthur Wellsley Saxe, A. M., M. D., was born at Plattsburg, Clinton County, New York, in the year 1820. His father, Jacob Saxe, was one of seven sons of John Saxe, of Sax Gotha, Germany, who came to America in 1760 or ’70 and first settled in Pennsylvania, but subsequently removed to Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, where Jacob Saxe was born. At the time of the breaking out of the Revolution he removed with his family to Highgate, Vermont, where he built stores, mills, etc., and lived until his children were grown up and began to do for themselves, and where Jacob grew from boyhood to manhood, and was given a common-school education only. He began his business life at Sheldon, Vermont, as a merchant, and subsequently engaged in manufacturing iron at Plattsburg, New York, and still later engaged in the same business at Rossie, New York. At the age of sixty he discontinued the mercantile and manufacturing business and retired to a farm in Franklin County, Vermont, where he spent the remainder of his days and died in 1852, at the age of seventy-eight years.
His mother, nee Rouena Keith, was a daughter of Hannah and Alfred Keith. They were of Scotch ancestry and were among the original settlers of Massachusetts. She died at Sheldon, Vermont, in 1872, at the age of about eighty years. They were both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. To them were born thirteen children, eight sons and five daughters. Arthur W. Saxe is the fourth son. When he was thirteen years of age his parents removed to Plattsburg to Sheldon, where he attended school until his seventeenth year. He then entered the preparatory department of the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, which he attended until 1840, when, in his twentieth year, he entered the Castleton Medical College at Castleton, Vermont, at which he graduated as M. D. in 1843. He practiced at Swanton, Vermont, until 1850, when he came to California. Here he practiced in the gold diggings in various parts of the State, until, tiring of it, in 1852 he came to Santa Clara and permanently located. The doctor has a State-wide reputation as a skillful physician and surgeon, and has an extensive local practice. In 1880 he was elected President of the California State Medical Society, filling that office one year, and during the same year went to the Hawaiian Islands to study into the condition, character, and history of the disease of leprosy in those islands, making a report of the result of his investigations to that society during the following year.
The Doctor is a lover of flowers, and his floral and botanical gardens, with their numerous native and exotic plants and trees, manifest his taste, knowledge, and skill as a floriculturist. Among his hundreds of varieties of flowers, of the rose genus alone he has 250 varieties. He also excels as an amateur artist, and the products of his brush and palette adorn the walls of his well-appointed and pleasant home with sketches of the chief points of interest in the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1844 he was married, at Sheldon, Vermont, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Fred W. and Lois (Keith) Judson. They have two living children: Fred J., a surgeon dentist, at Oakland, California, and Frank K., a physician and surgeon, at San Jose. They lost two children in infancy.
Not
to mention the generous and charitable nature of the Doctor and his amiable and
inestimable wife, would leave this brief sketch incomplete. Their acts of charity and promptness for the
relief of the destitute and suffering, have endeared them to the community in
which they have lived so long. Both are
consistent Christians and efficient working members of the Santa Clara
Methodist Episcopal Church. The Doctor
is an enthusiastic Republican, and although no aspirant to office, he was
elected to represent his district in the California State Senate in 1884, which
he filled with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents.
Pen Pictures From The
Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis
Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 278-279
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy
SANTA CLARA COUNTY The Valley of Heart's Delight