San Francisco County

Biographies

JOSEPH STEELE EASTMAN, M. D.

JOSEPH STEELE EASTMAN, M. D., a physician and surgeon of Berkeley, was born in Hanover, Jefferson county, Indiana, July 7, 1854, a son of Rev. John C. and Martha (Finley) Eastman, of the eighth generation American Eastmans, his father being a son of Rev. John W., a son of James, a son of William, a son of Zachariah, a son of John, a son of Roger Eastman, the first of the name in America. Roger Eastman, born in Wales in 1611, but doubtless of English parentage or descent, emigrated to New England in 1640, with his wife, Sarah, and their child, John, born January 8, 1640, in company with other colonists, and settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. They had nine sons and two daughters born to them in Massachusetts, but this branch of the American Eastmans is descended from their first-born, John. The father died December 16, 1694, and the mother March 11, 1697. John was married in 1665, but his wife died without issue, and he was again married September 5, 1670, to Mary Boynton, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. John Eastman represented Salisbury in the Colonial Legislature in 1691, and died in 1720. Zachariah, son of John, born August 24, 1679, was three times married, and had five sons and four daughters. William, his sixth child, and the oldest of the three children by his second wife, Phoebe, was born March 19, 1719. He also was thrice married, and had five sons and nine daughters, of whom six died in childhood. His twelfth child, James, born of his third wife, Abigail, December 12, 1767, in Bradford, Essex county, Massachusetts, moved with his parents to Poplin, Rockingham county, New Hampshire, May 7, 1768, and to Sandwich, Strafford county, New Hampshire, October 9, 1779. He was married August 13, 1789, to Susannah French, born Epping, Rockingham county, New Hampshire, a daughter of Nathaniel and Anna French, who moved to Sandwich, December 12, 1786. James Eastman became a Quaker, and was highly esteemed for the characteristic virtues of that sect. He had three sons, Jacob Weed, born May 29, 1790; Ezekiel French, November 27, 1793, and David Clough, December 8, 1801. Mr. and Mrs. James Eastman, with their son, David C., moved from Sandwich, New Hampshire, and settled December 13, 1819, near Bloomingburg, Fayette county, Ohio, whither they had been preceded in 1816 by Ezekiel F., and were following in 1831 by Jacob W., their other sons. Susannah Eastman, died September 7, 1848, aged eighty-four, and James Eastman, the head of the Ohio branch of the Eastman family, died March 23, 1856. Jacob Weed Eastman became a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, and was married October 31, 1811, to Mary Webster, born November 22, 1793, who was a cousin of Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer. They had one son, John Calvin, born in Bradford, Massachusetts, March 17, 1813, and three daughters born elsewhere in that State, before their removal, in 1831, to Ohio, where another son, William Webster, was born, in New Petersburg, September 20, 1836. Rev. Jacob W. Eastman died in Hanover, Indiana, in July, 1852, and his wife in July, 1853. John Calvin Eastman also became a Presbyterian clergyman, and was married April 16, 1834, to Nancy McMillen, born in 1811, who died August 13, 1850, the mother of four sons and three daughters. Of the latter, one died in childhood, and one, Nancy Ann, born October 6, 1840, married Rev. R. G. Ross, November 20, 1862, died January 18, 1873. The third daughter and youngest child, Elizabeth Mary, born March 26, 1847, is the wife of George Scoggan, Jr. Of the four sons, the first-born died at the age of six; the second, Dyer Burgess Eastman, born October 24, 1836, married to Sophronia Gaskill, March 25, 1858, died a sacrifice to his county in the civil war, April 11, 1863. Her fifth child, William Weed, born August 27, 1843, became a Presbyterian clergyman, was married to Jennie Bishop, May 16, 1872, and has two daughters and one son, John William, born in October, 1882. John Calvin, Jr., born July 8, 1845, also a Presbyterian clergyman, was married June 29, 1875, to Miss Mary Plum Schenck, and has one son, Roy Schenck Eastman, born June 7, 1876. Rev. John C. came to this coast, was a resident of San Francisco in 1884, and of Colusa in 1890. Rev. John C. Eastman, Sr., was again married August 1, 1851, in Hanover, Indiana, to Martha D. Finley, born in Virginia, August 1, 1821, a daughter of John and Ann (Letcher) Finley. The issue of this marriage were twin brothers, who died in infancy, and the subject of this sketch, the only surviving child of his mother. The father died July 22, 1855; the mother survived until March 8, 1888. Her father, John Finley, born in Pennsylvania, April 17, 1781, a son of William and Sarah Finley, was married in Virginia to Ann Letcher, and moved to Indiana, mainly through his dislike of slavery, settling at Hanover, where he soon afterward died, December 3, 1833. His wife survived him thirty years. She was the daughter of John and Mary (Houston) Letcher, of Virginia. Mary Houston was the daughter of Robert and Margaret (Davidson) Houston. Robert was the son of John Houston and his wife (by birth Cunningham), who emigrated from Ireland to America with their four sons and two daughters, and the grandmother, also Mrs. John Houston. John Houston was born about 1690, and his son Robert about 1720.

Dr. J. S. Eastman, the subject of this sketch, received his education in his native town, being graduated A. B. from Hanover College in Jefferson County, Indiana, June 17, 1875. He had previously taught one season, 1872-’73, in the State Institution for the Blind in Little Rock, Arkansas. After graduation in 1875 he studied medicine in the Missouri Medical College in St. Louis, from which he received his diploma of M. D. March 5, 1878. He began practice in St. Louis, and in 1881 returned to Hanover, Indiana, where he continued practice, and was honored by his “Alma Mater” with the degree of A. M. in 1882. He soon afterward moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the interest of a projected university of Santa Fe, as educator and organizer of that institution under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. But that enterprise not proving a success, he resumed medical practice in the hospital of that city. In 1884 he came to California, and settled to practice in Berkeley, where he has since resided. He is a member of the local Board of Health, of the Alameda County Medical Association, and of the Medical Society of the State of California.

Dr. J. S. Eastman was married January 7, 1880, to Miss Lillian J. McDougall, born in San Luis Obispo, California, May 7, 1860, a daughter of John McDougall, the first Lieutenant-Governor of California, and his wife, nee Palmer. Mrs. McDougall was born in Indianapolis, a daughter of Nathan B. Palmer, a prominent pioneer in that section. After the death of her parents in San Francisco, Miss L. J. McDougall was brought up in her mother’s family in Indianapolis. Dr. and Mrs. Eastman are the parents of four children: Finley McDougall, born September 27, 1880; Samuel Palmer, July 26, 1882; Louise Letcher, October 4, 1885; Latham Calvin, July 26, 1888.

Transcribed by Donna L. Becker.

Source: “The Bay of San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 662-664, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

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