Kings County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



HAMLIN, BENJAMIN (DR.)
 
     A factor and a landmark in the history of Kings county is Dr. Benjamin 
Hamlin, of Lemoore, who was born January 20, 1824, and came to the present site 
of Lemoore in 1874, when he was about fifty years old. But at the time there was 
no town there; on the ground Lemoore now occupies were a few scattered houses of 
primitive construction and a few settlers had come to the country round about. 
The doctor has witnesses the transformation of the county from wild land to a 
vast wheat-field and has watched the gradual supplanting of grain by fruit and 
vine. There are few people who have ever lived at Lemoore with whom he was not 
at one time or another personally acquainted, and many who have known him have 
had just reason to recognize in him the proverbial friend in need who is a 
friend indeed.
 
     When he was seven years old the future physician, dentist and druggist was 
taken by his parents to Lorain county, Ohio, where he grew to manhood. After 
leaving the public schools, he entered upon his professional studies under the 
preceptorship of Dr. Hubbard, teaching school in the meantime, to provide for 
current expenses. In 1847 he received his degree of M. D. at Angola, the county 
seat of Steuben county, Ind., where he practiced medicine during the decade that 
immediately followed. The next ten years he spent in practice in St. Joseph 
county, Mich., and while practicing here he volunteered his services in the 
Civil war, and engaged as a hospital surgeon at Chattanooga during the time of 
Hood�s raid, being in that service for seven months. From St. Joseph county he 
went to Florida, where he practiced dentistry five years. In 1872 he came to 
Santa Cruz, Cal, where he practiced medicine and dentistry until 1874, when he 
came to a little settlement on the site of Lemoore and opened a small drug store 
on the front of which he hung his professional sign. In 1875 he was appointed 
postmaster there and for ten years he combined the practice of medicine with the 
sales of drugs, then abandoned the former the better to give attention to the 
latter. For many years his drug store was the only establishment of its kind in 
the vicinity. He retired from the drug trade in 1899, since when he has done 
little business beyond giving attention to his fruit and vine ranch, north of 
Lemoore, which is now operated by a tenant.   
 
     In 1847 Dr. Hamlin married Miss Margaret Fowls, who bore him three 
daughters and a son. Of these children only one of the daughters is living, her 
home being in Santa Cruz. Mrs. Hamlin died in 1886 and on the 16th of September, 
1889, he married Maria L. Wells, a native of Buffalo, N. Y., but at the time 
living in San Francisco. Together they are spending their declining years in the 
companionship of many old friends, all in the country roundabout Lemoore the 
doctor is held in loving regard as a pioneer. 
 
     Mrs. Maria L. (Wells) Hamlin is a member of a patriotic family of soldiers, 
her brother, the late Brig.-Gen. A. B. Wells, having had a military record of 
over forty years� actual military service. He father, Captain William U. Wells, 
was one of the pioneer miners at Virginia city, Nev., and he had four sons and 
one daughter in his family. All four of her brothers were enlisted soldiers in 
the war of the Rebellion, and the three surviving have given their entire lives 
to their country�s military service. Of these, Capt. Charles H. now resides at 
St. Louis, Mo.; he served through the entire Civil war, was at Libby and 
Andersonville prisons and was one of the brave men who dug his way out of Libby 
by means of an oyster-shell as their sole tool, and he has recently published a 
book which fully described this incident. The second brother was the late 
Brig.-Gen. A. B. Wells. Another is Capt. William Wells, of Chicago, and the 
fourth brother, Almer H. Wells, of Chicago enlisted as a drummer boy when he was 
thirteen years old. 
 
     Mrs. Hamlin has had the misfortune of losing her eyesight, but 
notwithstanding her life has been one philanthropy and kindness, and hundreds of 
needy and unfortunate people at San Francisco as well as Lemoore will ever bless 
her for her gentle and generous aid. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 335, 336
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn