Person:Hiram Rutherford (1)

"He was raised, as were all his brothers, to a thorough practicalacquaintance with the labors of the farm, and received such education asthe schools of Paxtang afforded. At the age of eighteen, he commenced thestudy of medicine with his brother, Dr. W. W. Rutherford of Harrisburg,and graduated from Jefferson Medical College, at Philadelphia, in thespring of 1838. With ten dollars in his pocket and a few drugs in hissaddle-bags, he set out on horse-back to seek his fortune. He located atMillersburg, on the Susquehanna, at that time a village of five hundredinhabitants. After a sojourn of two and a half years, the Doctorconcluded that the road to fortune did not lie, for him, in LykensValley, and, in the latter days of the year 1840, he again packed hissaddle-bags, and, with three hundred dollars in his pocket, mounted hishorse and set his face towards Illinois -- the "E-le-noy" of theemigrants of those days--"the home of the wild deer, the gopher and theprairie-wolf." At the end of an eighteen days' journey, he halted at alittle hamlet in Coles county, now the flourishing town of Oakland, wherehe has ever since resided. The practice of medicine in the Western Statesis, even now, very laborious, but when Dr. Rutherford began it was muchmore so; the roads were mostly deer-paths, and the deep, sluggish streamsflowed on to the sea unvexed by either bridges or ferries. His practicewas large, extending over half a degree of latitude and longitude. Butincreasing years and failing strength warned him, at length, that it wastime to retire from the active duties of a profession so exacting, and,for the last decade, he has devoted his time and energies principally tothe management of his large agricultural interests. As a physician, abusinessman and a trusted citizen, his life has been a success. Thepeople of his adopted county have shown their confidence in his integrityand business qualifications by repeatedly calling him to serve on thecounty board (similar to that of county commissioner in Pennsylvania),and to various other public trusts in the town and township of Oakland;likewise their appreciation of his intelligence by keeping him in theschool board continuously since 1843. And, although he has almost filledout the measure of threescore years and ten, he is still marching in thefront rank with the active men of Coles county." (Egle, William Henry."Pennsylvania Genealogies: Scotch-Irish and German." Harrisburg Lane,1886.)

1.   Egle, William Henry, (i)Pennsylvania Genealogies: Scotch-Irish and German(/i) (Harrisburg Lane, 1886).