Daniel Drake (1785-1852), Medical Educator

Isaac Drake, the father of Daniel, served in the Revolutionary Army. After the war he returned home in 1781 to a devastated New Jersey countryside, and went to work in a grist mill on his father's farm located near Plainfield. In 1782 Isaac married Elizabeth Shotwell of a Quaker family who lived on a farm four miles from his father's place. As a Quaker, Elizabeth was "disowned" by the Society of Friends for marrying Isaac who was a Baptist and therefore "outside the faith." Isaac and Elizabeth moved to a log cabin close to the grist mill on Bound Brook. There Daniel was born on 20 October 1785, and a sister in due course thereafter.

Times were hard and prospects poor in New Jersey, but there were glowing accounts of cheap land and a promising future in Kentucky. And so, in the Spring of 1788, the two and a half year-old Daniel, his parents, baby sister, and unmarried Aunt Lydia Shotwell, with all their furniture and other possessions, set out for Kentucky in a two-horse wagon. The company of emigrants also included Isaac's two brothers; two of Elizabeth's cousins, David Morris and John Shotwell; and their families. After an exhausting and dangerous journey of 400 miles over rough roads across the Appalachians they reached the upper Ohio River. Here the Drake party joined up with other homeseekers and floated downstream on flatboats to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky., their horses and loaded wagons secured amidships. Among those aboard the flatboats was "Dr." William Goforth who, impressed by the sprightly two year old Daniel Drake, implanted in his parents' minds the thought that he should become a physician.

Isaac Drake sprained his ankle so severely during the journey down river that on arrival at Limestone on 10 June 1788 he had to be carried ashore. Daniel, in later years, wrote that his father "was not very heavy for he had in his pocket but one dollar and that was asked for a bushel of corn." From Limestone, Isaac took his family to Washington, Kentucky (four miles south of Limestone), where their first residence was a covered pen built for sheep. There they stayed while Isaac was negotiating for land in a frontier tract called Mayslick, 12 miles southwest of Limestone. He finally secured 38 acres in the tract, subsequently increased to 50, and built a rude log cabin. This was the family's home for the next six years until, in the autumn of 1794, Isaac purchased another farm of 200 acres in an unbroken forest that had to be cleared and a log cabin built. Daniel Drake, then a boy of nine with a father who was not in vigorous health, spent the remainder of his childhood years in the hard but unfettered life of a backwoods outpost. His early education was by itinerant teachers in a one-room school from November to March. During the remainder of the year he helped his father to clear and fence the farm, cultivate the land, and care for the livestock. ^{[52] [53]}

Drake's parents were struggling settlers, "to fortune and to fame unknown, but they possessed the great merit of being industrious, honest, temperate and pious." ^[54] From them Drake acquired priceless intangible assets - natural endowments, moral precepts and example, the discipline of work, and a reassuring family life. Although he had only the barest of material advantages, he overcame this handicap, thus proving himself to be of the rugged species Homo americana, sprung from the "crucible of the frontier", now epitomized by Abraham Lincoln in American folk tradition. Drake's limited opportunities, contrasting with his exceptional later accomplishments, demonstrate the role of personal responsibility and effort in giving direction and meaning to life. The idealized view of our national antecedents as intrepid pioneers, self-taught and self-sufficient, is a source of American pride and identity as a nation. Although this perception is often exaggerated, history records that a host of such distinctive men and women did indeed exist in all walks of life - Drake was one, and Elias Cooper was another - and their image may be fairly invoked as an inspiration to contemporary society.

In 1800, at age 15, Drake moved to Cincinnati, then a town of about 600 inhabitants (exclusive of the garrison) founded on the banks of the Ohio in 1788 under the original name of "Losantiville". Drake's purpose in going to Cincinnati was to become an apprentice to the long-time family friend from flatboat days, "Dr." William Goforth (1766-1817), who was so pleased with Drake's progress that he made him his partner in practice in 1804., when Drake was just 19. He later issued to Drake the following "diploma": ^[55]

I do hereby certify that Mr. Daniel Drake has pursued under my direction for four years, the study of Physic, Surgery and Midwifery. From his good Abilities and marked Attention to the Prosecution of his studies, I am fully convinced that he is well qualified to practice in the above branches of his Profession.