Alfred Castle, M. D.

Alfred Castle, M. D., son of Samuel and Phoebe (Parmalee) Castle, was born at Sullivan, Madison county, N. Y., September 22, 1806. His father was a native of Berkshire county, Mass., and a cousin of Ethan Allen, and a descendant of the Irish family of Castles who settled in Connecticut among its pioneers. His mother was of Belgian lineage. Dr. Castle studied the languages under Dr. Sillsbee, of Cazenovia, N. Y., and medicine at Brockport and Pittsford, in Monroe county, meantime attending lectures at Berk's College, Pittsfield, Mass., at Jefferson College, Philadelphia, and at Vermont College, Woodstock. He was a resident graduate of Harvard College, and also at Massachusetts Hospital, Boston. He practiced two years at Brockport before obtaining his degree of M. D. in 1831, at the Berkshire school. During the two succeeding years he practiced in Monroe county. On May 19, 1835, he married Miss Maria P., daughter of Col. Daniel Dana, of the U. S. army, who commanded the Vermont volunteers during the war of 1812-14. In 1836 he set out for Peoria, Ill., on a one-horse buggy, leaving his bride to follow. He resided there five or six years, returned reduced in health to Vermont, but in 1842 he revisited Peoria, to find that, where only one house stood in 1836 (six miles west of Peoria), between Peoria and Wyoming, many were now built and building. In 1843 he settled at Wyoming. Dr. and Mrs. Castle were the parents of five children, two of whom died in infancy. He was the active agent in building the B. & R. R. R, of which his son Alfred was president. The doctor only retired from practice a few years ago. During his forty years of duty in this county he merited and obtained many tokens of popular esteem. A reference to the chapters of the general history and to the sketch of Wyoming will point out the various parts Dr. Castle has taken in that drama of real life which has been on the stage of Stark County particularly since its organization, only a few years before his settlement here.