Obituary: Dr. Sylvester Mead (1894)

Source: Greenwich Graphic. December, 1894.

Almost everybody in Greenwich knew Dr. Sylvester Mead, and his death, which occurred on Friday morning at 1 o'clock, will occasion many expressions of friendly feeling and deep regard, showing the estimation in which he was held in this community. He died "in the harness," and was in his eighty-eighth year.

He was born in Greenwich, February 16, 1807, and was the son of the Rev. Mark Mead, a Congregational minister. He fitted to enter Yale College, and he was graduated from the Yale Medical School in 1829, being at the time of his death the oldest living graduate of that department of Yale College.

He first located in Wilton, Conn., and for many years was the leading physician of that town and the surrounding country. He came to Greenwich in 1864, where he resided and practiced medicine until his death.

His patients in the town were many. He was ready at all times to respond to the call of suffering; the compensation was an afterthought with him, and many, many, are the visits he made to the sick bedside, of which he made no memorandum on his books, his only compensation being that feeling which comes from a duty performed and in the doing of an act of kindness.

He had been in active practice for sixty-five years, thirty in this town, a long life of useful service to his fellow men.

In connection with his profession he was the proprietor of a drug store, and bought out Dr. Aicken who established the first business of this kind in Greenwich, and for a long time Dr. Mead's drug store was the only one in town.

Dr. Mead was unmarried and had resided on Lafayette Place for many years. He was a man of very kind disposition, who attended strictly to his profession, whose word was as good as his bond, and he was respected and held in high esteem by his many patients and friends. 

Funeral services will be held at his late residence, on Monday morning at 11 o'clock. 

*Note: Interred in Union Cemetery, Second Congregational Church of Greenwich, Milbank Avenue.