| Notes |
- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXVI.
JOHN NEILSON WOODHULL, (M. D.), seventh generation from Richard Wodhull I., Patentee of Brookhaven, Long Island, was the second son of the Rev. George Spofford Woodhull and Gertrude Neilson. He was born July 25, 1807.
He entered the sophomore class at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), in 1825, and graduated in 1828.
Studied medicine with Samuel L. Howell, M. D., of Princeton, and graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1832.
He commenced practice at Middletown Point, now Matawan, New Jersey, the same year, and in the latter part of 1835 opened an office at Trenton, New Jersey, but removed in a short time to Princeton, and there in the Spring of 1836, his brother, Alfred A. Woodhull, M. D., joined him in partnership.
Dr. Alfred A. Woodhull died in the following year, but Dr. John N. Woodhull continued the practice of his medical profession for more than thirty years in Princeton.
In his early manhood, Dr. Woodhull was very delicate, but having overcome that physical weakness, he carried on for many years a very extensive and successful country practice, which in later life was limited to office consultation.
He had a marked taste for agriculture as well as for medicine and in the early forties purchased a large farm on Stony Brook, beyond Princeton, the cultivation of one-half of which he superintended for more than fifteen years.
While the practice of Dr. Woodhull was both a large and extensive one, yet his retentive memory seemed to carry all the details of a case.
In the sick-room he was inspiring, while his insight into the actual condition of his patients was singularly accurate.
He had a very large acquaintance, and never failed in cordial recognition, but he had very few intimates. His manner was both genial and reserved.
He never held office of any kind, nor did he ever engage in organized work whether professional, social or civic. He was liberal to approved charities, and to the deserving poor, but was unostentatious in his benevolence.
Like all physicians, he performed a large amount of gratuitous work.
Dr. Woodhull never married, his mother and one of her sisters constituted his family. He also took into his home, at different times sons of his two deceased brothers, and gave them opportunities for education they could not otherwise have enjoyed.
He removed to his residence in Princeton in 1858, and died there January 12, 1867.
His estate was very considerable for one acquired by the practice of medicine, and nearly all of it, not included in his farm, he bequeathed to the College for the purpose of founding a Professorship.
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He was by far the most successful practitioner in the extensive region covered by his rounds, his very presence creating a trust that was doubtless a large factor in that success.
(See Genealogy, No. 308.)
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1807 - 1867 (59 years)
d. 25 Dec 1834 (Age 61 years) 