Warren County, Ohio

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Obituaries With Warren County Connections

Dr. Isaac Lincoln Drake (1823-1891)

Contributor:	Arne H Trelvik on 21 March 2005
Source:	Lebanon Gazette Thursday 5 March 1891 [copy obtained from microfilm available at the Warren County Genealogical Society]
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The town was startled at an early hour on Sunday morning by the report of the sudden death of Dr. Isaac L. Drake. He was in about his ordinary health until some time during Saturday night. On Saturday evening he seemed to be in particularly good spirits and in an improved condition of health. One who saw him during the day on the street found that he was lively and apparently feeling better than usual, and on Saturday evening he chatted, told some pleasant little stories and laughed heartily with his family at home. About six o'clock on Sunday morning he was taken with severe pain in the region of the liver. Attempting to leave his bed, the pain was so excruciating that he was forced to return to it. The attack was so serious that Dr. W. T. Graham was instantly called. He responded at once and found his patient in an alarming condition. He desired to immediately administer morphine, but this, it seems is a remedy that never had a favorable effect on Dr. Drake. The pain was intense, and the sick man said to Dr. Graham that he must have relief at once or he could not live. Becoming very cold, he left his bed and took a chair near the fire, and while sitting there, and perhaps within a half hour of the first spasm of great pain he fell forward, striking his head against the grate. He was immediately lifted from the floor and in a moment he breathed his last. It was a death from disease of the heart. It is stated that Dr. Drake had long expected to die from heart disease. He had for many years been subject to attacks of neuralgia of the heart. It is said that as long ago as the intensely cold winter of 1855-6, in visiting a patient some distance from town he suffered greatly from the cold, and was afterwards ill, and that the effects of this sickness somewhat impaired the action or his heart ever afterwards, or at least left him with a case of heart trouble from which he never recovered and from which, as before stated, he expected sooner or later, to be suddenly called off. On Sunday morning four of the members of his family were at home – his faithful wife, Miss Mary Drake, the present court stenographer of the Warren county common pleas court, and Heber and Miss Hattie. Mrs. Simonton, wife of Lon Simonton, the grain dealer was within easy call. Prof. Joseph H. Drake, assistant professor of Latin In the university or Michigan, is at Jena, Germany, and Cliff Drake is in business at Battlecreek, Michigan. But in this case death was so sudden that even all the members of the family who were at home were not present at the time the head of the house breathed his last. It was a sudden and terrible bereavement to the family and a great

shock- to the community. Dr. Drake has long been one of the conspicuous citizens of this town. He was born at Genntown, in this county, in 1823. Be would have been sixty-eight years old next June. His father was Lewis Drake, a prosperous farmer who settled near Lebanon In the early part of this century. It is said that be was a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, one of the great admirals of England, and his wife, Dr. Drake's mother, was a Lincoln, and said to be a distant relation of the martyred president. Dr. Drake rose to eminence In the medical profession. He was a graduate of the old Lebanon seminary, and of the Miami medical college, Cincinnati. In addition to his education In these institutions, he attended a course of lectures in a leading medical school at Philadelphia. he commenced the practice of his profession at Ft. Ancient, in this county, more than forty years ago. He soon afterward removed to Lebanon, where now, for more than it third of a century, he has been a conspicuous member of his profession. He was a good practitioner, With a fine practice, but it was as a talker and lecturer on medical subjects that his great ability appeared at its best. For thirty years he has been one of the first of the leading spirits of the Lebanon medical society, of which he was for a long time president. He was considered by his professional brethren to be a most accomplished physician. He was a member of the Baptist church from his youth. He has been one of the pillars of the Baptist congregation here since 1837. He had been a deacon of the Fast Baptist church at Lebanon for more than thirty years. He was a constant and earnest worker in the church, and in all Christian and moral movements outside of the church. He has long been a radical and uncompromising enemy of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. All that any good citizen could ever say against his position on the temperance question was that it was not a practical one. But nobody ever denied that the doctor was thoroughly honest in his views, and that he was entitled to the utmost credit for the courage with which he maintained them. He was a man who would adhere to what he thought to be right in a matter of this kind though all others should oppose him. No one can pretend to measure the great loss which his family now suffers. No one outside of his church can know what, a support his death removes from religious effort; but our citizens all know that the community by this mournful event lost a man who was honest, clear-headed, moral, upright in all his dealings, and who in an eminent degree had the courage of his convictions.

DR. I. L. DRAKE

Resolutions of the Lebanon Medical Society.

Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to remove from his earthly sphere our worthy professional associate, Dr. I. L. Drake, of Lebanon, Ohio, one of the oldest, ablest; most devoted and useful members of this society, we, his surviving brothers, deeply conscious of the loss we have sustained, wish formally to record our high appreciation of his character, his work and his worth.
Be it therefore

Resolved, That we hereby express our sincere grief for the sadly sudden death of our friend, an elegant, cultivated gentleman, active, earnest, patient in his search after truth, constant, courageous and firm in maintaining the truth as he saw it, an honest Christian man. In obedience to the Almighty power that rules the destinies of men, that build up or cast down, that can give or take away, we bow in humble submission about the bier of our departed fellow member and professional brother.

Resolved, That we most heartily tender to Dr. Drake's bereaved family and relatives this expression of our profound sympathy, and the acknowledgment that in his death we lose a true and cherished friend and co-laborer; and be it further

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family of the deceased, and that they be furnished to the papers of Lebanon, the Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic and to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

B. H. BLAIR,
R. S. MICHEL,
J. M. WRIGHT,
H. J. DEATH,
E. J. TICHENOR,
S. S. SCOVILLE.

Source:
Lebanon Gazette June 4, 1891 [copy obtained from microfilm available at the Warren County Genealogical Society]

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