Country doctor

A look at the legacy of Dr. Henry Janes, a pillar of Waterbury history

Editor’s Note: On Town Meeting Day (March 4), Waterbury voters will weigh in on a roughly $5 million proposal to locate the municipal offices at the former Janes homestead. The Janes House, currently home to the town library, would be renovated and expanded to contain municipal offices, an enlarged library and room for the Waterbury Historical Society to display collections of local historic artifacts, including possessions of Dr. Henry Janes. Voters will consider a $2.95 million bond for the project.

He died nearly 99 years ago, but Dr. Henry Janes has managed to be present at virtually every Municipal Building Committee meeting held in the past year. A remarkable feat for some, perhaps, but not for this stalwart figure of Waterbury history who is making his mark in a third consecutive century.

As Waterbury lurches toward some resolution of what-to-do-about-the-municipal-building, the name Henry Janes has crept into the discussion. It may be more familiar now than a year ago, but many in Waterbury may not know Dr. Henry Janes beyond the thumbnail description: “Civil War doctor who willed his home to be used as a library.”

Upon his death in June 1915, the childless Henry Janes’ final act was to leave to his hometown his real estate — the property known today as the Waterbury Public Library and the adjacent parkland bounded by the Winooski River and Thatcher Brook.

As one of the first members of the local reading club that became the library association, Janes in his will said the gift was in keeping with a “long-cherished desire” to aid the library in its educational work and as a tribute to his wife, who was devoted to the library until her death in 1909. In Janes’ words:

“I have done this in the hope that eventually the entire premises … may come under the wise management of its trustees and be so utilized as to promote a higher culture and an increasing intellectual and moral development among the people of Waterbury … for generations to come and that the scope of its work may be enriched and enlarged by gifts from other citizens.”

Town Meeting Day may very well be the chance for “gifts from other citizens,” as Dr. Janes mentioned. But, first the Dr. Janes back story, for context.

Medical war hero

Within the Waterbury Historical Society, there’s a dedicated cadre of local history enthusiasts who comprise a Henry Janes fan club of sorts. As I searched for his grave at Hope Cemetery last week, I realized I’m close to joining them.

Henry Janes should be to Waterbury what Calvin Coolidge is to Plymouth Notch, what Robert Frost is to Ripton, and what Ethan Allen is to Burlington. He should be the historical figure we honor above the rest.

Janes was born in Waterbury on Jan. 24, 1832, the son of Henry Fisk Janes and Fanny Butler Janes. His maternal grandfather was Ezra Butler, the celebrated second settler of Waterbury, lawyer, pastor, Vermont governor, judge and U.S. congressman. Janes’ father was a lawyer who also served as postmaster, state treasurer and congressman.

Young Henry Janes attended primary school in Waterbury and academies in Morrisville and St. Johnsbury (Waterbury had no high school). He studied medicine with a local doctor, went on to Woodstock College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, where he graduated in 1855. After brief stints in New York and Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Janes returned to Waterbury in 1857 and began to practice medicine in his father’s former law office, located in the Main Street building adjacent to the current library.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Janes joined the Third Vermont Volunteer Regiment. Within a year, he was tapped to lead medical operations for the Union Army, first in military hospitals in Maryland and eventually at Gettysburg, where he had 250 surgeons in his command and oversaw the care of more than 20,000 wounded from that most infamous and bloody battle. Years later, Janes confided in close friends that he had stood on the platform near President Lincoln when he delivered his immortal address dedicating the battlefield cemetery in 1863.

After Gettysburg, Janes toiled at a military hospital in Philadelphia and onboard a hospital steamship before returning to Vermont, where he was put in charge of one of three hospitals established to care for wounded soldiers, Sloan General Hospital in Montpelier. At both battlefield hospitals and at Sloan, Janes managed to create a meticulous database including photographs and copious notes on hundreds of patients.

Janes’ detailed medical records reside today at the University of Vermont. They are evidence of his expertise in the treatment of gunshot wounds and the amputation of wounded limbs. Upon Janes’ death in 1915, the Army and Navy Journal reported that in five years in the Army, “more than 49,000 wounded soldiers passed through his hands,” a record for the war and 40 years hence.

Howard Coffin, one of Vermont’s leading Civil War historians and authors, visited Waterbury last week for a program with the historical society. Coffin has written about Dr. Janes and considers him a key figure in our state’s Civil War history.

“I am delighted to hear what is happening with the Henry Janes house,” Coffin told the gathering of about 30 people at the American Legion. He said preserving the Janes home so people can learn this piece of history will be of interest to people both near and far. “You have one of the Civil War treasures here in Waterbury in the place where Henry Janes lived and worked. If you maintain this ... it will be a boon to you as the years go by.”

Community service

Sloan closed in 1866. Janes revisited New York for additional training in treating bone and brain injuries. By 1867, he was back in his Waterbury office. He didn’t marry until age 50 in 1882 to Frances B. Hall of Cambridge, Mass. They never had children.

Together with friends, the couple in their free time enjoyed gathering to read and tell stories. Janes played the organ in his home, later giving it to the Congregational Church. It was from these informal gatherings that the Waterbury Public Library was born.

Despite the demands of a country doctor’s life, Janes found time to serve his community and state in a multitude of roles: president of the Vermont Medical Society, consulting surgeon at hospitals in Burlington and Montpelier, Vermont National Guard surgeon general, UVM trustee and medical school faculty member, Waterbury Village Trustee and representative to the Vermont Legislature.

Janes’ experiences as a 30-something wartime surgeon most definitely shaped him. He wrote many technical medical papers based on lessons he learned treating severely injured men, and he shared his views on the savagery of war. His 1903 speech to the Vermont Medical Society bore the title: “Why is the Profession of Killing More Generally Honored Than That of Saving a Life?” In it, he condemns the glorification of killing, graphically recounts stories of the wounded and dead, and aims to encourage doctors in their work.

Amazingly, Janes’ searing memories didn’t leave him cynical. A proponent of “progress,” he nudged his community forward at every turn. The author Robert L. Duffus, a former Waterbury Record reporter, wrote about Dr. Janes in his 1959 book, “The Waterbury Record: More Vermont Memories.” Duffus recalls covering a village meeting debate concerning a proposal for a water cart to spray dusty dirt village roads in summertime. Opponents predictably argued that the cart, horse and driver would cost too much. According to Duffus, Dr. Janes arrived mid-discussion and comments halted as all turned to Janes, seeking his view.

Janes obliged, saying the streets in the village were “a disgrace.” He saw that dust made people sick and said people needed to look beyond cost.

“It’s the damndest nonsense to make out you’re spending money when you get rid of something that’s doing you harm. You aren’t spending it, you’re investing it, you’re putting it in the bank for future use. I’d say that if it was necessary for this village to slap a mortgage on the town hall to buy and operate a water-wagon, it had better do it,” he said. Duffus writes that the water-wagon proposal prevailed without a dissenting vote.

Imagine if Dr. Janes were here today, as we don’t even have a town hall to mortgage for a worthwhile investment. Thank goodness he thought about the future a century ago with his generous gift. Thanks to Janes, we might just get a town hall after all.

Lisa Scagliotti of Waterbury is a freelance writer and editor, mom and community organizer.