PALLEN, JOHN (1812-1895)

PALLEN, JOHN, doctor and druggist; bap. London, England, 24 May 1812, s/o William Pallen and Elizabeth Skym; m. 1841, Emily Harris, formerly of Dorchester, England; d. Chatham, 31 Jul 1895.

John Pallen came to New Brunswick as a child and was living on the Miramichi at the time of the Fire of 1825. His father was a merchant, whose name appears in Northumberland County documents from as early as 1820 and who had a store in Chatham in 1828. By 1831 his father and mother were living in Bathurst, and they continued to make their home there until their deaths in 1858.

Pallen was a student of Alexander Gray at the County Grammar School and studied medicine with Dr Alexander Key. A period of study with a licensed physician was the normal route of access to the profession at that time, and at its conclusion he passed an examination which admitted him to formal medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, England. There he had courses in botany, chemistry, midwifery, the practice of medicine, surgery, and anatomy. He was complimented on "the diligence with which he pursued his studies," and after sitting for another examination in 1835 was admitted to membership in the Royal College of Surgeons.

When Pallen returned to New Brunswick he opened an office in Bathurst, but in 1837 he announced that he had begun a medical practice at Chatham. He could be consulted at the home of his brother-in-law, Robert Morrow, or at his surgery, which was located next door to the residence of John T. Williston. He pursued this practice for approximately five years, after which he moved to Richibucto. The Gleaner stated in 1847 that he had returned to the Miramichi by request of a number of his friends, but he may not have done so. In 1849 he sailed from Richibucto for London in the barque ELLEN. His wife was probably in the same ship because they had a child born in England soon afterwards. He was practicing in Richibucto again in 1850 and was still living there in April 1855.

Pallen returned to the Miramichi in the summer of 1855 and built a new home in Chatham. At this time he became a partner in D. McLaren & Co., a drug sales firm. When the partnership was dissolved in 1858 he continued to sell drugs on his own, with a store in the Pallen Building on Water Street in Chatham. He was enumerated as a surgeon in the census of 1861 and as a druggist in Hutchison's Directory for 1865-66. It would seem that he engaged in both lines of work at most times, as many doctors did in the 19th century.

During his first period of residence in the town Pallen served on the executive committee of the Chatham Temperance Society, and during his second he was both a school trustee and a trustee of the Methodist church. In 1865 he was named surgeon of the 4th Battalion of militia. When he died in 1895, at age eighty-three, the Union Advocate observed that he had been well and favorably known in the community. The Miramichi Advance described him as "a man of positive opinions, brusque in manner, but of a warm heart and genial disposition with those whom he liked." His wife, Emily Harris, predeceased him in 1866. There were ten children in the family, most of whom lived to maturity.