Sometimes History is Not All Black and White!
Dr. Samuel Downs
Dr. Samuel Downs was Waterville’s doctor from 1873 until his untimely death. He died September 18, 1900 in Ellsworth, Kansas where he had gone for health reasons. He was only 53 years old. His time in Waterville is well documented but his birth and early years are more obscure. From the “Familiar Faces of Wood County, 1896” by Charles Sumner Van Tassel, we find where Dr. Samuel Downs was born at the “Old Station” on the Maumee River in Wood County, Ohio on October 4, 1846. In this book it claims Samuel’s father moved to Miltonville when Samuel was about one year old. It stated that he went to work for Austin Van Blacum of Portage at age 13 and began reading medicine with Dr. Meeks in Custar. Here a person could get confused after reading a letter from Samuel’s son Rex.
In a 1972 letter to Midge Bucher Campbell, author of “Watervillore” and a former Waterville historian, Rex E. Downs claims that his father, Samuel, was born in Miltonville in the old Indian Mission House. He says his Mother and Father were Missionaries to the Indians. In 1846 Samuel’s father Benjamin died three days before his birth and his mother died at his birth. Samuel was raised by his oldest sister until he was 12 years old, when he went to work for himself cutting shot/bullets, into shot for an old small bore shot gun—killing wild turkey and trapping on the Maumee River.
We have a problem with his mother dying in child birth as a researcher working on her family found out that Samuel’s mother Jane (Coon) Downs, age 41 was on the 1850 census of Miltonville Twp., Wood County. Sam’s father, Benjamin Downs died September 1847 (heritagepursuit.com) and Samuel was born October 4, 1846.
Here is where a researcher has to check every avenue of research. Rex, son of Samuel and May Downs was 87 years of age when we wrote the letter. Rex went to school at Waterville and a year before his graduation went to Business College in Toledo, then worked a while for the Miami Stone Company (later known as France Stone Company) as a bookkeeper. He then left to attend Medical College in Chicago where he spent about three years. At that time he left to join a road show “The Missouri Girl” and went to Los Angles. He went into silent movies in 1912 for Universal Film Co. He was in at least 37 silent movies including: Grey Eagle’s Revenge, The Tigers of the Hills; The Medicine Man’s Vengeance and The Runaway Boxcar. Neither source maybe one hundred percent correct but the more contemporary account is the 1896 book and a study of census records and other public records seem to support that account. Rex Downs in 1972 probably did not remember much of what he was told of his father’s early life. As an actor he may have made up a more dramatic early beginning.
Dr. Samuel Downs entered medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1869. He graduated from Miami Medical College of Cincinnati in 1873 and that same year came to Waterville to take over Dr. Welcome Pray’s practice. After John G. Isham moved into the house across the street from the Columbian House, Sam took notice of the young lady across the street. Later he married Sarah “May” Isham on June 28, 1877. She was the daughter of John G. and Sarah (Cooper) Isham. Sam and May had the following children, Dr. Jirah; Frank I, and Rex. After May’s parents moved from their home at the corner of Farnsworth and River Road to their country home, the Downs family lived there. When Dr Downs died in 1900 his widow was left with raising two young sons: Frank, 16 years and Rex, 15 yrs. May was an excellent cook and started serving dinners in her house at 4 South River Road to hundreds of Toledoans. Her home became known as the Downs Tea House.