Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/468

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND
347

in London, and first printed in the Journal of the Science of Osteopathy of February, 1900:—

"Osteopathy was first formulated by Andrew T. Still, M.D., in 1874. He claimed that a natural flow of blood is health; that disease is the effect of local or general disturbance of the blood; that to excite the nerves causes the muscles to contract and compress the venous flow of blood to the heart; and that the hones could be used as levers to relieve pressure on nerves and arteries.

"The name Osteopathy was applied to the new science on account of the fact that the displacement of bones occupied the first place in the category of causes or lesions producing diseased conditions. . . . The underlying factor is that of body order and physics developed in connection with animal mechanics. . . .

"Osteopathy attempts to specialize the mechanical principle in dealing with all kinds of curable diseases, acute as well as chronic, graduating pressure, tension, vibration, and all the mechanical forms of physical stimulation, in their application to muscles, bones, blood-vessels, nerves, and organs of the body, so as to gain therapeutic effects." It "repudiates drugs as foreign to the organism."


ADELAIDE FLORENCE CHASE, editor and publisher of the Club Calendar, is a native of Fitchburg, Mass. She comes of long lines of ancestry dating back to the early settlement of the Bay Colony.

The daughter of Arrington and Sarah (Brown) Gibson, she is of the .seventh generation of the family founded by John Gibson, to whom land was granted in Cambridge (then called Newtowne), August 4, 1634. The line of descent is: John1; John, Jr.,2 born about 1641; Timothy,3 born about 1679; Reuben,4 born in Sudtbury, 1725; Israel,5 born in Fitchburg, 1765; Arrington," born in Ashby in 1813; Adelaide Florence, born May 5, 1862.

John GiKson, Jr.,2 fourth child of John1 and his wife Rebecca, served in King Philip's War. He married in 16(>S Rebecca Errington, daughter of Abraham1 and Rebecca (Cutler) Errington, of Cambridge, and grand-daughter of Deacon Robert1 Cutler, of Charlestown.

Deacon Timothy2 Gibson died in Stow, Mass., in 1757. His first wife, Rebecca, the mother of his twelve children, died in 1754. She was a daughter of Stephen^ and Sarah (Woodward) Gates. Stephen2 Gates, her grandfather, came over in the "Diligent" in 1638.

Reuben4 Gibson was one of the four Gibson brothers who settled in that part of the old town of Lunenburg which in 1764 became Fitchburg. Reuben's farm of one hundred acres, on Pearl Hill, was deeded to him by his father in 1744. He was Sergeant in Captain Ebenezer Wood's company, which marched from Fitchburg on the Lexington alarm of April 19, 1775. In 1776 lie was chairman of the Committee on Safety and Correspondence. From the records he appears to have been a Captain of militia. He and his brothers, it is said, wen; "all good fighting men, famous for great strength and courage." The house of his brother Isaac was a garrison house, the "Fort Gibson" of 1748, the time of the Indian raid on the town. Captain Reuben Gibson married at Sudbury in 1746 Lois Smith, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Smith and granddaughter of John and Sarah (Hunt) Smith, of Sudbury.

Israel5 Gibson was the seventh of a family of eight children. He died in Fitchburg in 1818. His wife, Lucinda Whiting, a native of Hanover, Mass., died July 15, 1870, in the ninety-fourth year of her age. They hail nine children.

Arrington6 Gibson, the "Arrington Gibson, 3d," of the Fitchburg records, married April 14, 1834, Sarah Brown. She was born in Fitchburg, February 16, 1815, daughter of Amos and Sally (Mclntire) Brown.

Amos Brown, Mrs. Chase's maternal grandfather, was a son of Zachariah Brown, of Concord, Mass., who married November 27, 1766, Martha Brown, of Watertown (or Waltham), daughter of Daniel Brown.

Mr. and Mrs. Arrington6 Gibson reared eleven children, three sons and eight daughters, Adelaide Florence being the youngest-born. She was graduated from the Fitchburg High School in 1880. After teaching school in that city for a few months she entered the office of the Fitchhurg Daily Sentinel, and improved her op-