My Genealogy Hound

Herbert P. Ewell, M. D., president of the Plastic Post Company, and a leading physician of Rochester, Avon township, Oakland County, was born June 23, 1862, in Shelby township, Macomb County, Michigan. He is a son of James N. and Elsie A. (Cannon) Ewell, a grandson of Philander Ewell and a great-grandson of Peleg Ewell, who was a member of an old family of New York, of Scotch extraction.

The Ewell family has been mainly an agricultural one and has always been honorable and loyal. Its settlement in America dates back to the time of the Pilgrims, and during the Revolutionary struggle seven of its members served in the Colonial Army. Peleg Ewell with his son Philander removed from New York to Michigan in 1830, and took up 800 acres of land in Macomb County, much of it still being in the hands of Dr. Ewell’s father, who still attends to the operation of his farm, at the age of 72 years. Peleg Ewell died at Utica, Michigan, aged 80 years. Philander Ewell engaged in farming until 1860 and then started up the woolen mills at Stony Creek and made both a reputation and a fortune in their operation. After running the mills for 25 years, he moved to Detroit and died in that city, aged about 86 years. He reared nine children, the father of our subject being the eldest.

The mother of Dr. Ewell died in 1894. She was born in New York and was a daughter of a clergyman, who with his wife settled later in Michigan. She was the beloved mother of five children, as follows: Lydia, who died from injuries received in a runaway; Herbert P., our subject; Ada, who lives at home; George N., an undertaker of Bay City, Michigan; and Frank, who died in childhood.

Dr, Ewell was reared on a farm in Macomb County and attended the local schools, graduating at the Utica High School in 1882, and supplementing this with a year at Buchtel College, at Akron, Ohio. In the following year he went to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and graduated in 1885 in pharmacy, and then took charge of a drug store at Albion for a year, preparing for entrance into the medical department of the University of Michigan. In 1888 he received his medical degree and then located at Rochester, where he has since been engaged in an active and lucrative practice. Dr. Ewell makes a specialty of various chronic diseases and has been wonderfully successful in his treatment of hernia. He is an inventor of no mean ability and his automatic truss is sold all over the country, meeting with universal approbation. This he manufactures himself. He has invented a number of other surgical appliances of merit, and he also invented the plastic post, formed a company and is now serving as its president. He is, in addition, interested in a patent tie for the mail service. His inventions are all of practical value and have brought him handsome returns.

On October 10, 1888, Dr. Ewell married Carrie J. Tuttle, who was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and they have one son, J. Mac. On account of Mrs. Swell’s delicate health, two years have been spent in Tennessee and Alabama. Dr. Ewell belongs to a number of fraternal organizations, viz: the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of the Maccabees and Modern Woodmen of America. In politics he is an independent. In religious belief he is a Universalist.