Dr. Luther Jewett
Dr. Luther Jewett was a native of New England and came to Trenton in 1834, when he was about twenty-seven years of age. On his first arrival he went into partnership with Dr. Littell; but after a while he engaged in business on his own account. Trenton and its neighborhood was then almost wholly German, as the Mennonites and other persons from the father-land were on all sides of it, and the Americans were, therefore, driven more closely together than they were elsewhere. Dr. Jewett formed the life of this society. He was eminently successful as a physician; but he also displayed great ability in the management of his pecuniary affairs, a point in which the medical profession are often remiss. Where other physicians lost from one-third to one-half of their accounts, he only lost a trifling percentage. He had a genius for dunning, and did not, remarkable as it may seem, drive away his patients by it. He remained in that town until about 1840, when he removed to Lafayette, Indiana, a place then on the outskirts of civilization. Dr. Jewett succeeded in that cityas well as he had in Trenton, and soon had money to his credit. His fame was coexistent with that part of the State. After becoming thoroughly settled, he went back to Vermont, married a wife, and brought her on. But the variation of the climate and the way of living soon developed a hidden disease, and she died after only six weeks of married life. Dr. Jewett remained in town till his death, which was about 1865 or 1870, leaving a large property, valued at over $100,000, behind him. He was a man of very peculiar ideas. Among others which might be specified, he was an Abolitionist, He denied the right of one man to hold another in bondage, under any circumstances, and he enforced his view with earnestness and ability. It needed some nerve to be an Abolitionist in 1836 or 1840, much more than it did 20 years after. He was an excellent story-teller, and did not grieve when he himself was made the point of some witty story. He was the brother of Dr. Jewett, of Dayton, the president of the board of directors of the insane asylum of that place. In personal appearance he was tall and striking
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.