# Representative women of New England/Lucy A. Kirk

​LUCY ANNE KIRK, M.D., a successful homoeopathic physician of Boston, was born in Dorchester on March 31, 1859, daughter of Joseph and Eleanor Hall (Stimpson) Kirk. Joseph Kirk, whose ancestors were P]nglish, came to the United States from Nova Scotia about the year 1845, and followed the occupation of printer in Boston throughout the remainder of his life. Born in Halifax, October 7, 1821, he died in Dorchester, May 16, 1863.
John Foster Kirk, of Philadelphia, brother of Joseph and uncle to Dr. Kirk, was in early life the amanuensis of Prescott, the historian, later the editor of Lippincott's Magazine, the writer of the History of Charles the Bold, and the reviser of Allihone's Dictionary of Authors. He is now engaged upon the revisal of Worcester's Dictionary. The wife of John Foster Kirk is the well-known author, Ellen Olney Kirk.
FJeanor Hall Stimpson Was on the eve of going South to take charge of a school of col-
​ ored children in Alabama, when Joseph Kirk proposed for her hand and was accepted, their marriage taking place October 11, 1855. They had three children, namely: Joseph, born August 12, 1856, who died July 15, 1886; Lucy Anne, the subject of this biography; and Eleanor Hubbard, born July 15, 1861, who is now an esteemed instructor in the branch of the Washington University at St. Louis, Mo., known as Mary Institute. Mrs. Kirk was born in Boston, May 10, 1836. She died July 8, 1876.
Dr. Kirk's maternal grandparents were John and Lucy Richards (Davies) Stimpson. James Stimpson, who came from England and set- tled on Cowdrey's Hill, in that part of the old town of Reading, Mass., which is now Wakefield, was a physician. He married in 1661 Mary Leffingwell (sometimes spelled Lepingwell). From Dr. James Stimpson Dr. Kirk traces her descent through John Stimpson, who married Mary Wadsworth, of Milton, and died in the town in 1732; their .son, Recompense Wadsworth Stimpson, born in Milton in Feb- ruary, 1728, who married Susanna Blodgett in 1759; Charles Stimpson, born in Boston in 1766, who married Eleanor Hall, and was the father of John, above named, whose wife was Lucy R.- Davies.
Eleanor Hall, the wife of Charles Stimpson, was a daughter of Captain Lsaac and Abigail (Cutter) Hall. Her father was son of Andrew and Abigail (Walker) Hall and grandson of John, Jr., and Jemima (Syll) Hall. John Hall, father of John Hall, Jr., came from England with his widowed mother, Mary Hall, who joined the church in Cambridge, Mass., in 1662, and received land from the town. In 1675 John Hall bougiit land in Medford. He married Elizabeth Green. Jemima Syll, the wife of John Hall, Jr., an;l mother of Andrew Hall, was a daughter of Captain Joseph and Jemima (Belcher) Syll. Her father, whose name was sometimes spelled Sill, was an ofhcer in King Philip's War. Her mother was a daughter of Andrew Belcher, and as sister of Andrew Belcher, Jr., was aunt to his son. Governor Jonathan Belcher.
Isaac Hall, of Medford, father of Eleanor, the wife of Charles Stimpson, was an active patriot during the struggle for American in- dependence. His record, as printed in " Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War," vol. vii., is as follows; "Captain of a CO. in (late) Col. Thomas Gardner's regt., which assembled April 19, 1775; service 5 days; also Captain, same regt., list of officers in said regt. recommended by Committee of Safety to be connnissiQned by Congress; ordered in Provincial Congress, June 2, 1775, that commissions be delivered to said officers; also Captain, Lt. Col. William Bond's (late Col. Gardner's) 37th regt., company return dated Camp Prospect Hill Oct. 6, 1775, represented discharged Sept. 1775; also Captain, service 4 days; company marched from Medford, by order of Gen. Washington at the time of the taking of Dorchester Heights, March, 1776." It is related of Captain Hall that the company that he connnanded before the Revolution had been formed by himself, and that it was his custom to supplement the meagre pay received by his men from the government by supplies of clothing paid for out of his own pocket.
John Stimpson, son of Charles and Eleanor, was born in 1795 in Richmond, Va. He married in Boston, May 29, 1825, Lucy Richard Davies, who was born in Boston in 1799. She was the daughter of Joshua Gee Davies and his wife, Lucy Richards, and on the paternal side grand-daughter of the Rev. Nathan and Susanna (Gee) Davies.
The Rev. Nathan Davies was pastor of the church in Dracut, Mass., from 1765 to 1781. Susanna Gee, whom he wedded April 3, 1766, was born in Boston, November 18, 1740, and baptized in the Second Church, November 23, when she was five days old. She was daugh- ter of the Rev. Joshua Gee by his third wife, Sarah Gardner. Her father served for twenty-five years (1723-48) as minister of the Second Church in Boston, as colleague of Cotton Matlier till 1729 antl afterward as his successor. Born in Boston in 1698, son of Joshua and Elizalieth (Thornton) Gee, he was graduated at Harvard College in 1717.
His father, Joshua Gee, was son of Peter Gee, an inhabitant of Boston in early colonial times. A family tradition has it that Joshua ​Gee "woukl have been a dangerous man if he had not been a very lazy one." By occupation he was a boat-builder. It is related of him that he was once captured by Algerines, that he escaped from captivity by the agency of an Algerine woman, and that thereafter he celebrated the anniversaries of the event with a dinner, at which a turkey was served bound in links of sausage, as a reniinder of the chains he wore in Algiers.
Judge Sewall in his Diarj', under date January II, 1714-5, states that he dined at Mr. Gee's on that day in company with Drs. Increase and Cotton Mather, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Wadsworth, and others, and says: "It seems it was in remembrance of his landing this day at Boston after his Algerine captivity. Had a very good treat."
At an earlier date, October 31, 1688, he records: "Joshua Gee launches to-day, and his ship is called the Prince."
And 1692, Friday, September 30: "Go to Hog Island with Joshua Gee and sell him three white oaks for thirty shillings. I am to cart them to the water side."
The Gee tomb in Copp's Hill Burial Ground bears the family name and coat of arms.
Fatherless since the age of four years. Dr. Kirk is indebted to her mother almost exclusively for her moral and mental development throughout the period of her life preceding that of womanhood. Her elementary education was received in the public schools of Dorchester, while further instruction was given her at home by her mother personally. Of a keenly sympathetic nature from infancy, a tendency to relieve suffering became a marked characteristic of her girlhood.
When she was eleven years old, she announced to all whom it might concern that she intended to become a nurse. When of suitable age she entered the training-school for nurses at the Hartford (Conn.) Hospital; and after her grad- uation, in 1883, she spent the ensuing years in Hartford, employed in her chosen calling.
Later, desiring to attain the highest degree of her girlhood's ambition, she took the course in homoeopathy at the Medical School of Boston University, and received her degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1893. Dr. Kirk will be readily remembered by her classmates at the university by her successful advocacy of the adoption of the cap and gown, which they were the first to wear, or as being the writer of the class poem entitled "Cap and Gown," delivered at a class supper and afterward published in the Medical Student. After receiving her tliploma Dr. Kirk went to New York ami pursued a post-graduate course in the New York Post-graduate School of Medicine. Then she returned to Boston, and, establishing her residence in the Dorchester district, entered upon the duties of her new profession.
She has acquired a lucrative practice, covering a territory extending to Neponset and Marblehead on one side and to Cambridge and Maiden on the other. Her physical fitness for her work is testified by her excellent health.
For several years she was associated with Dr. Alonzo Boothby in the Boothby Hospital, Boston, wherein her duties included the delivery of lectures to nurses. Her income is far from being an adequate measure of her professional work. Following the best traditions of the profession, she frequently gives her services gratuitously to needy patients. She has been on the staff of the Homoeopathic Medical Dispensary of Boston since 1894, and by the request of school-teachers of Dorchester she has given hygienic talks to mothers in Dorchester.
Dr. Kirk is a member of the Massachusetts Homoœopathic Society, of the Boston Homœopathic Society, of the Massachusetts Surgical and Gynæcological Society, and of the Twentieth Century Medical Society. Her religious affiliations are with the Episcopal church. She is a patron of the Girls' Friendly Society. In 1897 she was admitted to membership in the patriotic society known as the Daughters of the Revolution.