Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2015 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= USGenNet Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== A History of Northern Michigan and its People. Vol. II Perry Francis Powers, Lewis Publishing Co., - 1902 [690-691] JOHN J. REYCRAFT, M.D. - Numbered among the essentially representative physicians and surgeons of northern Michigan and associated in practice with his brother, DR. GEORGE E., in the city of Petoskey, where they founded and conduct the Petoskey hospital, one of the noble institutions of the city, DR. JOHN J. REYCRAFT is known as a man of splendid profes- sional attainments and as one who has achieved specially high reputation in the surgical department of his chosen and exacting profession. He is one of the progressive and public-spirited citizens of Petoskey and has served as its mayor, a fact that indicates the high esteem in which he is held in the community in which he is laboring with all of zeal and ability in the alleviation of human suffering and distress. He is thoroughly en rapport with his profession and in the same his abiding human sympathy transcends mere sentiment to become an actuating motive for helpfulness. DR. JOHN J. REYCRAFT was born at Highgate, Kent county, province of Ontario, Canada, on the 4th of October, 1869, and is a son of WILLIAM and LUCY (RISK) REYCRAFT, the former of whom was born in county Cork, Ireland, and the latter of whom was born in the western part of the province of Ontario, Canada, of Scotch and German lineage. Of the four children of this union DR. JOHN J. was the second in order of birth, his brother, GEORGE E., is associated with him in practice, as has already been stated; WILLIAM H. is a farmer of some note in Canada, making a specialty of wheat raising; and the only sister, ELLA, who married EDWARD BEATTIE of High- gate, Ontario, remains at the parental home, in the province of Sas- katchewan, Canada, where the father and three sons are associated in the ownership of an extensive wheat ranch. William Reycraft was a lad of ten years at the time of his parents' immigration from the Emerald Isle to the province of Ontario, Canada, where he was reared and educated and where he eventually became a prosperous agriculturist and grain buyer, at Highgate, Kent county. There he continued to maintain his home until 1908, when he removed to the province of Saskatchewan. where he and his three sons purchased three sections of land, to the supervision of which fine ranch of nineteen hundred and twenty acres he has since given his attention. The property has been admirably developed under his direction and is now one of the valuable wheat ranches of that favored section of the Dominion of Canada. He is one of the influential citizens of his community and in that district of large opportunities and large undertakings he and his wife have an attractive home. DR. JOHN J. REYCRAFT gained his preliminary edu- cation in the public schools of his native province, and after completing the curriculum of the high school at Ridgetown, Ontario, he continued his studies in the Chatham Collegiate Institute, at Chatham, that province. This was supplemented by a course in the normal department of Toronto University, in 1886, and after leaving that institution he gave effective service as a teacher in the public schools of Ontario for two years. In preparation for the work of his chosen profession he entered the Detroit College of Medicine, in the metropolis of Michigan, where he completed the prescribed course and was graduated as a member of the class of 1891, with the well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. After his graduation he served as first house surgeon in the Detroit Hospital until the autumn of 1891, when he established his home at Mackinaw City, this state, where he was engaged in general practice until 1894, when he located in the city of Petoskey, where he soon built up a substantial and representative practice, to which he continued to give his undivided attention until the spring of 1900, when, in order to fortify himself still further for the work of his profession, he went abroad, where he availed himself of the privileges of the clinic of the leading hospitals in the cities of Paris, London, Berlin, Glasgow and Belfast. He returned to Petoskey in the summer of 1900, and here he has since specialized in the department of surgery, in which he is known as a most skillful operator and in which his work has been attended by most gratifying success, with attendant reputation of more than local order. In 1907, realizing the need for such an institution, DR. REYCRAFT became the founder of the Petoskey hospital, in the ownership and management of which he is associated with his brother, as has already been stated in this context, and of which he is chief surgeon. The hospital is equipped with the most modern appliances and accessories, has the best of sanitary provisions throughout, and proves a most valuable acquisition to the city, as its privileges are utilized by numerous patrons in the immediate community as well as from distant points. DR. REYCRAFT is a member of the Emmet County Medical Society, the Michigan State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association. He has served as a member of the United States board of pension examining surgeons for Emmet.county and his careful observance of the ethical code of his profession, as combined with his genial and companionable person- ality, has gained and retained to him the high regard of his professional confreres, as well as the unqualified confidence and esteem of the people of his home city and county. The doctor is a firm believer in the generic brotherhood of man and in this respect he has faith in the sympathy, kind- liness and helpfulness of his fellow men, without reference to religion, politics or other associations. Holding such views, he has never had any desire to identify himself with any fraternal organization, as he deems the same an infringement of the higher fellowship that should animate all sorts and conditions of men, the while he believes that such organizations are incompatible with the spirit of American institutions. In politics he accords staunch allegiance to the Democratic party and his interest in public affairs of a local order is of the most insistent and loyal type. In 1909 was accorded distinctive mark of his personal popularity and re- cognition of his eligibility, for he was then elected mayor of Petoskey. He gave so careful and progressive an administration of municipal affairs that he was elected as his own successor, in 1910, and thus served two consecutive terms, with credit to himself and with marked benefit to the city and its people. The 20th of March, 1902, bore record of the marriage of DR. REYCRAFT to MISS METTA CORNELL, who was born in the city of South Bend, Indiana, and who died on the 1st of the following May, having thus survived her marriage by less than two months. ================================================================================ If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access more of our growing collection of FREE online information by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/ ================================================================================