Fourteenth in a series on Brandon’s historic buildings
By JAMES PECK
It’s rare when the same family owns the same house since the mid-1800s, and rarer still when that house was also the village doctor’s office for almost a century and a half. The house at 7 Franklin Street is that rarest gem, where three important town doctors lived and practiced medicine to the greater betterment of Brandon.
The three doctors, one named Dyer and two named Estabrook, likely treated or delivered most of the town’s residents from 1851 through 1983, including perhaps you, dear reader, or someone you know (this writer included)! They were on call 24/7, and never refused a patient even if they couldn’t pay. And, yes, they all did house calls!
Dr. Dyer
The first doctor was Olin Gideon Dyer, who bought the house in 1851 and had his office there for the next 52 years. Dyer came to Brandon from Salisbury at the request of Dr. Anderson Dana, then the town physician who lived in the big house at the east end of Park Street (now 74 Park, the home of Reporter editor Steven Jupiter).
Dr. Dana retired within two years and Dr. Dyer became Brandon’s primary physician. In 1844, he had graduated with the highest honors from Castleton Medical College, “then one of the most flourishing institutions of the day” and had practiced a year in Ohio, then five in Salisbury.
Dyer was 39 when he started practicing in Brandon and moved into the house, which was built in the early 1800s and had been the Congregational parsonage a few years. His wife, Anna Holt Dyer, and their two children moved in with him. Two more were born there, one named Anderson Dana Dyer after Dr. Dana.
In 1858, the local paper praised the new doctor: “He is a gentleman, well known and highly esteemed in our community, both as a man and a physician. For nearly seven years, he has gone night and day among us to bless the sick. A good physician is a great blessing to society.”
After the Civil War, Dr. Dyer treated many of the injured veterans and served as the surgeon for those on pensions, for he was also a talented “sawbones.”
In 1899, Dyer’s biography described the house at 7 Franklin: “The doctor has thoroughly changed and modernized it, so that it has a much more youthful appearance than its age would indicate. Its fine lawns with beautiful hydrangeas and fountains, and the rich marble coping of 100 feet, add much to the appearance of the place, which is one of the most desirable in Brandon.” The front fountain and marble curbing were added by Dr. Dyer in 1884 when the old fences, used by all to keep their animals in and others out, were taken down around town.
Dr. Dyer partnered with Dr. Chancey Case, who lived at 42 Park, to buy a 25-acre grape vineyard on Seminary Hill and raise many varieties of grapes. The vineyard was located off what is now East Prospect Street which was known as Vineyard Street at the time. A connecting street is still called Dyer Street today. Dyer also grew award-winning grapes behind 7 Franklin.
At the time, his land extended to Carver Street. The good doctor also raised prize stallions and mares in a big stable out back. He bred them meticulously and raced them on the Brandon race tracks off Grove Street (behind what is now the Brandon Yoga Center).
Mrs. Dyer died in 1891, and for the next 12 years, Dyer’s niece, Louise Seeley, acted as the doctor’s companion and nurse, often travelling with him in the winter as far west as California and even to the Holy Lands in the Middle East by steamer.
Upon his death in 1903, at age 80 of gastric cancer, he was remembered fondly by all in town. “It is given to few to number so many years of labor, in one of the most exalted of callings, or to display such unflagging enthusiasm for its toils. It is his honor that so many of the poor may remember him as a kind friend.”
The first Dr. Estabrook
In his final years, when Dr. Dyer needed help or was on one of his winter trips, Dr. Estabrook, a new physician in town, would take over his practice.
Dr. John Wesley Estabrook was born in 1871 on a farm in Shelburne, VT and graduated with honors from the University of Vermont Medical College in 1895. In 1896, he came to Brandon to practice, specializing in children’s diseases, and in 1899 married his first wife, Sarah Tiffany. She died of a kidney abscess at 31 in 1901.
Three months after Dr. Dyer died in 1903, Dr. Estabrook married Louise Seeley, Dyer’s niece. She bought the house and contents out of Dyer’s estate in January of 1904 for $3,300 and Dr. Estabrook now moved in with her and assumed Dyer’s office. For the next 80 years, there would be at least one Dr. Estabrook there.
A daughter, Viola, was born in 1905 and, in 1908, a son, John Seeley. According to “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” he was delivered in the 7 Franklin office by his father, the office he himself would later occupy.
Over the years, John and Louise Estabrook were pillars of the town. The doctor was very active in community organizations, including the Rotary Club and the Masons. He was a director at the First National Bank and the Brandon Country Club and served in both school and Congregational church positions. Louise was active in the Monday Club, at the church, and as a founder and staunch supporter of the library.
The second Dr. Estabrook
Their son “Seeley’ graduated from UVM Medical School in 1929, did post-graduate at Mass General Hospital, then joined his father in practice at 7 Franklin Street. He married his first wife, Evelyn Greene, in 1934 and they rented the new house behind his parents at 10 Carver Street, from which Seeley could walk a few feet to the office. Their daughter Penelope was born later that year.
Now there were two Doctor Estabrooks in town, so the new one was called just “Seeley” or “Doctor Seeley” and his father was called “Doctor John” by most in town. Their office was in the north end (right side) of the house, where it had been since Dr. Dyer started his practice in 1851.
Back then, they would charge only $15 for delivering babies, either in people’s homes or in local hospitals. An office visit that had cost only 50 cents back when Dr. John started now was $2. Like Dr. Dyer, they both worked 24/7 and treated patients regardless of their ability to pay. Neither doctor was in it for the money, nor did they get rich.
In 1946, Dr. Seeley divorced Evelyn. In 1951, he married Betty Moore Aines, who brought along her two teenaged children, Linda and John Aines.
Like his dad, Seeley became deeply immersed in community activities, at the church, golf club, Rotary and Masons, a 50-year member at each. He was a director of the Brandon National Bank and head of the school board. As a long-time Chamber of Commerce member, he established their “Dollars for Scholars” program.
Doctor John continued to practice until 1951 and passed away at 84 in 1956. His estate was valued at a modest $56,000. Louise passed in 1959 at 88. They are buried at Pine Hill.
When Doctor John Estabrook died, he set up a $10,000 memorial scholarship fund at UVM to benefit Brandon students of medicine. It later became the John W. and John Seeley Estabrook Scholarship Fund.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Seeley Estabrook continued to practice at 7 Franklin until 1983, when he passed at age 75. He was remembered as one who “elevated the practice of medicine to friendship and deep neighborly concern. With his quiet self-effacing humor and abiding personal integrity he touched our lives in ways that none of us will be able – or want – to forget.”
Seeley had been inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame a few years earlier, for his prowess in basketball and football.
In 1986, the town named the athletic fields off Rte. 7 north of Brandon “Estabrook Field.” The dining room in the Brandon Inn, where the Rotary Club met, had already been named the “Dr. J. Seeley Estabrook Dining Room.” A sign still hangs there today.
The John Seeley Estabrook Memorial Trust was established in 1986. The award remembered a Brandon physician who excelled in both medicine and athletics, as is evidenced by the fact that among his many honors were induction into the Athletic Hall of Fame and being named Doctor of the Year by the University of Vermont. Unfortunately, this award ceased in 2019, and outstanding funds were transferred to the UVM Scholarship Fund.
Penny
Penny Estabrook grew up in the house in the 1930s and 1940s. She attended Barry College and Columbia University, where she wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on Indian classical music. She received a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study Indian music in India and became a sitar student of one of India’s most renowned musicians, Ravi Shankar, and headed the Music Department for the American International School/ American Embassy School in New Delhi for many years.
Penny married K.T. Mirchandani in New Delhi in 1973. She lived in New Delhi until her death but visited Brandon every summer and the holidays for a few months, staying at the house and being very active in community affairs. She carried the title of Doctor like the three before her, so it can accurately be said that a doctor lived there every year since 1851!
She died at 88 in 2023. In her will, gave the family home at 7 Franklin to the Brandon Library because her grandmother Louis Seeley Estabrook had been one of its founders. The will gave the library trustees 90 days to accept and specified that the house “be used as a satellite facility and called the Seeley—Estabrook Branch.” One room would be dedicated to the history of the Dyer/Seeley/Estabrook family in which designated items in the house would be displayed.
The BFPL trustees ultimately decided not to accept the donation and the house will soon be sold by Tom Whittaker on the open market, benefitting Penny’s other designees, including the BFPL, the BFD. Estabrook Field, the Congregational Church, and the Brandon Rescue Squad. Thus, the doctors’ contributions to Brandon continue even after they’ve departed.
Maybe a doctor will buy the house!
