Dr. John E. Wade
Written as “Johny”
John Edward Wade, born on August 24, 1847 (FamilySearch), was a younger brother of James and Willie. The New York State census of 1865 lists him in the family’s household in Ward 13 of Brooklyn: John E. Wade, 17, born in Kings County, a clerk (1865 New York State census, on FamilySearch).
He wrote often to his brothers. In June 1863 Willie had “a letter from John yesterday – all well”, pictured him at home “in his store”, and told Mother that John “has improved wonderfully in his writing” (Willie, June 12, 1863). James thought John wrote good letters but made them “so large; I mean he uses a great deal of paper and not much writing on it” (James, September 1, 1863), and the next spring found his writing “improving in appearance” (James, April 13, 1864). Earlier letters probably mean him too: Willie’s “Ma’s & John Durlyn’s letters” (July 27, 1862), since the census shows two brothers named John and Durlyn, and James’s “Johny’s letters are very interesting; tell him to write often” (August 10, 1862).
Willie warned that John “must not get the War Fever and enlist” (Willie, October 22, 1863). Home again that Christmas, Willie went “over to New York to Barnum’s with John” (Willie to James, December 27, 1863). James counted on “the board that Will and John will pay” to help keep the family (James, January 18, 1864).
John worked for a doctor. James, who had spent six years working for Dr. Barker, wrote that he could “appreciate the feeling of John because I have been there”, and advised that John “can now afford to assume a more independent attitude with regard to the Dr.” (James, February 21, 1864). By June 1864 “John has left the Dr.’s, it was a good move I think” (James, June 26, 1864).
With his parents and his brother Durlyn, he attended the first conference on organizing Trinity Baptist Church on October 31, 1874, and the church was founded in his father’s house that December (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 10, 1912, p. 7).
He became a doctor himself. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons and practised in Brooklyn for many years, and belonged to the Kings County and Long Island medical societies and the Royal Arcanum. Like his mother, he was a devout member of the Greene Avenue Baptist Church, “in which he took an active interest” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 11, 1919, p. 2); he was elected one of its trustees in 1892 (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 31, 1892, p. 9). On August 30, 1876, in Brooklyn, he married Hester Rogers, 20. He was 29, a physician living at 10 Kossuth Place, and gave his birthplace as Brooklyn; the witnesses were his brother William and Emma S. Byrd (Brooklyn certificate of marriage No. 1490, 1876). That summer he had moved into a new house on Kossuth Place, “quite a substantial token of the doctor’s success”, which his brother William designed and built (Brooklyn Times Union, July 10, 1876, p. 2). In 1880 he was living on Himrod Street, Brooklyn, with his wife, Hester, and their son Frank, aged 2 (Find a Grave, summarizing the 1880 census). His mother died at his home, 908 Greene Avenue, on December 15, 1915. He died there suddenly on January 10, 1919, aged 71, survived by his son Frank E. Wade of Richmond Hill and his daughter, Adelaide, and was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 11, 1919, p. 2; Find a Grave).
- Mentioned in 13
- 1862 Jul 27 Aug 10 1863 Jun 12 & 13 Sep 1 Oct 15 Oct 19 Oct 22 & 25 Nov 20 & 26 Dec 27 1864 Jan 18 Feb 21 Apr 13 Jun 26