Henry Reed Stiles

March 10, 1832 - January 7, 1909

(Samuel, Capt. Asahel, Israel, John IV, John III, John II, John, Thomas)

Second Stiles Historian

BIOGRAPHY (compiled by Robin Oppenheimer)

Henry Reed Stiles wrote his own lengthy biography as part of his Genealogies of the Connecticut Family (pp. 329-332). Here is a summary:

Henry Reed Stiles was born March 10, 1832 at 478 Broome St., NYC and died January 7, 1909 in Hill View, Warren Co. NY. He was educated at Williams College, MD at University of the City of NY, practiced medicine in New York City and Woodbridge, NJ. He was the editor of the Toledo Blade, Toledo, OH; 1856; 1857-8 was a member of the firm Calkins and Stiles, which published educational works and The American Journal of Education in NYC. In 1863 he became librarian of Long Island Historical Society, in Brooklyn (now Brooklyn Historical Society), also one of the founders and first directors. In 1868, he was appointed Chief Clerk, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Brooklyn office of Metropolitan Board of Health, then medical inspector for NYC Board of Health 1870. In 1881, he became Supt., Dundee Homeopathic Dispensary, Dundee, Scotland. He returned to NYC due to poor health, working with Dr. Frederick Humphreys; and during the nineties conducted a private establishment for the cure of mental and nervous diseases at Hill View on Lake George, NY.
He is the author of 10 or more histories and genealogies which include The History of Ancient Windsor, History of the City of Brooklyn, NY, Genealogy of the Stiles Family of Connecticut. He also wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, and contributed extensively to newspapers and periodicals. He was a member of twenty medical or historical societies. He was a Knight Templar and a 32nd degree Mason, a Presbyterian in America and Catholic Apostolic in Scotland. His genealogy of the Stiles family was published in 1894, reaching back to remote origins and forward into several generations of the Kentucky family from material collected during a period of 40 years.

The Third Stiles Genealogist, Lewis Ogden Stiles, also wrote a biography of HRS in his David Stiles book. Here is the first paragraph that traces Henry’s Stiles lineage:

Henry Reed Stiles,…was born in New York City March 10, 1832 and was the son of Samuel Stiles, 1796-1861, of Connecticut and new York, printer, engraver and financier; being the son of Capt. Asahel Stiles, 1753-1833, of East Windsor, Conn., soldier and musician, was present at the promulgations of the Declarations of Independence; being the son of Israel Stiles, 1719-1794, of East Windsor, Conn., probably a farmer; being the son of Lieut. John Stiles IV, 1692-1763, of East Windsor, Conn., land owner; being the son of John Stiles III, 1665-1753, of Windsor, Conn. And North Haven (now New Haven), Conn., a farmer; being the son of John Stiles, ii, 1633-1683, born in England and broth to Windsor, Conn. When nine month of age where he spent his life; being the son of John Stiles I, 1595 -, the emigrant who came from England to America in 1634 and with others founded the Colony of Connecticut. Thus we see that Henry Reed Stiles and Ezra Stiles were of the same direct line down to John Stiles, III.

In 2019, a researcher at the Brooklyn Library, Deborah Tint, wrote about Henry Reed Stiles after trying to determine the identity of a statue that was found in storage. She thought it was Stiles, but it turned out to be the writer William Makepeace Thackeray. Here are excerpts of her findings:

Henry Reed Stiles was born in 1832, studied medicine in New York City and began medical practice in 1855. In 1859 he expanded his practice to Woodbridge NJ, and there, during the Civil War, wrote commentaries for the Rahway Register & Times under the pen name “Tip-Top.”
Stiles was appointed to a number of important positions in the medical establishment, notably serving three years (1870-73) as health inspector of the Board of Health of the City of New York. Alongside his medical activities, he was energetically engaged in writing local history and genealogies, and it is for these activities that he is now best known. Among his books still very much consulted are his three-volume, A history of the city of Brooklyn: including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh, published between 1867 and 1870, which emphasizes the early history of the area and describes the original Dutch towns; and the above mentioned two-volume … record of the County of Kings, 1884, which Stiles edited and substantially wrote, covering some of the same ground but richer on the years of industrial expansion that established Brooklyn as an important city in its own right, fourth largest in the United States, just before consolidation with Greater New York. The book is generously illustrated with engravings of people and landmarks that are some of our best, and in some cases the only, documents of long gone aspects of Brooklyn.

Unconventional medical practitioner and advocate for the mentally ill

At the time when Stiles was a practicing physician, allopathic traditional Western medicine was slugging it out for dominance with alternative medical practices like homeopathy, herbal remedies and physical therapies. Stiles’ biography in his family genealogy states that he was special lecturer on hygiene and sanitary laws in the New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1873-74 and, from 1882-85, professor of mental and nervous diseases in a separate but related institution, the New York Women’s Medical College and Hospital in New York City. It is from this school that Dr. Susan McKinney, the first African-American female physician in New York State, graduated in 1870. Stiles’ work at the Women’s Medical College placed him in enlightened contrast to a prevailing medical establishment that did not facilitate women’s joining the profession.

In 1873 Stiles was appointed Medical Superintendent of the State Homeopathic Hospital for the Insane at Middletown, Orange County, NY.

Collector of first hand accounts during the Civil War

Several Eagle articles mention that Stiles, while practicing in New Jersey during the Civil War, wrote articles in the Rahway Register & Times. I was not able to find out why he wrote these under the pseudonym “Tip Top”, but did find the Rahway articles in a scrapbook at the New York Public Library. A number of them concern the war and he relays information gleaned in his correspondence with soldiers in the battlefield about events on the ground.

Eyewitness to the history of his day

Surely one of the most momentous events Stiles witnessed was the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, paving the way to a new relationship between the towns that now make up New York City. The East River Bridge, as it was then called, gets a generous section in the first volume of … record of the County of Kings covering its planning to the opening ceremonies, with some fascinating diagrams.

Tributes and family: “I have finally ‘won through’ ”

It is in the tributes that appeared after his death that we see not only his drive and ambition, but glimpse the personality of Henry Reed Stiles. In a resolution published in the April, 1909 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, one gets a sense of the man.

In bearing he was dignified, but his great kindly nature glowed through the reserve like a burst of sunshine, lighting the way to the hearts of his associates and friends. His quick wit and quaint humor made him a most delightful companion.” Stiles had bouts of serious illness throughout his life that hampered his work and he came to rely on help from his family to continue his writing. The above mentioned 1904 article in the Eagle makes reference to his daughter Elliott and her important assistance.”

Sources
The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut Including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 by Henry R. Stiles, A.M., M.D., 1891.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.0022297030&view=2up&seq=6
Genealogies of the Connecticut Family. Descendants of John Stiles of Windsor, Conn., and Stratford, Conn., 1635-1894; Also the Connecticut New Jersey Families, 1720-1894; and the Southern (or Bermuda-Georgia) Family, 1635-1894, with Contributors to the Genealogies of some New York and Pennsylvania Families; Henry Reed Stiles, A.M., M.D., 1894.
The Family of David Stiles : or, The ten tribes of the house of David, the ancestry and posterity of David Stiles, a native of New Jersey, an immigrant to Kentucky by Lewis Ogden Stiles, 1939.
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2019/06/11/mysterious-affair-stiles