GARLICK, THEODATUS A.

GARLICK, THEODATUS A. (30 Mar. 1805-9 Dec. 1884), surgeon, sculptor, photographer, and fish breeder, was born in Middlebury, Vt., to Sabra S. Kirby and Daniel Garlick. In 1818 he joined his brother Abel, producing Cleveland's first shipped goods, burr millstones. He worked as a blacksmith and tombstone carver in Cleveland, NEWBURGH, and Brookfield (Trumbull Co.) while studying medicine with local physicians. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1834 and practiced surgery in Youngstown until 1852, when he became a partner of Dr. HORACE A. ACKLEY at the Cleveland Medical College. Garlick developed new procedures in plastic and facial surgery and operative midwifery, and invented splints and instruments for amputation, trepanning, and obstetrics. His skill in surgery and sculpture made him an adept portraitist: Pres. Jackson, Henry Clay, and JARED KIRTLAND posed for him. He also made precise painted plaster anatomy models for medical schools.

Garlick and his brother excavated a Cleveland Indian mound in 1820. Following Daguerre's methods, Garlick built a camera and, in Dec. 1839, made the first photograph in the WESTERN RESERVE using a silvered brass plate, producing Cleveland's first daguerreotype on 9 Sept. 1841. Garlick fished, coauthored essays on angling, and in 1853 successfully artificially fertilized trout eggs in vitro and built the country's first fish hatchery. At 75, Garlick took up Greek, translating the Bible within 2 years. He died in Bedford. He married 3 times: his first 2 wives, Amanda and Sylvia Flowen, were daughters of Brookfield mentor, Dr. Elijah Flowen; he married Mary M. Chittenden in 1845. He had two children with Sylvia: a daughter, Frances, and a son, Wilmot, a physician and co-founder of the CLEVELAND ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. Garlick had one child with Mary, a daughter, Marietta.


"Theodatus A. Garlick, ' Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio History Society (May 1869).


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