Published April 19, 2025
By Arlis Dittmer
Lewin Henry Cohen was a fascinating 19th century physician with a famous relative. He was born in Scotland to English parents in 1842. His mother was one of the 20 siblings of Abraham Jonas who arrived in Quincy in 1838. Abraham Jonas was the first and most prominent Jewish person in Quincy. He became a lawyer and was elected to the state legislature. He was a Grand Master Mason and a friend of Abraham Lincoln. Harriet Jonas Cohen and her family followed her brother Abraham to Quincy in 1854.
The Cohen family arrived with their two children, Kate and Lewin. As a teenager Lewin left Quincy to stay with his uncle George Jonas in New Orleans. There he attended the New Orleans School of Medicine and graduated in February 1862. He was a resident physician at Charity Hospital when he decided to join the Confederate Army.
Lewin enlisted in the Crescent Regiment, a state militia unit with a 90-day deployment. He was issued a musket and served as a private in the battle at Shiloh in April 1862. One week later, he was detailed to medical duty in Corinth and later, Montgomery Mississippi. The Cresent Regiment transferred to the Confederate Army and in September 1862 he was assigned hospital duty as an Assistant Surgeon. His Civil War service continued until the end of the war. He was transferred to the 5th Company, Washington Artillery of New Orleans, the 7th Mississippi, and lastly the 26th Tennessee Infantry. He worked in military hospitals in Meridian and Enterprise Mississippi. His final post was as a medical inspector at Walker Hospital in Columbus Georgia.
His confederate army records list him as an assistant surgeon. That designation implied he was a civilian working for the Confederate States of America. He was not a medical officer nor given any rank during his service. He signed his documents with his name, assistant surgeon, and P. A. C. S., which stood for the Provisional Army of the Confederate States, all of which indicated he was a volunteer. He was reimbursed for his housing and forage for his horse. He did not do field medicine but rather worked in hospitals.
After the war, he returned to New Orleans where he lived for three more years, caring for patients for the Hebrew Benevolent Association. Cohen also served as the adjunct professor of chemistry at his alma mater, the New Orleans School of Medicine. He held that post until he decided to return to Quincy at the age of 29.
The May 18, 1869, Quincy Daily Herald mentions Dr. Cohen, along with his sister Kate, as one of the organizers of the Hebrew Bible School. He served as the school’s superintendent. The purpose of the school was “to ground the youthful mind in the principles of religion and morality.” Later that year, another article mentions that Dr. Cohen led the choir at the newly organized B’nai Sholom Temple.
In addition to his devotion to the Temple, Dr. Cohen was involved in various civic groups such as the Philharmonic Society and the Quincy Literary Association.
His career was medicine. He joined the Adams County Medical Society shortly after his return to Quincy in 1868. He served as secretary of the Society for six years. In 1873 he was chosen to be the Society’s delegate to the American Medical Association. A brilliant and scholarly young man, he was listed in the Quincy city directories as a physician, surgeon, and analytical chemist. As a chemist, he analyzed medicines, blood, and various compounds in nature. Quincy law enforcement used his expertise on blood stains for various criminal trials. He analyzed patent medicine and reported his findings to the Board of Health and to the Adams County Medical Association, pointing out the dangers of some less than scientific medicines.
Dr. Cohen found the time to be the secretary of the Relief Association, an association founded in 1869 and continuing each winter with the purpose of caring for the travelers, veterans, widows, and orphans. This organization was renamed the Charitable Aid and Hospital Association in 1873 and went on to found Blessing Hospital in 1875.
Dr. Cohen continued his engagement in public health initiatives and was regularly mentioned in local newspapers concerning Board of Health activities. He served as county physician in the 1870s and taught at Quincy College of Medicine at Chaddock College in the 1880s. He attended and presented papers at national public health conferences. He was a health inspector and involved with vaccines and quarantines for disease which regularly killed young children such as measles and scarlet fever. He believed in strict quarantines to protect others. Some parents and other citizens reported difficulties associated with quarantines to the city government and requested his removal from the Board of Health.
He spent the last twenty years of his career in Quincy except for a few months in the winter of 1877-1878 as the chair of chemistry at the Louisville Medical College following the death of his uncle, Samuel Jonas.
Lewin Cohen married Joanna Davidson in 1875. She had immigrated to Quincy from Germany in 1873 and had married Lewin who was 14 years her senior. They had three daughters, with one dying young. Dr. Cohen died in late September 1888 in Aiken, South Carolina. The September 29, 1888 Quincy Daily Herald described him as “never of robust frame… [and] that overwork and hard study” made rest and recuperation a necessity.” The newspaper went on to say he “was a studious, conscientious, and painstaking physician.” The Adams County Medical Society memorialize him saying, “he was scrupulously observant of the amenities and ethics of the profession. Of scholarly tastes, … he maintained under all circumstances the character of a cultivated gentleman.”
He is buried in the Valley of Peace Cemetery in Quincy. Later, Johanna followed one of her daughters to Portland Oregon and died and was buried there in 1932.
Arlis Dittmer is a retired health science librarian and former president of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. During her years with Blessing Health System, she became interested in medical and nursing history—both topics frequently overlooked in history.
Sources:
“City News.” Quincy Daily Herald, November 30, 1869.
“Deaths and Funerals.” Quincy Daily Herald, September 29, 1888, 4.
“The Examination of the Hebrew Bible School.” Quincy Daily Herald, May 18, 1869, 4.
“The Health Officers.” Quincy Whig, January 17, 1888, 8.
The History of Adams County, Illinois. Chicago: Murray, Williamson & Phelps, 1879. 611.
“Philharmonic Society.” Quincy Whig, December 15, 1871, 4.
“Proceedings of the Board of Health.” Quincy Daily Herald, January 31, 1872, 4.
“Quincy.” Quincy Whig and Republican, September 8, 1869.
“Quincy Literary Association.” Quincy Daily Herald, April 2, 1871, 4.
“Relief Association.” Quincy Daily Herald, December 28, 1870, 4.
Valley of Peace. Quincy Cemeteries, Quincy, IL: Great River Genealogical Society, 1993.
