Bio John W. Peal

JOHN W. PEAL, M. D., removed from Hughesville, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, to Sunbury, in November, 1838. He lived and practiced medicine there until 1868, when, owing to failure of health, he was removed to Lock Haven, where his son resided. Here after a prolonged illness he passed to rest on the 14th day of July, 1868, aged sixty- eight years and one month. He was the son of John Peal and Mary (McClintock) Peal, having been born near Shippensburg, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the 13th of June, 1800. 

At twenty-seven years he married Martha Washington Sturgeon, daughter of Samuel Sturgeon, of Shippensburg, who proved through life a beautiful character. They now sleep side by side in Highland cemetery at Lock Haven. He was a strong man, of commanding presence, sympathetic heart, and iron will. In his home life that will power which had been given him for the arena of men sometimes, as is the case with many men, got out of place, and wounded those he loved, but if thus he wounded, with what infinite tenderness did he heal! His generous heart could always be depended on for acts of manly kindness. He was a good husband, an ambitious father, and a thrifty business man. Six children, five daughters and one son, survive him, also nine grandsons and nine granddaughters. He wrote his name, John W., to distinguish it from his father's, but his name was simply John, the son of John Peal, who was the son of John Peal, an Englishman who immigrated to this country about the middle of the eighteenth century, and was living, between 1800 and 1810, near Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. 

Doctor Peal's mother, Mary McClintock, was Scotch-Irish, a relation of James McClintock, M.D., late of Philadelphia, and John McClintock, D. D., LL. D., late of Paris, France, a most gifted and cultured man. Mrs. Peal's father, Samuel Sturgeon, cousin to Daniel Sturgeon, late United States Senator from Pennsylvania, and her mother, Fanny Rogers, were Scotch-Irish also, and in "ye olden time" both families worshiped at the old Silver Spring Presbyterian church near Shippensburg. His name, John W. Peal, has descended to his grandson, John W. Peal, of New York City, and to his great-grandson, John W. Peal, son of Rembrandt R. Peal, Philadelphia. Doctor Peal lived an active and useful life. As a physician he was very attentive to his patients, very cheering and magnetic in the sick-room, and very original and bold in his treatment of diseases. He was a born physician, and devoted his whole mentality to his profession. So deep was his interest in the sick ones who were entrusted to his healing art that he often when the case was critical walked his floor all night absorbed in thought. Looking back now, the writer sees a strong, handsome, earnest, unselfish man, whom never storm or darkness deterred from going to the bedside of the sick, whose tenderness to the suffering never failed, and whose skill in treatment was unexcelled by any of his compeers; this man was Dr. John W. Peal, of Sunbury. On his grave-stone in Highland Cemetery are written these expressive words "at rest." S. R. P.

Source: Bell's History of Northumberland County Pennsylvania Local History: Chapter XLII - Part I: Biographical Sketches - SUNBURY Part I. 

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