Dr. Christopher P. Gerrish (1829-1909) was the “town physician and surgeon,” listed in many South Berwick town reports and the Maine Directory from the 1870s until after the turn of the last century.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Christopher P. Gerrish, probably on Main Street, South Berwick, in the late 1800s

 

Throughout the 1800s, South Berwick's town government hired doctors to treat poor families at home or at the Town Farm. Until the development of state-funded modern welfare systems in the 20 th century, poor families, elderly residents and destitute immigrants depended on town support. By the mid-1800s the South Berwick Town Farm, also known as the Alms House, included 100 acres on both sides of Knight's Pond Road, and was worked by residents who were able.

Town physicians over the years included Sarah Orne Jewett 's father, Dr. Theodore F. Jewett, Dr. Charles Trafton, and Dr. Caleb Sanborn.

The Gerrish (or Garrish) family is one of the South Berwick area's very old maritime families often mentioned in historical accounts of the part of South Berwick known as Great Works.   A Capt. Benjamin Gerrish seems to have been an associate of the merchant Jonathan Hamilton around 1791.  In Old Fields Burying Ground on Vine Street, the graves of Nathaniel and Bridget Gerrish, who were born in the 1600s, are among the oldest graves in South Berwick.

Nathaniel Gerrish

Bridget Gerrish

Dr. Christopher Gerrish first lived at 373 Main Street in the Point neighborhood according to the map of 1872, before building a new house at 155 Main Street late in his career. 

Dr. Gerrish married Hattie A. Hill, who lived from 1835 to 1908. They had a son, Edward E. Gerrish, who was listed as a “conductor” in the 1900 census, when he would have been 42. He inherited the house at 155 Main Street, and died in 1931.

The Gerrish House has been a landmark in South Berwick for over 100 years.

Photo courtesy of Rick Becker

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