At the age of 50, Mary Abbott Hazeltine left her comfortable surrounding in Sugar Grove to travel to an Army hospital at Annapolis Junction to care for her son, Clark, who had been wounded in battle.  A younger son, Herbert, had already been lost fighting in the Civil War a year before.  Unsatisfied with the medical care Clark and his comrades were receiving, she stayed and worked at the hospital for eight weeks nursing Clark as well as other soldiers back to health.  At one point she took it upon herself to travel to Washington and file a complaint about the poor conditions the soldiers had to endure while recovering.  While at Annapolis, Mary and other women distributed pillow slips, drawers, stockings, pants and towels that were sent from Philadelphia.  Upon returning to Sugar Grove, Mary organized an Aid Society at Busti, NY under the direction of the Sanitary Commission, now the Red Cross, and acted as the organization's President.  She drove herself three miles in a buggy to meet with other women who rolled bandages, scraped lint, knitted socks, and made hospital shirts.  Mary organized dime socials as a means of raising funds for supplies.  The women were dependent on Mary for advice regarding what was most desperately needed at Army hospitals.

James Brookmire left Sugar Grove in 1850, taken up with the Gold Rush of California.  Arriving in Fort Kearney, Nebraska he decided to cut ties with the party he was traveling with and put his possessions in a wheelbarrow.  His trip was then a nationwide sensation and his whereabouts were reported in several newspapers.  Upon reaching Fort Hall, Idaho he gave up the wheelbarrow to cross the Sierra Nevada but his arrival on August 10, 1850 was still heralded as the arrival of the Wheelbarrow Man.  Brookmire eventually accumulated $15,000 in gold before getting the news his wife inherited $10,000 from an uncle in Scotland.  Brookmire then returned to Sugar Grove and lived here the rest of his life.  Learn more about Brookmire by clicking here

Physician's apprentice in Sugar Grove from from 1878 to 1831 to Dr. CJPhillips,  Dr. Crumbine eventually ended up as a physician in Dodge City, KS where is autobiography Frontier Doctor became the inspiration for the television series Gunsmoke.  His health campaigns including the famous "Don't Spit on the Sidewalk" campaign helped curb the spread of diseases.  Photo from the collection of the Kansas Historical Society