1914 Biography - Willard S. Cushman

Cushman, Willard Stevens, M. D., successful physician and coroner of East Baton Rouge parish, Baton Rouge, La., has won gratifying success in the practice of medicine and surgery. He obtained his degree of M. D. from Tulane University of Louisiana in the year 1900, and immediately began the practice of his profession at the town of Baker, in East Baton Rouge parish. There he remained 12 years, engaged in an active general practice. In 1912 he was elected coroner of East Baton Rouge parish, and to better discharge the duties of this office removed to the city of Baton Rouge, his present place of residence. He is a member of both the East Baton Rouge parish and the Louisiana State Medical societies, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and various other fraternal organizations. In 1903 Dr. Cushman was married to Miss Lilah Merritt, of Baker, La., and 2 daughters, Mabel and Helen, born to this union, brighten the home of the parents. Dr. Cushman was born at Bayou Chicot, St. Landry parish, La., Feb. 9, 1876, and was reared in that parish up to the age of 16 years, when his parents removed to the city of New Orleans, where he graduated in 1897 from the Boys' high school, later entering the medical department of Tulane university, from which he graduated as previously stated. Dr. Cushman is a son of Bingham and Lucy (Heath) Cushman, both of whom were born in the state of Louisiana. The father was a veteran of the Civil war. He enlisted in the Confederate army as a member of a Louisiana company. In the course of the war he was taken prisoner at the battle of Lookout Mountain, and during the succeeding 3 years was held as a prisoner of war at Rock Island prison. In early life Bingham Cushman, the father, was a school teacher, and for 19 years prior to his death, in 1912, at the age of 70 years, he held a clerical position in the office of the Federal surveyor of customs at New Orleans. He was a descendant of the New England family of Cushman that has furnished many distinguished characters, and of which family there has never been known any member who was a pauper or an adult who was illiterate, the members of this family having been distinguished for thrift and intelligence throughout the family history. The founder of the Cushman family in America was the distinguished divine, Robert Cushman, who, though the charterer of the good ship Mayflower, did not come over the waters to the New World as a member of the party aboard that famous vessel, but did come aboard another vessel that shortly followed the Mayflower to the New England coast, and it is claimed that he preached the first England sermon on American soil that was deemed worthy of publication in England.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from Louisiana: Comprising Sketches, edited by Alcee Fortier, published in 1914, volume 3, pages 113-114.