The Remarkable Doctor Dutch

Every once in a while you run across a story so strange it is impossible to summarize it.  You just have to read it through.... 

If you want the "short form" version it is as follows.

An unusual man turned up in Chippewa Falls in the pre-Civil War era.  If it indeed was in the "early '50's" there would have been only a few hundred people in town, divided between Chippewa Falls proper and the rather improper adjacent community known as Frenchtown.

Who he really was is unknown and presumably unknowable.  If you are trying to escape your past you really couldn't do much better than to turn up in a pioneering lumber town and insist that your name was Danelia Mahomet Le Duche.

The writer of this piece was Thomas McBean, a fairly keen observer of the local scene.  In general I have found his accounts of the early days - this one by the way was published in the local paper in 1897 - to be reliable.

McBean was pretty sure the guy was English and that he had served in the British Army.  His fluency with languages suggests an educated man.  

Whether he was indeed a physician and whether his interest in matters relating to India was more than a bit of harmless nonsense is hard to say.

Thomas McBean comes across as a bit harsh with respect to the state of the medical profession in the 1890s.  I guess you have to know that his father was the first physician in town, arriving in 1856.  So there were likely some strong opinions in the McBean family regards the laxity of medical licensing in that era.

Dr. Dutch apparently was many things.  A drunk.  A story teller.  A gentleman who would tip his hat to the most humble woman of the community.  And a person it would have been well worth knowing.