Dr. Carl Of Belfast

By Isabel Morse Maresh

October 26, 1989

Four Stevens brothers came from New Hampshire, about the year 1788, and settled in and around Northport. Of the descendants of Benjamin was Carl Hervey Stevens, only son of Mason Isaac and Emma (Abbott) Stevens, born Oct. 18, 1895, at West Northport on Hurd Road.

Several newspaper articles chronicle the story of Dr. Carl's arrival in Belfast in July 1913 with his young bride in a used Model T Ford. It was then that he started his medical practice, as well as being a noted surgeon, which spanned 60 years.

Dr. Carl attended Belfast High School for two years and transferred to Maine Central Institue in Pittsfield when his family moved there. He worked in a milk factory, and as an orderly in the Maine General Hospital in Portland in 1905.

IN the summer of 1906, he and three friends were accepted at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. From Bowdoin, he went to Harvard College but returned to Bowdoin as an instructor in 1912. He worked his way through college in a laboratory and received his medical degree in 1911.

In 1912, he married a young nurse by the name of Eleanor Wescott, daughter of Charles F. and Elizabeth (Greene) Wescott. They spent nearly fifty years together and were the parents of two children, John W. and Alice.

Between 1913 and 1925, Dr. Carl delivered 700 babies, and then he stopped counting. He said that he never went out in the winter without snowshoes. His early days of doctoring were done with a horse and buggy, before owning his Model T. The early Model T was equipped with skis on the front and rear tracks.

Dr. Carl was associated with the early Waldo County Hospital on upper High Street. He remembered that when he came to the hospital in 1913, they had no x-ray machine nor elevator. He brought his own microscope with him.

Dr. Carl was well-loved in Belfast, even though he had a gruff bedside manner. He responded to the needs of his patients, through house calls and at the hospital.

One family had suffered through a series of medical catastrophes, which included fatal surgery on one child, the serious accident of another, and surgery on the mother, all within one year. Dr. Carl responded over and over, never dunning for payment. He forgave some debts in exchange for a promise to get medical insurance.

Dr. Carl and Dr. Foster Small broke ground for the present Waldo County Hospital in 1956, and were proud of the results.

Eleanor Stevens passed away Jan. 30, 1959, and was joined by Dr. Carl Hervey Stevens Jan. 30, 1974. They rest together at Oak Grove Cemetery in Belfast.