Newburyport's Dr. John Brickett (1774-1848) was an apothecary and successful physician.
Twice married and father of seven children, he also served in the War of 1812 acting as surgeon on the privateer Decatur in 1813 under the command of Captain William Nichols.
John Brickett was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the son of James and Edna Merrill Brickett of Newbury. After completing a course of study in the 1790s, he became the first physician in the new town of Bethel, Maine. In 1794, he returned to Haverhill to marry Elizabeth Ayer before settling in Newburyport to practice medicine.
However happy their marriage might have been, it was marred with sadness. Elizabeth Brickett died in March 1807, weeks after her thirtieth birthday. In April, a nine-month-old daughter, named for her mother, also died, followed by the death of another daughter, age nine, in August.
In September 1809, Brickett married again to Lydia Woodbury with whom he had one daughter in 1811. Martha Ann Kimball Brickett was named for a daughter from his previous marriage.
Three more children all died in their early twenties, including an only son, John James, who was the first officer on the Brig Margaret. His death occurred on a passage from Jamaica to Newburyport in September 1824. He was 22 years old.
The same year that Martha Ann Kimball Brickett was born, across the world in Siam, twin boys were born. The boys were conjoined and subsequently became known as the Siamese twins Chang and Eng. They became inextricably linked with the story of Dr. Brickett.
In 1829, Scottish merchant Robert Hunter traveled to Siam with Captain Abel Coffin of Newburyport with the purpose of taking the then 17-year-old twins to America as human curiosities. Hunter and Coffin stopped in England to have the boys examined by physicians before arriving in Boston and exhibiting the twins to the American public. They were taken to Newburyport where they lived with Captain Coffin and his family on Washington Street.
Dr. Brickett was appointed their personal physician and as the twins became traveling performers, Brickett traveled with them until they became their own managers in about 1832.
Chang and Eng traveled throughout the country and later the world. Dr. Brickett returned to his quiet life in Newburyport and made his home in a three-story dwelling on the southwest side of High Street near the corner of Boardman Street.
John Brickett died of dysentery at the age of 75. His funeral was held at St. Paul's church, and he is buried in the churchyard near his second wife, Lydia.
