If These Walls Could Talk

Sophia Penfield, New Fairfield Girl Was Medical Pioneer

by Agnes-Betty Trimpert

When Sophia Penfield was born in New Fairfield in 1844, there were few male, let alone female, physicians. Her father, Levi Penfield, died from injuries received in a farm accident; and even though she had been left several parcels of land in New Fairfield through his probated will, she realized she would need to support herself; and, the field of medicine fascinated her.

She enrolled in the New York Homeopathic Medical College, near Union Square in New York City. It later became the New York Medical College with its principal campus at Valhalla, NY. Upon graduation in 1869, she worked a year in a dispensary in the city; two years in Saugerties, NY; and then opened her own medical office in a house she purchased in Danbury. She was the first female licensed physician in Connecticut. She practiced in Danbury over 50 years and when she retired in the 1920’s at age 88, she was still the only female doctor in Danbury.

Of particular interest to her was the affliction of many workers in her adopted city of Danbury, known as the “Hat City of the World”. Prolonged exposure to mercury, a toxic absorbed in the skin and lungs, caused distorted vision, confusion, hallucinations, and uncontrollable tremors. Her research and treatment were widely acknowledged. Recognizing the need for additional methods of care, she opened a “sanitarium for the treatment of chronic diseases by mechanical massage” in 1894 and formed the Visiting Nurse Association in 1911. A visit to a home cost 10 cents and included donated medicine and supplies.

The Penfield family were early settlers of New Fairfield, being mentioned in town records as early as 1764. They were community leaders and served as Town Clerks and Tax Collectors at various times from 1835 to 1851. Sophie, herself, accepted civic responsibility. She embraced the suffrage and temperance movements, working for the women’s right to vote, granted in 1920; and was still active in the W.C.T.U. and her chosen political party at the time of her death in 1935 at age 91. Her pride in her heritage inspired her 1893 charter membership in the Mary Wooster Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution.

Her mother, Eunice Giddings Penfield; her father’s first wife, Cornelia Stevens; her grandparents, Thaddeus and Hannah Beardsley Penfield are buried in the New Fairfield Town Center Cemetery.

Information obtained from the files of the New Fairfield Historical Society, Beers 1899 Commemorative Record of Fairfield County, and other sources.
 

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