HENRY L. BULLIONS

Young Bullions graduated from Union College At Schenectady, New York, with honors and began the study of Medicine in the office of Dr. Blatchford of Troy. Graduating from Albany Medical College in 1853, he served as House Surgeon at the Troy Hospital.

In hopes that the climate of the Sandwich Islands would prove beneficial to his health, Dr. Bullions came to Honolulu aboard the "Living Age" in October, 1854. As early as February of the following year, Dr. Bullions and Dr. Seth Porter Ford formed a partnership in the establishment of City Hospital, located at the corner of Kaahumanu and Queen streets. In the first notice of the hospital, appearing February 17, 1855, in the "Polynesian", they not only solicit the patronage of "Strangers visiting the Islands" and residents but make a strong plea for seamen patients by promising that in the event of the master of a ship being forced to discharge a seaman because of illness the three months' extra wages required by the U.S. government will be accepted as payment in full of any claims upon the ship or the master. And to further support this bid for such cases, the doctors state in the notice that they are prepared to post bonds with the U.S. consul to prevent a seaman received into the City Hospital from becoming a charge upon the government. By April 14, 1855, the City Hospital notice is run for the first time without Dr. Bullion's name. The hospital did not prove to be a paying proposition, and we are left to wonder if this caused him to withdraw. In any case, by the following October Dr. Bullions is listed as one of the six physicians on the staff of the Honolulu Marine Hospital established by Dr. George Lathrop.

Taking passage on the "Ocean Telegraph" bound for New York February 26, 1856, the doctor left the Islands to return to Troy where he opened his office. However, the climate of New York proved too severe and the doctor returned to Honolulu in November, 1857. The "Advertiser" of November 12,1857, says: "We would call especial notice to the card of Dr. H.L. Bullions, M.D. in another column, to such as may require his professional services. To our old residents it is needless to commend him. Strangers will find him to be not only a skillful physician, but a gentleman, and reasonable in his charges". Following the custom of those days, Dr. Bullions had a drug store in connection with his office, and from time to time he advertised such items as furniture polish and "neat and economical apparatuses for manufacturing soda water, sparkling lemonade and wines, just the thing for family use".

Hawaii's mild climate could not halt inroads of consumption, and in July, 1858, Dr. Bullions sailed for San Franciso. It was with difficulty and only through the aid of kind friends that he managed to get home where he died at the age of 26.

The "Advertiser" quoting from an updated article in the Troy, New York, paper ran the following in their December 23,1858, edition: "In the death of Henry L. Bullions our city has lost a young man of true goodness of heart and nobility of soul. Possessed of an engaging person, affable manners and a cultivated mind, few young men were more universally esteemed. Had he lived, he would have achieved a high name in the noble profession he espoused and in the cause of science and humanity".

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