Notes
Alice's life story from beginning to end.

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The Persistence of Mrs. Joe Person

A developer of patent medicine, a musician, a lady ahead of her time... spurned by some, admired by many.

By T. H. PEARCE

Before the science of medicine had reached its present advanced state and before physicians were as widespread as today, "patent medicines" played an almost unbelievable role in the treatment of illness. Some of the medicines were based on sound theory and made of ingredients still in wide use in the compounding of medicines. Others, developed solely to make a quick profit, were of no possible benefit.

Being a native Franklin countian, I had always heard of Mrs. Joe Person's remedy and knew that she had been a member of a prominent county family and once lived in the beautiful house now owned and occupied by the L. W. McGhee family, north of Franklinton.

My interest was really aroused, however, when I was writing a history of the county a few years ago. As I looked over old newspapers, I found ads for Mrs. Person's remedy, testimonials to its value, accounts of picnics and parties at her home "Greenwood," and mention of her musical accomplishments, all of which sparked my interest in her career.

Had circumstances not dictated otherwise, it is highly likely that Alice Person would have lived out her life as a typical gracious hostess, devoted wife and mother on a prosperous plantation.

"Not A Care"

She was born and reared in Petersburg, Virginia, where she lived until she married Joseph A. Person in 1857. After the wedding, Person brought his bride to his beautiful country home located on a hill overlooking Tar River, about 4 miles north of Franklinton. Both of the newly-weds were members of old and prosperous families.

To quote Mrs. Person's own words, from a journal in the possession of her great-granddaughter, Mrs. Louise Stephenson of Raleigh, N.C., "Not a care, not a responsibility, not a thought or fear for the future did I have." As was the case with so many other southern families of the period however, the future held hardship and sorrow.

The first test of Alice Person's character came as a result of The War Between the States. Joseph Person raised a company of volunteers and left to serve the Confederacy. Alice, left to look after the plantation and her small children, managed admirably.

Because of an old injury to his leg, badly broken when he was fox hunting, Joe Person was soon discharged. Before long he suffered a severe stroke that partly disabled him and created an even heavier burden on Alice.

An Amazing Cure

One of their daughters became ill with scrofula, a type of tuberculosis of the lymph glands that was common in the days before cows were tested for the disease, and milk was pasteurized. The physician said he had done all he could and that the child probably would not last until the next day.

As Mrs. Person watched over her desperately ill daughter she was visited by an old woman who told her she had come to cure the child. She knew the ingredients for a medicine an old Indian had given to her father, that would cure scrofula. The distraught mother's inclination was not to submit her daughter to any more medicine, but impressed by the woman's earnestness and driven to the point of being willing to try anything that might help, she agreed and accompanied her to the woods to gather the herbs needed for the medication.

Following the woman's directions, the medicine was prepared and given to the patient throughout the night, though Mrs. Person said she had no faith in its ability to help.

By morning the child was markedly improved and in three weeks she was well!

This was the origin of Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy!

[Caption] Photograph of Mrs. Joe (Alice) Person from the front of her journal, owned by her granddaughter, Mrs. Louise Stephenson of Raleigh.

Things seemed to improve somewhat from this point. Some semblance of normality returned. Joseph was able to look after the farming to a limited degree, though they had to sell portions of their extensive holdings to pay expenses.

Mrs. Person never forgot the powers of the remedy given to her by the old lady, and every time she heard of a case of illness similar to the one that had stricken her daughter, she made a batch of it and sent it to them. "I never failed to cure a single case," she said. It was soon known as "Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy."

As people heard of the remedy they wrote, enclosing money for the medicine until it became the source of a considerable income.

Spurned By Doctors

With a determination to make her remedy available to everyone, she told her husband she was going to Raleigh to offer it to the medical profession free of charge.

Her husband warned that she was being naive and the medical profession would have nothing to do with her or her remedy. But, "spurred on by the purest of motives", Alice Person was not to be discouraged.

She called on several Raleigh physicians and offered free treatment of their scrofula patients in return for recognition by the doctors that her cure was

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legitimate. Finally she found one doctor who was willing to examine her test cases.

Armed with this she inserted the following ad in the Raleigh News & Observer and Evening Visitor.

A Card

In order to prove to the medical fraternity and the public generally, that my Remedy is an infallible cure for all diseases of a scrofulous taint, or impurities of the blood, I propose to submit it to a public test in the city of Raleigh, N.C. and most respectfully ask those afflicted with scrofula, or kindred diseases to meet me at the Yarborough House on March 16, 1882, from 9 o'clock A.M. to 12 N, and from 2 to 4 P.M. bringing with them their physician's certificate that their disease is scrofula, when they will be cured free of charge. The physicians are invited m bring forward their incurable cases. Correspondence may be opened with me at address given below. I am - Very truly - MRS. JOE PERSON, Franklinton, N.C.

As a result of the ad, she got the test cases, and, after the doctor repeated his willingness to examine them, she told the patients to assemble at the Yarborough House.

No Show

Came the appointed time, the patients were on hand, but the doctor failed to appear.

On March 17, at 4 P.M. the patients were again on hand at the Yarborough house, but instead of the doctor Mrs. Person received a hand-carried letter that read,

Mrs. Joe Person: Madam,

After careful deliberation on the propriety of examining the subjects sent you for treatment, I am convinced that it would be wrong, and must therefore decline. In the first place, a public test of a secret patent medicine is not feasible. Second, you are pursuing a course just adversely to the admonition extended to you by other physicians. If I examine anybody for you now, I, of course, connive at the effort to enrich the owner of a patent secret remedy. To show you that I am friendly disposed to you, ask me to do something else, that I may manifest it.

Very truly yours

J-M-, M.D.X.

She still believed the doctor was sincere, and she called on him once more to tell him that her desire was to give the remedy to the world through the medical profession; that she wished to do this in person at the State Medical Convention to be held in Concord on May 11, 1882. She wanted to be introduced there by the medical fraternity of Raleigh and given a chance to prove her claims.

Denied Again

The doctor assured her that if her cure really worked, that her not being a doctor would be no barrier to her receiving honors and discussion in medical journals. So, once again she told her story privately to leading physicians. At the medical board meeting, however, she was denied a hearing, a seeming betrayal about which she complained bitterly in her journal.

In the meantime she began to receive more and more orders for "Mrs. Person's Remedy." She had tried to give the medication to the medical profession and been rebuffed, now she would sell it. The right means of distributing the remedy could bring a fortune to her and her family. There was no doubt of its effectiveness as proved by the many unsolicited testimonials.

The Charlotte Venture

Her spirits having recovered somewhat from the cavalier treatment of the Raleigh medical fraternity, one morning in the fall of 1882 she boarded the train in Franklinton, determined to find a large scale distributor for her remedy in the "Queen City" of Charlotte.

She called on wholesale distributors without luck, finding that while "Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy" was well known elsewhere no one had heard of it in Charlotte. She carried printed circulars and visited from house to house in residential sections but did not sell a single bottle of her medicine. She returned to Franklinton discouraged, not realizing the slow success that would occur.

Two weeks passed and then she started receiving orders from Charlotte. The first wholesaler she had visited requested an initial shipment of two dozen bottles, then a doctor ordered two dozen more. Her trade was established and resulted in the sale of thousands of bottles in Charlotte, as well as other areas and towns in the state.

"Greenwood" became a center of social life in the Franklinton area when Mrs. Person was not away on one of her "promotion" trips. Invitations to parties, balls, and picnics there, were valued by residents of Franklin and surrounding counties and reported in the press.

[Caption] "Greenwood," home of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Person until it was sold to pay debts in 1884. It is located about four miles north of Franklinton and is owned and occupied by W. L. McGhee. The house was renovated to its present-day Victorian appearance by the present owner's grandfather, W. L. McGhee, and is on the National Register of Historic Sites.

Business Expands

Had she been content to operate on this scale, it is probable that her fortunes would have continued to increase modestly, but she foresaw greater possibilities for her medicine.

In May 1883 she was contacted by a group of Pennsylvania men who wanted to buy rights to her remedy, promote it, and pay her a royalty. She signed a contract with them, but they did not carry out their promises. Years later she was awarded $1,250 in damages in a resulting law suit.

Finding that production of her remedy was simply too much for one person, she accepted an offer from a Charlotte man to enter into partnership with her. She would furnish the formula

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and some 2,000 bottles of the remedy on hand and continue the work of promoting and selling it. Her new partner looked after the bookkeeping, purchasing supplies, etc.

[Caption] Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy.

The business grew. While on a business trip in April of 1884, she was called home by the distressing news that her long disabled husband had passed away. After sometime back at "Greenwood" she felt that she needed more than ever to promote the sale of her remedy.

Attacked By A Minister

A Methodist minister wrote a letter to the Raleigh Evening Visitor in which he accused her of abusing the physicians of Raleigh and making unsavory promotions. Mrs. Person was deeply hurt by this attack on her by a stranger.

On April 29, 1884, she wrote a reply. A copy of this letter is in her journal, mentioned before: "Clothed in your ministerial garb, you have uttered a slander which, divested of it, you would never have dared to utter. Your attack was upon one quietly pursuing the vocation which duty had assigned her-one who never did you a harm. You dealt a blow calculated to injure one you thought powerless to defend herself."

She provided a list of names of persons who would attest to her character, including some of the state's most prominent and respected people. Even the accuser's brother supported her, but no apology was forthcoming.

Mrs. Person Defended

Many other prominent people did write to the Evening Visitor in defense of Alice Person. One of these was the noted writer of the period, Mary Bayard Clarke, of New Bern. She mentioned that Mrs. Person had attempted to give her discovery to the medical profession and said that, "Every woman who, like Mrs. Person, is working for the support of her family, ought to rise, not in her defense ... but in self defense."

She added that the only reason she could think of that might have caused the minister to write such a letter was his having "bad blood," in which case he might benefit from a dose of Mrs. Person's Remedy.

As Mrs. Person wrote of the affair in her journal, "The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse."

Another Betrayal

Sales of the remedy boomed. The indomitable Mrs. Person was on the road almost constantly promoting and selling. She sold the remedy to physicians, jobbers, merchants and individuals. This was the era before high powered advertising. Personal contact was needed and this is what she gave to the partnership. Thousands of bottles were sold. She thought once more that her business was proceeding with great success. She did the selling while her new partner looked after the bookkeeping.

But one day she was confronted by a supplier who accused her of not paying her bills. Upon investigation, she discovered that the business was virtually broke, her partner having apparently lost all the money she had taken in.

Mrs. Person knew that she had been robbed, but was determined that he would not get control of her remedy. She called on a Charlotte physician who knew the value of her medicine as well as that of her character. He immediateley offered to put up the money needed to pay off the debt and buy the materials to make a new supply of the remedy. She then forced a dissolution of the partnership.

Again she went on the road to sell and promote her remedy. Testimonials flooded in. Moving to the eastern part of the state, she found that the market for the remedy grew and once more the work made her amenable to a partnership offer. This one was a little different though. Having once come close to losing her trademark and formula, she wanted any new contract drawn to assure that in the event the partnership was dissolved for any reason, she still retained title.

"Greenwood Sold"

As a result of her earlier, unfortunate partnership, she had been unable to pay off the mortgage on "Greenwood" so in the fall of 1884 she sold the estate for the face value of the mortgage.

She moved to a smaller place in Kittrell, a few miles north of "Greenwood". All her debts were liquidated with the sale of her farm. She had taken care of and educated her family, and at this period of her life she was again able to resume the music that had given her and her friends such pleasure in her early days.

At the Raleigh Exposition, forerunner of today's State Fair, some friends asked her to play her old tunes at a musical exhibition. A crowd gathered and, hearing her play, the owners of a Richmond music house made her an offer to play for them and demonstrate their pianos at fairs to be held that fall. She accepted the offer. This gave her a chance to travel, promote her remedy, and earn money doing what she loved, playing the piano.

Music And Medicine

The rest of her career combined music and medicine. She performed at fairs and expositions across the south, Dallas, Richmond, Atlanta, Raleigh, Charlotte and elsewhere, demonstrating pianos. At other times she travelled the roads of North Carolina selling her remedy as well as some of her own music compositions. She was one of the state's best known women. It would be hard to say whether she was better known for her remedy or her music.

The Knoxville, Tenn. Sentinel described her as a "unique musical genius", while the Dallas, Texas, Morning News wrote, "Mrs. Joe Person is one of the most accomplished pianists that has ever visited Dallas."

There are a number of interesting anecdotes collected in Mrs. Person's journal written between 1892 and her death in 1913. These, indeed the entire journal, make interesting reading. It is hoped that someone will prevail on Mrs. Stephenson to have it published for sale to the public. It deserves a place in North Carolina history.

Scrofula is virtually unknown today. We no longer drink raw milk; and we have new drugs, perhaps based on ingredients that were in Mrs. Person's remedy. One thing is sure, the world would be a better place if there were more people like Mrs. Joe (Alice) Person.

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