Dr. Feelgood of Cottage City

Ringworns? Boils? Rheumatism? Backache? Melancholy? How about cholera? Whatever ailed you, back in the late 19^th century, there was nothing Diaphoretic Compound No. 59 couldn’t cure. At least for a little while. And why was that? Well, the elixir, like so many other so-called patent medicines of those days (most of which had no medical approval of any sort), was composed of 70% alcohol and the rest was bicarbonate of this and sodium of that and, stop the presses! opium! opium or any of its derivatives – laudanum, morphine, codeine.

Of course you felt better!

Dr. Harrison A. Tucker (1832 - 1894) was a solidly built man, with the full dark beard that was de rigueur in that era. He was described in a newspaper as a “man whom an earthquake would hardly incommode.” He first visited Cottage City in the 1860s as a camp meeting kinda guy. Then, his fortune exploding with sales of the Diaphoretic miracle tonic, he built the manor house on Ocean Park that all of us know and love today: it’s that pale yellow big boy with belvederes and a pointy tower, red slate roof-lines, cut-outs of dragons on the scrollwork of its balconies and, on top, a square-edged gazebo that looks like something designed by a Swiss chalet architect who'd imbibed too much of the old No. 59 at the drafting table.

Harvard Med School-trained Doc Tucker was a glad-handler and a socialite of staggering proportions. From 1872 when his big house went up, all the way through the early 1890s, it was Tucker who hosted the important parties, and it was Tucker who other hosts and hostesses contacted to see when they might fit in their own festivities edgewise. He sat on every committee, every trustee board, and presided over the deluxe Oak Bluffs Club (northeast waterfront corner of Ocean Park; fully twice as large as the house that sits there today), with its yachting events and its galas.

The hero of our story manufactured other tonics in addition to No. 59, and one of them had to be packed with another ready emolument of the day, cocaine! Only cocaine or a whacky metabolism could explain the volcanic energy that unleashed itself, not only in the man’s social life, but in his medical practice: Doc Tucker had simultaneous offices in Boston, Providence, Brooklyn and, in the summer, on Martha’s Vineyard. He charged $2 for a consultation. Bottles of No. 59 and other nostrums such as No. 46, a hair nutrifier, cost a buck for a large, fiddy cents for a small.

One interesting note about Dr. Tucker’s practice: He described his method as “eclectic” and believed he had an unusual gift, which he defined as a “supersense.” Today we would call him a medical intuitive, and such distinguished health practitioners as Carolyn Myss and Judith Orloff have given this psychical / medical advantage an aura of respectability.

Dr. Tucker was possibly a true healer.

And his patients’ infusions of opium didn’t hurt them none.

At the very least, that No. 59 was a darn-tootin’ great placebo.

In our local history books, Doc Tucker is best known as the man who saved the day when in August of 1874, sitting president Ulysses S. Grant flubbed his way into a social gaffe that was every bit as ruinous – potentially – as Monica Lewinsky’s navy blue dress proved nearly 125 years later for another Vineyard-vacationing president.

Grant had stepped off the steamer the River Queen, at the Highland Wharf, and was whisked away in a fancy wagon drawn by six horses to the Methodist Camp Ground. A flurry of ceremonies, services, and hundreds of day-trippers cheering and flocking to see the prez rounded out the weekend. Some little unpleasantness arose, however, in this famously teetotaling community when Grant, aroused from a nap in the midst of a sermon, tugged a flask from his pocket and took a good long swill. His host Bishop Haven evicted President Ulysses S. Grant from his cottage at 86 Clinton Avenue. Harrison A. Tucker of the luxurious 41 Ocean Avenue took him in.

The presidential fete was revitalized. At the doc’s behest, fireworks exploded across the nighttime sky. The crème de la crème of Cottage City society swept in by the scores even as buffet tables groaned with luscious foods of the Gilded Age like grilled turbot in hollandaise sauce, and pineapple and truffle salad. Champagne corks popped and, at some point in the evening, President Grant must have slurred, “Camp Groun’? What Camp Groun’? We had a big one in Appomattox . . . ”
It’s also amusing to think that, while the Roman candles exploded all around them and 600 lanterns, red, green and blue – cast flickering lights across their faces, Tucker may have dragged Grant aside and handed him a tumbler of his own special Victorian mai tai: lime juice, rum, Curacao and ice, with a splash of Diaphoretic Compound No. 59.

A cure-all for everything from chilblains to a commander-in-chief's hurt feelings.