Dr. Nicholas T. Schilling

By Marie Hughes  

The Texas pioneer doctors serving the Texas frontier during the 1800s were a great source of hope for early settlers, as towns were widespread and hospitals were rare indeed. Many were self-taught, gaining hard-earned knowledge through mail order medical books and their personal successes and failures. Some fledgling doctors were lucky enough to find a doctor to study under. Chambers County was blessed to have Dr. Nicholas Schilling, a highly respected doctor in our area who received a formal education before arriving in Texas. Regardless of his educational status, he never elevated himself above his neighbors, but was known by all for his humility and benevolence.

Born in Bavaria, Germany in 1845, he moved to America, settling in Maryland when he was just a baby. After serving in the Maryland Cavalry, he attended Chicago Medical College (Now Northwestern University Medical School) receiving his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1872. In 1874, he relocated to Texas. His practice was centered mostly in Cedar Bayou and West Chambers County. He always sported a goatee beard and the local children described him as looking like Santa Claus, with the exception, that is, of the black patch he always wore over his blinded eye. The poorest of his patients received the same concerned care as the wealthiest, accepting produce as his fee from those unable to pay, and sometimes just a home-cooked meal. Others paid by doing odd jobs like chopping firewood or mending fences. 

Possibly one of the finest and most complete examples of the workings of the medical profession during the late 1800s and early 1900s is preserved for future generations in the original office building of Dr. Nicholas Schilling, now located in Anahuac. Schilling was a typical doctor of his day, diagnosing his patients without the benefits of the now-available testing techniques and treating them with medicines he concocted in his own laboratory. According to Schilling’s records, he treated between three and twelve patients daily, some in his two-story pine and cypress clinic which was located on the Chambers County banks of Cedar Bayou and others, in their homes, to which he traveled on horseback. Some of these excursions took the doctor to what then were considered somewhat far away communities including Mont Belvieu and Sheldon. Schilling, a native of Bavaria, Germany, was born in 1845. When he was about three months old, his parents moved the family to the United States, eventually settling in Maryland. As a young man, Schilling enlisted in the Union Army in 1864, as a shoemaker, serving until he was discharged the next year, according to W. Everett Dupuy, a Houston attorney and nephew of the pioneer doctor. Based on communications between Dupuy and the Chambers County Historical Commission, there is apparently little information regarding Schilling's life in the immediate years after the Civil War, except that most of his family moved to Iowa and Illinois, where most of the Schilling family lives today. In about 1872 he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from Chicago Medical College, the present-day Northwestern University Medical School.  According to the correspondence from Dupuy, shortly preceding his 1874 move to Cedar Bayou, Schilling suffered the loss of an eye as the result of a hunting accident and was jilted by a girl he had been engaged to marry. Lacking money necessary to set up his medical practice upon his arrival, Schilling worked in a Cedar Bayou brickyard. He continued doing menial labor until his medical skills were 'discovered' by area residents when he doctored someone hurt in an accident. Schilling first practiced medicine out of the back of a local store. 

In 1883, Dr. Schilling married Linna Gaillard, whose brother, John, owned land in the Goose Creek oil field. Linna Gaillard Schilling taught school at Barbers Hill in 1880. She and Dr. Schilling had two children, John Gaillard Schilling, 1885-1954, and Annie Schilling, 1887-1966. John followed in his father's footsteps and became a doctor, graduating from Galveston Medical School in 1909. He worked alongside his father until 1917. He later moved to Houston where he was a well-known physician and surgeon. Linna considered it her duty and responsibility to remain at home whenever her husband was tending to patients. She acted as his secretary, advising patients who came in search of him of his whereabouts when he was making a house call. If patients had traveled a great distance, she would provide lodging for them in her home so they could be close at hand when the doctor returned. She entertained many patients at her dinner table if they were there during mealtime. She was a kindly good person who raised chickens on the Schilling land, sold eggs, churned butter, and delighted the family with her special fruitcakes on holidays. 

Schilling filled his office with the latest in medical technology, subscribed to medical journals, used his microscope to do blood smears, and stocked his pharmacy with opium, quinine, belladonna, and strychnine. Many of the medical books used by Schilling can be found at the Historic Schilling Office Building in Anahuac next to the Historic Chambers House. Records the doctor kept on his patients, their reported symptoms, as well as his prescribed treatments, are being preserved by the county's historical commission as well. Stacks of medical journals subscribed to by Schilling, indicating he kept up with all the latest advances, have also been saved. He treated dreaded diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, measles, and pneumonia. 

The story is told of an old friend he worked with at the brickyard showing up one day with his half-breed wife and five children. Dr. Schilling hadn't seen his friend, Joe Walters in 30 years, as Joe moved 15 miles northwest to Sheldon right after marrying his wife. That was a pretty long drive in a horse and buggy in those days. Joe made the long buggy drive as he was worried about his family's health and knew his good friend; Dr. Schilling was the best around. Dr. Schilling took them into his clinic and after his examination told Joe he believed they had malaria. He mixed up some medicine that was supposed to cure malaria and sent Joe back to Sheldon telling him he would travel to their place in the morning to check on them. That is exactly what Dr. Schilling did, because that's the kind of doctor and person he enjoyed being. "The old man knew he wouldn't get a penny," said J. B. Gourlay, 65 years later. "He knew he might get dinner, but not a penny!"