My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM J. CRONYN, M.D., a prominent and leading physician and surgeon of Dunkirk, and Surgeon-General of the Grand Army of the Republic of the State of New York in 1885, was born in the province of Ontario, Canada, November 15, 1848, and is a son of Robert and Margaret Cronyn. In the history of Ireland, as far back as the Cronyn family can be traced, it was always opposed to England and English rule in the Emerald Isle. David Cronyn, the paternal grandfather of Dr. Cronyn, was a large land owner in County Cork, Ireland, where he died in 1834, aged sixty years. One of his sons was Robert Cronyn (father), who was educated at the Dublin University, which differed in one important respect from its great sister universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for while they consisted of several colleges, it has but one college, “The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.” It was founded in 1591, and has given to the United Kingdom some of her most illustrious and distinguished sons. Robert Cronyn, after he left the University, resided in County Cork until 1837 when, on account of political troubles he started for the United States, but was prevailed on by friends whom he found in Ontario, Canada, to settle in that province, where he died in 1852, aged fifty- two years. He was a fine classical scholar, a pleasant and courteous gentleman, and a Scottish Rite Mason. His widow, Margaret Cronyn, was a native of the city of Bandon, Ireland, and died in Ontario in 1882, when in the sixty-ninth year of her age.

William J. Cronyn was educated in the Monks’ schools of his native province, and in 1864, at fifteen years of age enlisted in Co. A, 30th Michigan Infantry, in which he served until he was honorably discharged at the close of the late war. In 1867 he commenced to read medicine with his uncle, Professor John Cronyn, now president of the Medical Faculty of Niagara University, and entered the Sisters of Charity Hospital and the medical department of the University of Buffalo, from which he was graduated in 1870. In the same year he came to Dunkirk, where he soon established himself in a good practice, which has been continually increasing ever since. He was absent from Dunkirk from 1873 to 1876, during which period he was an assistant surgeon in the United States Navy, and served at the Boston navy yard; the Norfolk naval hospital; on the U. S. Sloop of war Constellation, cruise of ‘74; and had the full medical charge for some months of the iron-clad fleet off Pensacola, Fla., in ‘75-’6. Upon his return in 1876 to Dunkirk, he established the Dunkirk Tribune, which he edited for one year. He resides in a beautiful residence on the corner of Deer street and Fifth Avenue, which he erected in 1882.

Dr. Cronyn is a republican in politics, has been a member of the common council, board of education, supervisor, etc., and has frequently served his party as a delegate to County and State conventions, besides having been favorably mentioned in the county Republican press of late years as a suitable and desirable candidate for Congress. He is a member of Dunkirk Lodge, No. 767, F. & A. M., and Rochester Consistory Scottish Rite Masonry, in which he has taken the thirty-second degree. He is also a member of the Mystic Shrine, Ismalia Temple, Buffalo, N. Y. Dr. Cronyn, when Stevens Post, No. 393, G. A. R., of Dunkirk, was organized, was elected as its first commander, and afterward served a second term in that office. During 1885 he was Surgeon-General of the G. A. R., for the State of New York, and in 1886, received the appointment of Aide-de-Camp on the national staff under Commander-in-Chief Burdette. The following year he was commissioned as aid to General Fairchild, Commander-in-Chief. He has served as secretary and treasurer of the Chautauqua County Medical Society, and was also chairman of the board of censors of that body. In an account of Dr. Cronyn, which appeared in the press in 1890, we find the following tribute to him as a man and a physician: “His manly qualities and his splendid intellectual gifts, deeply rooted in his character shine forth, without any effort on his part to display them, and his fellow practitioners of Dunkirk say that he is the leading physician and surgeon of that city.” Dr. Cronyn is a man of fine personal appearance, who favorably impresses all who come in contact with him by his honesty and straightforwardness.