Biography of Dr. John Newbrough
John Ballou Newbrough was born on 5 June 1828 near Mohicanville, Ohio, in a log cabin. His father, William Newbrough, was an Englishman who had attended William and Mary College; his mother, Elizabeth Polsky, was Swiss and attracted to spiritualism. Their son was named for the universalist clergyman Hosea Ballou. Newbrough's father was a stern man, flogging his son when the latter "began to receive spirit messages"; his schooling (he went to high school in Cleveland) were paid for by his mother and him selling wool and eggs. He graduated from Cincinnati Medical College, but being highly sensitive to pain and suffering he chose dentistry, setting up practice first in Dayton, then Cincinnati, and then New York City. He ran into trouble with the Goodyear Rubber Company after he developed a much cheaper compound to set teeth in dental plates than the one produced by Goodyear, which dominated the market. He was sued for patent infringement, but when the verdict was handed down in his favor, after he had supposedly consulted with spirits who visited him at dawn, he saw that as confirmation of his spiritual future.
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