"Dr. George Pell Carman, 72 years old, who had practiced all his life as a physician in Brooklyn, and was a member of a prominent old Brooklyn and Long Island family, died yesterday of diabetes and complications at his home, 590 Franklin Avenue. Dr. Carman retired from practice ten years ago, and for the past two years had been suffering from diabetes. Complications developed within the last two months, a crisis being reached last Wednesday morning, since which time his condition grew steadily worse until he died. He is survived by his widow and his two daughters, Miss Emma and Miss Edith, and a brother and a sister, Dr. A. B. Carman, a dentist of 133 Halsey Street, and Mrs. C.R. Cashow of the same address. The funeral will be conducted at the Carman home Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock by the Rev. Dr. William B. Wallace of the Baptist Temple. Cremation will follow.
Dr. Carman was born in Brooklyn in 1840, being a son of
Valentine Carman, who in his day was identified with public affairs, as have been the members of the family for many generations. He attended old Public School No.1, in Adams Street, and afterward Adelphi College, going to a medical college in the West from the latter institution.
Throughout his professional career, or since he began practicing in 1872, Dr. Carman had been greatly interested in providing hospital and dispensary facilities for the poor, and for fifteen years was house surgeon of the Brooklyn Eclectic Dispensary. He was a former president and only surviving member of the Brooklyn Academy of Medicine, one of the objects of which was the founding of a dispensary for the provision of medical aid for the poor.
Dr. Carman was descended from John and Florence Carman, who came from England and settled on a 10,000 acre grant from the King, at Hempstead in 1631. The family is of
great antiquity in England, being mentioned in the "Doomsday Book" as prominent in Wiltshire from 1042 to 1066. His Great-Great Grandfather, Stephen Carman, served twenty consecutive terms in the State Legislature, beginning in 1788 and being a member of the Convention at Poughkeepsie that ratified the Constitution of the United States. His Great-Grandfather,
Samuel S. Carman, was the first watchmaker and jeweler in Brooklyn, having learned his trade at the bench beside Robert Fulton, the inventor of the Steamboat. Samuel Carman became Brooklyn's first treasurer, and the story is handed down in the family how he used to retire with a flintlock musket leaning against his bed with the money bags under the mattress. Dr. Carman, by and interesting coincidence shortly before he died, met the last man who served as treasurer of Brooklyn before the City was merged into the
municipality with New York, and recited to him the story of the first treasurer's flintlock and moneybags."
