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Obituary- Gabbey, Robert

Dr. R.S. Gabbey
As each and all, in turn, at last, must fade beneath Death’s sombre wing, so Dr. R.S. Gabbey, who for nearly half a century past has been closely identified with the progress of this city and county, has bowed to the blast of fate and passed into the great beyond. His demise oc¬curred Friday evening, January 25, 1900. It was the close of a most remarkable life.

Dr. Gabbey was a many-sided man—-a man of science, a man of letters, possessed of many accom¬plishments, of varied learning, of multifarious tastes. He chose early in life the medical profession, grad¬uating from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, March, 1855, and in a way he “practiced medi¬cine” all his days, even to the de¬clining hour of his eventful life, and so whatever else he was, and what¬ever he interested himself in, litera¬ture, scientific research, invention, he was always the good doctor. He was fond and proud of Rossville and was ever ready to champion her best interests. He was broad mind¬ed and liberal to a fault. He attain¬ed, it is safe to say, all the fame he desired; he practiced what he preached, to enjoy life and not to fear death.
Although he took the keenest in¬terest in his profession and had the profoundest knowledge of the hu¬man body, Dr. Gabbey was by na¬ture endowed with great inventive genius and he produced many inven¬tions on which he obtained letters patent. During the past decade he gave much study to the problem of aerial navigation and his work along that line attracted favorable notice from men of science throughout the world, the Scientific American and other technical journals accepting his advanced theories on the per¬plexing problem with due consider-ation of their plausibility and value.
Dr. Gabbey was of Scotch descent and was born May 4, 1833, at Cannonsburg, Pa. He graduated at Jefferson College in his native town in the class of 1852, and in 1854 he married Miss Annie Weldon at Columbus, O., returning to Pennsylvania and graduating from Jefferson Medical College the following year. In 1857 he was appointed by Presi¬dent Buchanan physician to the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians, who then occupied a reservation thirty miles square in this vicinity. He served in this capacity for seven years and in 1864 he crossed the plains with an emigrant train in quest of Mon¬tana gold, alluring stories of fabu¬lous discoveries having reached and startled this then sparsely settled section of Kansas. In Montana the doctor became a star route mail contractor and established the first im¬portant stage line in the territory. Two years later he returned to Kansas and secured a fine farm imme¬diately east of this city. He was the first justice of the peace in Rossville township, and he was pleased to relate that his bond in that offi¬cial capacity was just one cent. He served four terms and was twice appointed postmaster.
The funeral services were held at the family residence in this city at 10 o’clock a.m. last Sunday and were conducted by Rev. J.G. Maver, assisted by Rev. J.S. Caruthers. An intimate friendship of twenty-three years had endeared the deceas¬ed doctor to Rev. Maver, who paid a beautiful and most touching trib¬ute to the departed one. His words carried genuine consolation to the afflicted relatives, who know that the tender ties shall never perish and that the vanished form shall brightly live on memory’s page.
The surviving members of the family consist of the aged widow and son Albert W. of this city, E.F. Gabbey and Mesdames R.W. Gutshall and Alice McCabe of Pu¬eblo, Col., all of whom were pres¬ent at the final parting with all that was mortal of a beloved husband and father.

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