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lIlSTUJfY OF DENTAL SUKGEEY 85
purpose of cheering Tip niy comrades, especially the sick, and took every op-
portunity of making them comfortable as far as it was in my power."
lie then moved to Albany, from thence by water to lisopus and from
there marched to Newtown, Pennsylvania, and then to Trenton, New Jersey.
The day after the battle of Trenton, his term of enlistment Iiaving expired, he
made up his mind to quit the soldier's life and set out on his return to his pa-
rents in Boston. After a visit in his Boston home, lie again entered tlie service
and became a privateer's man, and served until the close of the war, after
which he settled in New York City. A friend helped him to start tlie busi-
ness of nautical and mathematical instrument making. As he proved him-
self a very skilled mechanic, a physician friend of his at one time asked him
to extract a tooth for one of his patients, which he did so satisfactorily that
this pliysician recommended him to others of his patients for lii
master all of its jiroblems. He must undoubtedly have gathered consider-
able information from tlie experience in the line of this profession which
obsei'vation of his father's practice and that of his brother made possible to
him. He did not confine himself to the usual routine of dental practice of
that day, but entered upon the broa
Whether an incident in liis early military career may not first Iiavc bronglit
him to the attention of General Washington, and formed an ac(|uaintance
that later became the professional introduction of Mr. (ireenwood. is prob-
lematical. Greenwood's niotb.er left Boston to get her boy out of tlie "rebel"
army, and was prevented from returning to Boston, for a number of weeks,
liy the Continental authoritic"' at Cambridge, until (ieneral Washington came
to take command of the army, when she ap])lied to him f(n- permission to re-
turn, wliicli was very graciously granted, but. it is said, against the vigorous
protest of many of the Massachusetts officers.
The first advertisement liy John Greenwood now known was published
in the "Daily Advertiser" of New York on February 28, HSG:
WHITE TEETH—A GREAT ORNA.MENT.
John Greenwood, (lenti?t. No. 190 Water Street, Encouraged by the success of his
practice, begs leave to acquaint the publick that he preserves the Teeth and Gums by-
removing an infectious Tartar, (etc).
In July 1T91 he removed to No. .5 Vesey street, and his removal carcl
published in tlie ''New Y'ork Weekly Museum" of July 28th of that vear savs:
