John D. "Bonesetter" Reese was born in Wales in 1855 and
worked in a rolling mill there as a boy. After coming to
Youngstown in 1887, he worked in the Republic Iron Mills.
There were many tragic accidents and injuries in the
mills, due to the machinery which was imperfect and
sometimes dangerous.

He learned to treat his patients by observing surgeons
that were called to the mills when these unfortunate
events took place and eventually began to offer his
services when someone was injured and no other help was
available.  It seemed he had a natural knowledge of
bones, ligaments, musclesand nerves.  After a while, so
many people came to him seeking his skills that he left
his job at the mills and devoted himself solely to
treating strained and misplaced bones.
 
He studied the works of Percival Fox. Although he never
formally attended medical school, he was awarded an
honorary mecical degree in 1901 by the Ohio General
Assembly.  Dr. Reese was married to Sara Richards while
living in Wales and they had five children: Polly, Sarah,
Elizabeth, Katheryn and Gertrude.  He was a member of
the Welsh Congregational Church and was a 32nd degree
Mason.
 
When Dr. Reese died in 1931, Clarence J. Strouss, the
department store owner, was quoted as saying "He was
perhaps the best known man that ever lived in Youngstown,
and this city was best known through the United States
as the home of Bonesetter Reese."  His death was reported
by the New York Times, and on the front page of
newspapers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and
Boston.
 
Reese said he was always bothered by the name Bonesetter.
"Fractures are something I do not care to treat, although
I do  it occasionally," he said. "Strains and dislocations
are what I try to cure."  He learned his profession,
which today would be comparable to chiropractic medicine,
as an apprentice in Wales.
 
"The man from whom I learned what I know of bonesetting
was  named Jones and he came from a long line of
bonesetters," Reese related.  "I lived with him until I
was in my 20s. During that time, I often studied far
into the night, after doing my regular work all day. For
many years I spent my evenings studying how to take care
of injuries to bones, joints, muscles and ligaments. My
idea was simply to learn enough to take care of myself
and my family.  When I came to this country [1887], I
got work in a mill; but so many people kept coming to me
that I could not do both, and knowing that they would
still keep coming, I gave up the mill."
 
As the story was told, then retold often with differing
details, Reese's reputation took hold when he was working
at the Brown-Bronnel Mill as a roller's helper. One day
he came upon a man injured from falling off a scaffold,
discovered that his shoulder had been dislocated and
manipulated it back into place. By 1891, his feats had
drawn the notice of The Vindicator, which reported that
Reese had cured a Struthers boy who could not walk.
Readers were intrigued ­ and physicians were angered at
praise for this "charlatan." Other newspapers quickly
discovered the power of Bonesetter's celebrity, and the
lure of stories about his ability to work "miracles."
 
"He is an enigma to all the physicians of the country,
who cannot understand his natural ability to straighten
out twisted bones and replace misplaced muscles and
ligaments," reported the Pittsburgh Leader in 1904.
"From a poor laborer in the steel mills, Reese has risen
to a man of fortune, and the city of Youngstown has
gained a reputation throughout the country as the home
of the 'Bonesetter.' "

In the 1920s and 1930s, as the Youngstown Telegram and
The Vindicator battled for readers, the sob-sister
rivals, Esther Hamilton and Ella Kerber Resch, sold
newspapers with glowing accounts of Bonesetter's cures
and the famous people he treated. The Vindicator's Resch
scooped the Telegram's Hamilton when comedian Will Rogers
 came to town in 1925 to appear before the Monday Musical
Club and revealed that Reese had treated him in 1911.
"I'll bet Bonesetter could fix a broken neck in two
minutes," Rogers told Resch.
 
Hamilton found other angles to mine. "David Lloyd George,
the leonine figure of the world war, the only single
dignitary who survived in the days when thrones crumbled
and rulers lost their power overnight, testifies to the
skill that is in Reese's fingers," she reported in 1926.
"The former British prime minister, visiting this
country, had his hand twisted out of proper shape by so
much handshaking.  At beck and call were the foremost
physicians and surgeons.   He tried them.  They could do
nothing. He went to Bonesetter Reese, who took his hands,
seized his fingers with his own peculiarly endowed ones,
gave a twist and cured him."
 
Sportswriters also had an ample supply of stories to keep
Bonesetter's legend growing. In the early decades of the
20th century, Reese treated boxer Gene Tunney and more
than 50 of Major League baseball's top players. His
patients included hall of famers Cy Young, Grover
Cleveland Alexander, Max Carey, Ty Cobb, Kiki Cuyler,
Roger Hornsby, Walter Johnson, John McGraw and his
favorite, Pittsburgh Pirate Honus Wagner."I can remember
sitting on the swing on the front porch at his house on
Park Avenue and seeing people go into my grandfather's
house with a cane or crutches ­ he had his office right
in the home ­ and it was a marvelous experience to see
them come back out carrying their cane or crutches,"
recalls Sarah Jane McVey Patterson, 87, who lives in
Atlanta. "That's how my grandfather performed his
miracles ­he could make people make  walk again."
 
"We spent every Sunday when the weather was warm on
grandfather's porch," remembers another granddaughter,
Kathryn Johns Strickler, 90, who makes her home in East
Lansing, Mich. "There was a wonderful swing there, and
he had his big easy chair and people would come down the
street looking for Bonesetter Reese. Aunt Gertrude would
meet them at the door, and say he doesn't see patients
on Sunday. Their reply always was, 'We have to work the
rest of the week and we can only come on Sunday. And
sure enough, in the background we'd hear my grandfather
say, 'Gertrude, I'll take care of it,' and they'd come
on in."
 
Gertrude Reese Bond sold the his house on Park Avenue in
1977. The mausoleum he built, finally filled with the
January 2000 burial of one of his granddaughters, stands
tall in Oak Hill Cemetery, a testament to his prominence
inscribed only with the family name, Reese.