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Roger Viets while a citizen of Albany, lived in social seclusion, and aloof from the Society of his professional
brethren. His nearest neighbors knew nothing of his history, and he admitted none into intimate relation. No efforts have been spared to gain some definite knowledge of this man's birth place, and while before the mind of the writer, the form and appearance of Roger Yiets is as clear as that of Dominie Sampson, to the readers of Guy Mannering, the dates are wanting to define his entrance into and exit from the world. He became a member of the Medical Society in 1820, and used frequently to visit the library for books and publications. He was a tall man, of spare habit, and as uniform in his dress of cinnamon colored cloth, as a quaker in his brown. They were always the same unvarying garments, and seldom renewed, and never changed in style or color. He is said to have worn the same hat during the whole fifteen years that he lived in Albany. His manners were eccentric, retired, unsocial, everything that pertained to him was unlike the rest of mankind. Every person's recollection of him is that he was a "very odd man;" the expression is unanimous, so that upon inquiring relative to his birth, it was doubted if he was born as other men are. In the published report of the city's proceedings relative to cholera in 1832, there is an item
mentioned " To Dr. Viets for attending woman in confinement, $3.00," certainly not an exorbitant charge, if it was paid in full. He was active during the cholera excitement of 1832. Dr. Yiets's ofiice was on Washington Avenue. He was a man of intelligence, who however, never allowed any person to form an estimate of his knowledge by anything that he said. Dr. Yiets purchased certain military land tracts in Illinois, which became valuable, and he removed to that state, not far from 1834, where he died about 1852, or 1853.
"No further seek his merits to disclose."
