Advertising in Heroic Couplets: Laughing Gas by Dentist W.J.A. DeLancey.

Dr. William J.A. DeLancey moved to Illinois from New England in 1858 to practice dentistry. Renowned for his good humor and amiable personality, DeLancey penned a seven-stanza poem in heroic couplets titled "Dental Surgery." These mock-heroic verses were published in about half of the Centralia Sentinel weekly newspapers issued in 1864. Inventor of a tooth powder and an electric dental motor, DeLancey became a statewide leader of Freemasonry. Unfortunately, both his vocational dental library and his avocational Masonic one were incinerated by a house fire in 1892. As a lifelong professional dentist, DeLancey was widely regarded as a true pillar of the communities and of the Masonic Temples in which he had served--first in Illinois (Galesburg and then Centralia) and finally in Williamsport, Indiana.