It’s time for another installment of “Then & Now,” mostly because I’ll only get myself in trouble telling Elliot Spitzer jokes. By the way, Governor, next time, try this first.

For new readers, I have an ongoing project of digging up old photos of my home town of Little Compton, Rhode Island, that were taken many, many years ago, and replicating them by standing in the footsteps of those old photographers. It is a work in very slow progress because of a number of challenges, not the least of which is that I live about 1500 miles from the place.

In an earlier “Then & Now,” I mentioned an old photograph of a doctor carrying his black bag while on a probable house call in the town Commons. I wondered what sort of remedies might have been stored in that bag, and how he would have treated a patient whose symptoms included frequent urination, insatiable thirst, and rapid weight loss. Since then, I learned that the good doctor in the photo is Isaac B. Cowen, and as best I can gather, he lived a relatively short life from 1853 until 1886.

When Nancy and I were in Newport a few weeks ago, I took a drive over to my home town to re-shoot the scene in that old photo as it appears today. I tried doing it last summer, but the trees were so full that everything of importance was blocked out of view. This time, the results were a bit better, and you can see the stately home that continues to stand behind where the doctor and his carriage were positioned 124 years ago in the image from 1884.

In the original picture, Cowen is standing on the far left, in front of an elm tree near a white fence. If you look closely, you can make out his lamb chop sideburns. Way off in the background on the right is the peaked rooftop of Wilbur’s General Store. (My old home was precisely one mile from there.) Just as it is today, the Commons was a busy place back then, as several other folks, their horses, and even a couple of oxen are pictured along with Cowen.

The building behind Cowen is the Oliver C. Brownell House. Out of view on the south-facing side is its beautiful porch (that has since been enclosed) with palmette and anthemion iron cresting. For a time, the house was used as a post office, where locals slipped their correspondences into a mail slot on a door. Today, the white fence behind the doctor has been replaced by a well-crafted stone wall that stands between the street and what is now the Brownell-Bodington.

The wheels of another wagon can be seen in the background on the right side of the old photo. It was in this spot in August of 1982 that a local sobrietally-challenged fellow overheard me telling some friends about my recent diagnosis as a diabetic. He staggered over with the unsolicited, and somewhat slurred advice that “Your drinkin’ days are over, pal.”

I like to think Dr. Cowen would have offered more useful words even a century and a quarter ago.