Stayed in Elderbrook through the cholera summer of 1854 when others left.
Augustus Penhale arrived from Cornwall in 1849 as Elderbrook's second doctor. When cholera reached the town in July 1854 the first doctor left for Toronto. Penhale stayed, turned the Temperance Hall into a fever ward and lost 41 patients in nine weeks. He also saved, by the register's count, more than 200.
He pushed the council to build a proper town well and drain the low end of Mill Street, which ended the outbreaks for good. The Penhale Fountain on the town square, now dry, was paid for by public subscription after his death.