NEWMARKET -- Charles Brickett Bailey, M.D., 86, who served as a family doctor to five generations of patients along the New Hampshire seacoast, died Wednesday, Dec. 31, 1997 at Webster at Rye Nursing Home.

He was born in Newbury, Mass. on March 19, 1911, the son of the late Harold L. and Alice Miranda (Bartlett) Bailey of Salisbury, Mass.

In 1913, the family moved to Bradford, Vt. where Bailey's father, Harold, an entomologist, began work that led to his lifelong career in the Vermont Department of Agriculture. Growing up in a rural setting with a river view over the Connecticut River toward a range of the White Mountains, Charles Bailey developed an abiding love of wilderness areas and of outdoor activities including hiking, climbing, boating, fishing and gardening.

After graduating from Bradford Academy in 1929, he entered Tufts College, his father's alma mater in Medford, Mass., where he earned a bachelors of arts degree in chemical engineering in 1933. By then, he had decided to go into medicine and after fulfilling a biology requirement in a summer science program at the New Hampshire's Isles of Shoals, he entered the University of Vermont College of Medicine at Burlington. While there, he met Virginia Louise Carpenter who was in training to be a registered nurse at the Mary Fletcher Hospital. The two were married at her home in Waterbury, Vt. on June 15, 1937.

At a time when many medical doctors were beginning to specialize, Dr. Bailey chose a general practice and sought out a non-urban community in which to settle and raise his family. He selected Hampton, a town that was familiar to him through visits to relatives in that region. In 1938, he and his wife moved to Hampton and opened his doctor's office in their home. He joined the staffs of the Exeter and Portsmouth hospitals so that he could admit patients to both. During the next 14 years, they moved twice to large homes in Hampton to accommodate their growing family and his need for more office space. In the tradition of family doctors, Dr. Bailey treated patients as they arrived in his office, visited those who were housebound, and also responded to calls by day and night -- sometimes several of them in a single night. In 1942, he joined the U. S. Navy, and was assigned to duty at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Although proximity allowed him to carry on some of his private practice, his loss to the town was sorely felt and his patients mounted an appeal for his discharge, which was granted by the U. S. Navy in 1944.

In 1952, the family moved to nearby Hampton Falls where he continued to serve his patients in his office at home. Dr. Bailey was a member of the American Medical Association and the New Hampshire Medical Society. He took advantage of the refresher courses to learn about advances in medicine. He served a term as chief of staff of the Exeter Hospital and for many years was a director on the board of the Hampton Cooperative Bank. In May 1969, he received the American Legion Award in recognition of his many years of dedicated service.

Once his practice as well-established, Dr. Bailey began to set aside a few weeks each year so that he and his wife could travel the world, with children or friends, on expeditions that took them to Egypt and India, the South Pacific and the Galapagos Islands, Alaska, the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic, and numerous other places of exceptional natural beauty or historical interest in the United States and elsewhere. He showed remarkable facility for remembering details of what he had seen and learned on each trip.

Dr. Bailey retired from his medical practice in 1981 and continued to do much traveling, often including visits to his children and their families. In 1983, he received the Citizen of the Year Award from the Hampton Falls Grange and the Selective Service Award for his 30 years of service to his country.

In 1989, he and wife moved from Hampton Falls to Moody Point at Newmarket, where they kept a telescope in their picture window to keep track of the bird and animal life of an adjacent pond and an arm of Great Bay -- a scene he greatly enjoyed during the last eight years of his life. Late in 1996, he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. The warning gave many of his family members the opportunity to visit him and derive some comfort from his characteristically warm and loving disposition and his acceptance of approaching death after a life well-lived.

Dr. Bailey was a proud member of the families of William Henry Moody (1853-1917), Secretary of the Navy, Attorney General, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; of General Jacob Bayley, Revolutionary Patriot and an early settler of Newbury in what is now the State of Vermont, and of Josiah Bartlett, one of the first signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Family members include his wife of 60 years, Virginia (Carpenter) Bailey of Newmarket; two sons, Harold L. Bailey II of Hyde Park, Vt. and Charles C. Bailey of Leominster, Mass.; four daughters, Brenda Bailey Gruen of Palm City, Fla., Virginia Bailey Scharf of North Lawrence, N.Y., Nancy Bailey Doggett of Fort Worth, Texas, and Alice Bailey Burruss of Memphis, Tenn.; 17 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; two sisters, Elizabeth Bailey Heinz of Dorset, Vt. and Ursula Bailey Marvin of Cambridge, Mass.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited and may call from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday at Remick and Gendron Funeral Home, 811 Lafayette Road, Hampton.

The funeral service is at 2 p.m. Thursday at the First Baptist Church, Hampton Falls.

If desired, memorial donations may be made to Seacoast Hospice, 10 Hampton Road, Exeter, N.H. -03833.

HAMPTON — Largely attended services for Dr. Charles Brickett Bailey, of Newmarket, were held Thursday from the Remick & Gendron Funeral Home. Services were conducted in the First Baptist Church, Hampton Falls. The Rev. Kenneth G. Lawrence, pastor, officiated.

Barbara Flocco was the organist and pianist. Charles Brickett Bailey II, the deceased's grandson, was the soloist. The Rev. Deborah Burwell Knowlton and Dr. Ursula Bailey Marvin, sister of the deceased, offered words of remembrance.

Among those in attendance were many area physicians, former office staff of the deceased, and many former patients.

Private interment will be held at a later date.