Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1265

NAME WILLIAMSON 1243 WILLIAMSON a large circle o£ friends. He was very active in organizing the Cambridge-Maryland Hos- pital and. after his death, the operating room in the hospital was equipped by his wife as a memorial to him. ^^^^^ ^^_ Goldsborough. Williamson, Hugh (1735-1819) In the year 1730 a clothier, one John Wilhamson, from Dublin, emigrated to Amer- ica and settled in Chester County, Pennsyl- vania, and the next year married an Irish girl, Mary Davison, from Derry, who in coming over as a little child was captured by Theach, known as the pirate Blackbeard. After this little bit of romance in her life she settled down with John, the clothier, and had four girls and six boys, Hugh being the eldest one, a most studious lad, with a great liking for mathematics. He was born in West Notting- ham, December 5, 1735. His father gave him a very good education and meant him to go to Europe, but the College of Philadelphia receiving its charter, he was sent there and took his A. B. when twenty-tw-o in 1757. The University of Pennsj-lvania gave him an A. M. in 1760 and an LL. D. in 1787. His first idea was to be a minister and he went so far as to become a licentiate, but a delicate chest and church disputes made him turn to another favorite st'udy, medicine. This serious, determined young man found his way to Edinburgh University, studying medicine there and in London and finally getting the M. D. of Utrecht in 1772. Then followed a verj' diversified life, writing with others con- cerning the transit of Venus in 1769, individ- ually propounding original theories concerning the comet of that year and so on to a pamphlet on the "Variation of Climate in North America," a remarkably observant paper which brought him honorary memberships from Hol- land and an LL. D. from another foreign uni- versity. Arrayed in new honors he took a new role, that of collecting with some colleagues funds from the West Indies and Britain for the Academy of Newark, Delaware. The King of England gave a liberal donation "notwith- standing his great displeasure towards his American subjects," for Williamson was the first to report the tea party in Boston Harbor and advise the Privy Council to use concilia- tory measures. Directly after, the war began and Williamson hearing of a clandestine cor- respondence detrimental to America being car- ried on between Hutchinson and leading members of the British Cabinet, by a bold ruse obtained the letters and sent them to Franklin, taking care to leave London the next day. But in the midst of these exciting events he found time for scientific experimentation with John Hunter and Franklin and read a paper before the Royal Society in London "On the Gym- notus Electricus or Electric Eel." On the declaration of independence he went back to Philadelphia and finding no army surgeonship open bought a trading sloop and did a little mercantile voyaging to the West Indies along with his brother from South Carolina, and while in the latter state was invited to New- bern to inoculate with the smallpox. In 1779 the merchant again became the doctor in real earnest as surgeon to the North Carolina Militia, doing valiantly for both conquerors and prisoners. Peace, and three years as a representative in the House of Commons of North Carolina; he was eloquent always and sent to Philadelphia as delegate to the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787. This piece of civic doc- toring accomplished he married Maria, daugh- ter of the Hon. Charles Ward Apthorpe, but she died when the younger of his two sons was only a few weeks old. The widower now devoted himself to his little boys and the writing of a big work on "Climate from a Medical Point of View" and on "The Fevers of North Carolina," and in 1812 appeared his 'big two-volumcd "History of North Caro- lina," all this done along with endless sci- entific papers and a "Report as Commissioner to Inquire into the Origin of the New York Yellow Fever Epidemic in 1805." The death of his beloved elder son in 1811 did not abate the zeal of a nearly heart-broken father for everything that could help his coun- try and state. He took refuge among his books when weary, yet with unabated intel- lectual vigor he reached the first month of his eighty-fifth year "the punctuality and abil- ity he had brought to his never decreasing duties being a continual source of surprise to his juniors." On May 22, 1819, while taking his customary ride, the heat of the day being unusually great, "he suddenly sank into a deliquium" and was dead before aid could be summoned. So ended the life of this man who was a preacher, philos- opher, scientist and physician. His biographer gives a little portrait of him as very tall, dig- nified, in some respects eccentric, and to people who displayed wilful ignorance or disregard to religious truth "his language and manners pos- sessed a degree of what might be denominated Johnsonian rudeness." Fortunately the John- sonian genius was his also. Davina Waterson. A Biog. Mem. of Hugh Williamson, D. Hoaack, N. Y., 1820. Port, in Surg.-Gen.'s Library, Wash., D. C.