Dates: 1772-1855
Notes: ALEXANDER, ASHTON
Baltimore physician; born near Alexandria, VA. Studied medicine with Dr. Philip Thomas of Frederick, MD, and obtained M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1795.
Began practice in North Carolina, but moved to Baltimore in 1796
- m. Catherine Hanson Thomas (1776-1826), dau. of Dr. Philip Thomas of Frederick, on Dec. 26, 1799
- m. Sarah Roger Merryman (1784- ), dau. of John Merryman of Baltimore on May 1, 1828
- dau. Elizabeth Maria (1802-1847) m. John Marshall, Jr. (a son of Chief Justice John Marshall) in 1820
- son Ashton (1810-1831) unmarried
- son George (1811- )m. Alice Riggs Levering
- [dau.] Catherine Rebecca (1813-1825)
one of the founders and first Secretary of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, 1799-1801; Treasurer of the Med-Chi Faculty of MD and attending physician at the Baltimore General Dispensary 1801-1803; Baltimore Commissioner of Health, 1804-05 and 1813; consulting physician, Baltimore Hospital, 1812.
Provost of University of Maryland 1837-1850. lived until the mid-1840s on the north side of Fayette Street ‘1st door east of Calvert’ [#23 in 1845 numbering system].
Source: Dielman – Hayward File. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD. Drawer 105.
Dates: 1772-1855
Notes: Founder and first secretary of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, provost of the University of Maryland, Alexander was born in 1772, near Arlington, Alexandria County, Virginia. The town of Alexandria was named for his ancestors, who owned large tracts of land in its vicinity. His father commanded a company of horse in the Continental Army at the commencement of the Revolution. His youth was spent in Jefferson County, Virginia, where he was educated at a private institution and studied medicine under Dr. Philip Thomas, of Frederick, Md., finishing at the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his medical degree May 22, 1795. He settled first in North Carolina and in 1796 went to Baltimore. He was a founder of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland and its first secretary (1799-1801); then he was treasurer (1801-1803) and the last surviving charter member.
Other positions Dr. Alexander held were the following: Commissioner of Health, Baltimore, 1804-1805 and again 1812; attending physician, Baltimore General Dispensary, 1801-03; consulting physician, Baltimore Hospital, 1812; president, District Medical and Chirurgical Society, 1819-20; provost, University of Maryland, 1837-50.
Dr. Alexander is described as being a self-possessed and courteous man, neat in his dress which included knee and shoe buckles and gold-headed cane. He died of pneumonia in Baltimore in February, 1855, in his eighty-third year.
He married in December, 1799, a daughter of his preceptor, Dr. Thomas, and had eight children, only three of whom arrived at maturity and all of whom died before he himself did. His first wife dying, he married very late in life Miss Merryman, but had no children.
Eugene F. Cordell
Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1881, vol. civ.
Memorial by I.N. Tarbox, N.E. Hist. and Genealog. Reg., Oct., 1881, vol. xxxv.
Source: Kelly, Howard A. and Burrage, Walter J., American Medical Biographies Baltimore: Norman, Remington Company: 11
Dates: 1799
Notes: Alexander, Dr. Ashton, 1772-1855
m. 26 Dec. 1799, Dr. Ashton Alexander to Catherine Thomas of Fredericktown. Federal Gazette 2 Jan. 1800
Departed this life on Friday, the 16th instant, Dr. Ashton Alexander in the 85th year of his age.” American 19 March 1855, Sun 20 March 1855
Buried 18 March 1855. St. Pauls’ Register.
m. 12-26-1799 Ashton Alexander to Catherine Hanson Thomas F.C.M.L.
Source: Dielman – Hayward File. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD. Drawer 105.
Dates: 1820
Notes: “Physicians attending yellow fever in Baltimore, 1819-20, were: Allender (Jos.); Alexander (Ashton); Baker (Sam.); Brevitt (Jos.); Clark (M.D.); Clendinen (Wm. Haslett and Alexander); Diffenderfer (Mich.); Dunan (L.M.); Dorsey (Robt. E.); Dorsey (Henry); Ealer (Peter); Elbert; Gillingham (Ezra); Giraud (J.J.); Hall (R.W.); Henderson (Josiah); Jennings (Sam. K.); Johnstone (Henry); Martin (S.B.); Macauly (P.); O’Connor (John); Owen (John); Page (James); Potter (N.); Reese (D.M.); Stewart (W.A.); Smith (Jas.); Taylor (J.B.); Murphy (Thos. L.); Caldwell (J.B.); Readell.
Of the noble exertions of these men the Mayor says: ‘In adverting to this calamity I should commit an act of injustice were I to omit to notice the humane and magnanimous exertions of those medical gentlemen residing in or near the vicinity of the infected district, and those who extended their assistance when the disease had attained its greatest extent and malignity; some time previous to which period, the more wealthy of our citizens and their families from within the district had removed, and very few remained except those who, by their deprivation of their means of support or from extreme indigence were able to afford but little prospect to the physician of pecuniary renumeration, equal to that which he might actually be called upon to expend from his own means on this account. They still perservered and attended indiscriminately all, the rich and poor, suffering no consideration to deter them from the indulgence of their philanthropic feelings. As the cases multiplied the calls upon them increased, and their natural rest was destroyed and their anxieties strained to such a pitch that their own lives appeared likely to become a sacrifice to their disinterested zeal.’ (Mayor Johnson’s Rep. In Doc. of this Ep., pp. 179-80).”
Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 29
Medicine in Maryland, 1752-1920 