DR AMOS WILSON ABBOTT MD

Born 6th January 1844 - Died 27th February 1927

 

 

A son of the Reverend Amos Abbott, he was born in Ahmednuggur, India, on 6th January 1844, and died on 27th February 1927 at Minneapolis, Minnesota. His parents were missionaries there. He married in Delhi, New York, on 19th August 1880, Helen Griswold Wright, daughter of James Henry and Anna Maria Griswold , of Delhi. She was born 4th July 1858 at Delhi, New York, and died 6th June 1938.

He studied at Philips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, between 1856 and 1859, and entered Dartmouth College in 1859. He left the junior class in 1862 to enter the Civil War. He served as a drummer boy in the 16th Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army from August 1862 to August 1863. He was captured and taken to Libby prison in Richmond, Vriginia. Along with six others he managed to escape, almost losing his life in the process. He was then employed as a clerk in the Pay Department of the US Army from 1864 to 1868. He attended the Georgetown D C Medical College, 1867 - 1868; he subsequently graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (Columbia University), N Y City, 1869 and was resident physician in the hospital there until 1877, when he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, He operated a small hospital for his patients at his residence 613 Second Avenue South for almost five years. He then closed the hospital and worked out of St Barnabas Hospital where he was chief of staff. He kept office at his new home on 10th Street and Harmon Place and made frequent house calls by horseback, rain or shine, day and night. He had a well-equipped laboratory in his home where he and his assistant carried out routine work.

The Abbott Hospital opened on 5th March 1902 at 1212 East 17th Street, a three storey building with the dining room, kitchen and laundry in the basement. The nurses were housed on the third floot on one side with a well-equipped , good-sized laboratory and interns on the other, The first and second floors had rooms for ten patients. The operating room was on the second floor and there was no elevator. The patients were wrapped in blankets and carried from the operating room to their rooms by the doctors. More information may be found on http://www.actionsquad.org/abbott-history-noes.html.

Amos and Helen had children:

 

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