Autograph letter signed
A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
FROM THE FIRST U.S. NAVAL MEDICAL HERO
Providence, 28 June 1839.
Single sheet of writing paper (folded: 9 15/16” x 7 13/16”, 252mm x 198mm).
Blind-stamped at the upper left. Written on the recto of the first folium, directed on the verso of the second folium. Folded in half and then four times to make nine compartments, flattened. Binding holes along the fold, with some losses (not affecting the text). Directed in the author’s hand at the verso of the second folium; franked in a different ink, red ink-stamped “Providence Jun 2[9?]”, docketed in graphite at the fore-edge, red wax seal at the spine-edge. A little soiled along the top edge, with an ink-spot (?) to the verso of the second folium, transferring to the verso of the first folium.
As ever, it is often more important whom one knows than what. In June of 1839, Usher Parsons M.D. (1788–1868) was in the full flower of his fame. An essentially self-taught practitioner, he served heroically in the Battle of Lake Erie (1813; he humbly subscribes as “formerly Surgeon U.S. Navy”), one of the crucial naval engagements of the War of 1812. Oliver Hazard Perry — from the distinguished Rhode Island naval family; his younger brother was Commodore Matthew Perry — transferred under fire from his critically damaged flagship to the smaller USS Niagara, which broke the British line under his captaincy. It was the first time in British naval history that an entire squadron had surrendered, and was a turning point in the war at large.
Dr. Parsons was the only medical staff — not yet a surgeon proper — well enough to carry out his work; of the ninety-six injured, only three sailors died; Perry heaped praise on him for his heroic effort. Dr. Parsons went on to receive formal medical training at Harvard, married Oliver Wendell Holmes’s elder sister Mary and came eventually to be professor of anatomy and surgery at Brown, during the existence of its short-lived first medical school. By the time of the writing of the present letter to the U.S. Naval Board of Medical Surgeons, Dr. Parsons was President of the Rhode Island Medical Society; he would go on to be one of founders of the American Medical Association and serve as an early president. It is safe to say that his recommendation — directed to its subject rather than to the board proper; presumably it was part of a dossier, perhaps the explanation of its binding-holes — held considerable water, so to speak.
His protégé was Dr. Thomas Mawney Potter (1814–1819), who doubtless grew up hearing the story of his mentor’s heroism. As Parsons explains, Dr. Potter’s training reflected the broader medical landscape in the second quarter of the XIXc. He attended Brown as an undergraduate (the medical school was disbanded in 1827) and graduated from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania; in between he worked in Parsons’s practice as well as that of “one of your Board.” Doubtless aided by the present letter in his support, Dr. Potter passed his examination and was admitted as a naval surgeon 17 October 1839. His work carried him to the Caribbean, to Mexico during the Mexican-American War, to the west coast of Africa where he was shipwrecked in the Cape Verde islands, and finally to the Pacific before finishing his career in New England. He retired in 1876, just shy of 37 years as a naval medical officer.
Purchased at PBA Galleries, 19 January 2012, lot 120.
Transcription
Providence June 28th 1839
To the medical Board for the exam-
ination of Navy Surgeons. —
Gentlemen,
Understanding that
you are about to examine my former
Pupil, D.r Thomas M. Potter, I beg leave to state
in his behalf that preparatory to the study of
Medicine he passed four years in Brown
University, and graduated in high standing;
— that he studied medicine between three
and four years in my office and in Phila-
delphia, and graduated as doctor of medicine
in the University of Pennsylvania, in a man=
ner which the professors assure me was
highly honourable to him, and since that time
has been a pupil of one of your Board, – and
that he has ever enjoyed a sound constitution
of body and mind, and has sustained an
excellent character.
With great respect
Your obed.n servant
Usher Parsons M.D.
President of the R. Island Med.l Socy.
& formerly Surgeon U.S. Navy —
Item #JLR0495
Price: $450