ELMER 360 ELMER and were glad to get him. So too felt the corporation of the university when they elect- ed him professor of clinical medicine. Final- ly, when his failing health made these duties impossible, the corporation waited three years in the hope that his strength might return and his labor be renewed. He died on De- cember 14, 1883. He gave freely of his time and money, and helped many educational undertakings also. When the new Boston Medical Library As- sociation needed funds for a card catalogue, Ellis gave one thousand dollars, and at his death he left one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Harvard Medical School. His daily example as a wise and high mind- ed practitioner, and a kindly, honorable, unselfish man, was of great worth to the students, for they saw that these qualities were the foundation of his success as a physi- cian, and of his wholesome influence in the hospital, the school and the medical pro- fession. Walter L. Burrage. History Harvard Medical Scliool, T. F'. Harring- ton, 1905. Biog. by Henry I. Bowditch. The Beloved Physician, Rev. C. A. Bartol, 1884. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., vol. cix, also vol. ex. Elmer, Jonathan (1745-1817). The family of Elmer in New Jersey was descended from Edward Elmer, who came to America with the company of forty-seven that comprised the church of the Rev. Thomas Hooker in Cambridge, Mass., in 1632. He was killed by the Indians in King Philip's War in 1676. Edward is believed to have been a grandson of John Aylmer, educated at Oxford, a Protestant, and a tutor of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey. He was made Bishop of London by the name of John Elmer. Jonathan, great-grandson of Edward, grand- son of the Rev. Daniel Elmer, who came from Connecticut to Fairfield in 1727, and son of Daniel 2d, was born at Cedarville, Cumber- land County, New Jersey, November 29, 1745, and died at Bridgeton, September 3, 1817. He was one of the ten who first in this country received the degree of bachelor of medicine, from the University of Pennsyl- vania, June 1, 1768. They began their study in Philadelphia in 1765 in the institution called the "College and Academy of Phila- delphia," later the University of Pennsylvania. John Morgan (q. v.) was Jonathan's preceptor. After receiving the bachelor's degree in 1768, Jonathan and three of his friends continued their studies and were granted the degree of doctor of medicine in 1771. Jonathan Elmer's doctorate diploma, signed by Benjamin Rush, William Shippen, John Morgan, and others, hung over the mantle in the office of Walter Gray Elmer, of Philadelphia, in 1919, himself a graduate of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1897, and a great-grandson of Jonathan. It is an in- teresting fact that all five of these Elmers were graduates of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and the first four have been presidents of the state medical society. Being from youth of feeble health, Jonathan was disabled early in life for active exertion and therefore confined himself very much to study, being "a laborious and diligent student." Besides his knowledge of medicine, he was well read in law and theology. In personal appearance he was of short stature, slender and erect; neat in his dress and stately in his address. He possessed a firm and un- bending self-will, which was perhaps intensi- fied by his secluded habits. At the time of his decease. L. H. Stockton, Esq., in a short notice of him in the Trenton Federalist, said that "in medical erudition the writer remem- bers his illustrious contemporary, the late Dr. Rush, frequently say that Dr. Elmer was exceeded by no physician in the United States." He was elected a member of the New Jersey Medical Society, only recently founded in 1772. This society held no meetings during the war, from 1775 to 1781. Dr. Elmer was elected president of the rehabilitated society in 1787, the year prior to his election to the United States Senate, and delivered two "Dis- sertations, before the meetings of that body. These dissertations entitled "On the Chemical Principles of Bodies" and "On the Different Properties of the Air Contained in the At- mosphere," were published in the Transac- tions. Prior to the breaking out of the war, Dr. Elmer laid aside the duties of his chosen calling and became an ardent friend of reg- ulated liberty. He was Whig sheriff when, in November, 1774, a company fif disguised men burned the tea stored at Greenwich, N. J. Although he was supposed to know who were the culprits he did not apprehend them. He was appointed delegate to the Provincial Congress in 1776, was a member of the com- mittee that formed the first constitution of the state, and served with Richard Stockton and Dr. Witherspoon in 1780 and again in 1784 in the legislature of the state. He was in the National Senate from 1789
