FAIRFIELD MEDICAL SCHOOL AND SOME EARLY OREGON PHYSICIANS
By O. Larsell
Fairfield Academy and the Fairfield Medical School, as it is usually called, are of interest to students of the history of old Oregon because it was there that Marcus Whitman received his medical education. Whitman's fellow worker, H. H. Spalding, also had a brief course in medicine here, but without taking a medical degree. The first native born Oregonian to study medicine, so far as the record indicates, namely, William Cameron McKay, son of Tom McKay, was sent to Fairfield. The name of W. H. Gray is also included in its list of students for the year 1837-38, he having registered in January, 1838, as "W. Henry Gray, Columbia, Oregon.” Neither McKay nor Gray received diplomas from Fairfield. McKay received his degree of Doctor of Medicine from Willamette Medical School many years after he had returnd to Oregon, and Gray apparently never received a medical degree, although he practiced for a time at Clatsop Plains.
Fairfield Academy, located at Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York, about fifteen miles northeast of Utica, was founded in 1802. The westward migration from New England which began at the close of the Revolutionary War resulted in settlements in the Mohawk Valley. The forest was cleared, farms were established and gradually the New England love of learning asserted itself.[1] In 1801 the Reverend Caleb Alexander was sent by the Massachusetts Missionary Society to preach in Fairfield and Norway, a neighboring settlement. He was well received by the settlers and undertook to establish an academy where something of the learning and culture of New England could be taught. On July 4, 1802, the people of the community held the "raising" of the academy building, which still stands. Caleb Alexander (1757-1832) was the first principal, receiving a
salary of $300 a year. Alexander was a graduate of Yale and
- ↑ J. A. Spalding, Dr. Lyman Spalding, 1916; H. W. Cushing, "The Pioneer Medical Schools of Central New York," an address at the centenary celebration of the College of Medicine of Syracuse University, June 4, 1934.
