Author: Mitchell, John Kearsley
Biography:
MITCHELL, John Kearsley (1793-1858: ANBO)
He was born in Shepherdstown, Virginia (now West Virginia), the son of Dr. Alexander Mitchell and Elizabeth Kearsley. When he was orphaned at the age of eight, his grandparents took responsibility for him. His mother's family gave him a home and financial support in America, but they sent him to his father's family in Scotland for his education at Ayr Academy and the University of Edinburgh. After returning to America in 1814, he began the study of medicine and graduated MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1819. After a short period as a ship's surgeon on voyages to China and the Far East, he established a medical practice in Philadelphia in 1822. In the same year he married Sarah Matilda Henry; the couple had nine children, eight of whom grew to adulthood and one of whom, Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), became a celebrated physician himself. Mitchell was a good lecturer on medical and scientific subjects. He held various professorships--of chemistry at the Philadelphia Medical Institute and later at the Franklin Institute, and of the theory and practice of medicine at the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia from 1841 until his death. Besides occasional verse contributions to periodicals, he published many lectures and professional papers and one more volume of poetry, Indecision: A Tale of the Far West: and Other Poems (1839). Saint Helena (1821) is attributed to him mainly on account of the pseudonym he used, "a Yankee." He died in Philadelphia and is buried there in Woodlands Cemetery. (ANBO 3 May 2021; ancestry.com 3 May 2021; findagrave.com 3 May 2021; findmypast.com 3 May 2021)