Guide to the William Beaumont Collection 1821-1938


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Table of Contents

• Descriptive Summary
• Information on Use
• Access
• Citation
• Acquisition Information
• Biographical Note
• Scope Note
• Related Resources
• Subject Headings
• INVENTORY
• Series I: Personal and Professional Documents
• Series II: Correspondence
• Series III: Family Papers
  • Subseries 1: General Documents
  • Subseries 2: Correspondence
• Series IV: Photographs, Postcard, Art, and Artifacts
• Series V: Genealogical Chart and Surveyor's Plats

Descriptive Summary

Information on Use

Access

The collection is open for research.

Citation

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Beaumont, William. Collection, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Acquisition Information

This collection was presented to the University of Chicago Library by William Beaumont's grandson, Mr. Ethan Allen Beaumont, and his wife, Mrs. Katherine Rhode Beaumont of DePere, Wisconsin in 1936. For early descriptions of the collection see: Arno B. Luckhardt, "The William Beaumont Collection of the University of Chicago," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. VII, no. 5, May 1939, pp. 535-563; and "The Beaumont Meeting," The Courier, Number 7, January 1937.

Biographical Note

William Beaumont was born on November 21, 1785 in Lebanon, Connecticut, to Samuel Beaumont and Lucretia Abel, farmers. Samuel Beaumont was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. William Beaumont left home in 1806 and settled in Champlain, New York, where he taught school for three years. In 1810, he moved to St. Albans, Vermont, and was apprenticed to Drs. Benjamin Chandler and Truman Powell for two years. Beaumont was certified to practice medicine by the Third Medical Society of Vermont in 1812.

That same year, Dr. Beaumont joined the United States Army as a surgeon's mate, and served until the conclusion of the War of 1812, at which time he opened a private medical practice in Plattsburgh, New York. It was here that Dr. Beaumont met his future wife, Deborah Greene. He reenlisted in the army as a post surgeon in 1819, and was sent to Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, Michigan. In 1821, Dr. Beaumont married Deborah Greene; they had four children: Sarah Beaumont, William W. Beaumont, Lucretia Beaumont, and Israel Greene Beaumont.

On June 6, 1822, Dr. Beaumont was summoned to treat a French-Canadian employee of the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island, Alexis St. Martin, who had been accidentally shot in the stomach. St. Martin survived, but with a permanent hole, or gastrocutaneous fistula, in his stomach. Between 1825 and 1833, Dr. Beaumont used St. Martin for hundreds of physiological studies of the digestive system. The experiments demonstrated the importance of gastric juice in digesting food, and proved that the process of digestion is essentially a chemical process. He published his findings in Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion (Plattsburgh, NY: F. P. Allen, 1833). The book cemented Dr. Beaumont's legacy as the father of gastric physiology, and ushered in a new era of experimental physiology.

Dr. Beaumont served as an army medical officer throughout most of his life. He was stationed at Fort Niagara, New York; Fort Howard in Green Bay, Wisconsin; Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; and Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Beaumont spent 19 years in St. Louis, and built a lucrative private practice there. He was also appointed Professor of Surgery at the Medical Department of Saint Louis University in 1837. When a surgeon general ordered him to Florida in 1839, Beaumont resigned from the army. He died on April 25, 1853 from a head injury after slipping on ice-covered steps.

Scope Note

The William Beaumont Collection contains correspondence, medical documents, legal documents, photographs, artwork, artifacts, and ephemera of Dr. William Beaumont (1789-1853), pioneer American physician and physiologist, and of the Beaumont family. Materials date from 1821 to 1938, with the bulk dating between 1830 and 1889.

The collection is divided into seven series: Series I: Personal and Professional Documents; Series II: Correspondence; Series III: Family Papers: Series IV: Photographs and Postcard; Series V: Art; Series VI: Artifacts; and Series VII: Oversize.

Series I, Personal and Professional Documents, contains personal ephemera belonging to Dr. Beaumont (such as his calling card), documents related to Dr. Beaumont's medical practice, legal documents, and copies of letters and documents relating to William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin obtained from the William L. Clements Library and the Washington University Medical School Library of St. Louis.

Series II, Correspondence, contains incoming and outgoing correspondence of Dr. Beaumont from 1826 to 1853. Letters are arranged chronologically. This series includes one letter from Alexis St. Martin, as well as several letters from Ethan Allen Hitchcock pertaining to events of the Mexican and Civil Wars. Dr. Beaumont met Ethan Allen Hitchcock while serving in the United States Army at Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Also included is a letter from Amos Lewes Shoemaker to Zachary Taylor, requesting that Shoemaker be appointed minister to England.

Series III, Family Papers, is divided into two subseries: 1) General Documents, and 2) Correspondence. Subseries 1 contains legal documents and a few personal papers of Deborah Greene Beaumont, Israel Greene Beaumont, Sarah Beaumont Keim, and other members of the Beaumont family. Subseries 2 includes incoming and outgoing correspondence of the Beaumont family from 1846 to 1887, arranged chronologically. Of note are letters two letters from Alexis St. Martin to Israel Greene Beaumont, and correspondence with Ethan Allen Hitchcock. The letters for the most part are concerned with family matters.

Series IV, Photographs, Postcard, Art, and Artifacts contains photographs of Dr. Beaumont, of his family and friends, and of various places associated with him, as well as one postcard of Fort Howard Hospital, Green Bay, Wisconsin where Dr. Beaumont was stationed from 1826 to 1828. Of note are autographed carte-de-visites of Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Custis Lee. The Beaumonts became close friends of Robert E. Lee and his family when Dr. Beaumont was stationed at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri between 1834 and 1839.

The artwork in this series consists of paintings of Dr. Beaumont and his family, as well as a reproduction of a sketch of the United States Hotel at Plattsburg, New York owned by Israel Green.

This series also holds numerous personal effects of Dr. Beaumont and his family. Included are Dr. Beaumont's surgical instruments, mortar and pestle, watch, knife, razor, and leather change purse. The series also contains Ethan Allen Hitchcock's dress sword, and a cast iron key to Fort Mackinac, Michigan where Dr. Beaumont served from 1819 to 1826.

Series V, Genealogical Chart and Surveyor's Plats, contains a genealogical chart of the Beaumont family complied by Arno B. Luckhardt (a professor of physiology at the University of Chicago), and three surveyor's plats for land owned by William Beaumont.

Related Resources

Browse finding aids by topic.

Arno B. Luckhardt Papers

Three books were transferred to the rare book collection:

Beaumont, William. Experiments and observations on the gastric juice, and the physiology of digestion (Plattsburgh, NY: F. P. Allen, 1833)

Dickinson, Samuel N. The Boston almanac and business directory. 1843

Sacred exercises: in four books, compiled for the use of places of education (Boston: Greenough and Stebbins ..., 1810)

William Beaumont's papers are also held in the Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Copies are held at the National Library of Medicine.

Subject Headings

• Beaumont, William, 1785-1853
• Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, 1798-1870
• Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870
• United States. Army.--History--19th century
• Physicians
• Surgeons
• Gastroenterology--History
• Medicine--United States--History--19th century
• Physiology

INVENTORY