thumb|Abbott's wife, Mary Ann Casey

Anderson Ruffin Abbott (7 April 1837 – 29 December 1913) was a Canadian physician and an officer in the Union army during the American Civil War. He was the first Black Canadian to be licensed as a physician. After his American war service, he became the coroner and later surgeon-in-chief in Kent County, Ontario.

Early life

Abbott was born on 7 April 1837 in Toronto to African Americans parents Wilson Ruffin and Mary Ellen Toyer Abbott. The Abbotts were a prominent Black family in Toronto, who had left Alabama—as free people of colour—after receiving a warning that their store was to be ransacked. After first living a short time in New York, they settled in Upper Canada in 1835 or 1836. Wilson Abbott soon began to purchase real estate, in and around Toronto, where he owned 48 properties by 1871. The senior Abbott also became active in politics. He studied under Alexander Thomas Augusta, a black physician who was born in the United States. Although he did not graduate, Alongside Augusta, Dr. Abbott treated both Black soldiers from the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and Black civilians at Contraband Hospital, later renamed Freedmen's Hospital. As of November 1864, Abbott became surgeon-in-charge of Contraband Hospital.

In 1866, Abbott resigned from service to the Union Army and returned to Canada. He attended primary medical classes at the University of Toronto the following year. While he did not graduate, he established a medical practice and was admitted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 1871. In an Anglican wedding ceremony in Toronto on 9 August 1871, he married Mary Ann Casey, the 18-year-old daughter of a successful Black barber. Abbott and his wife moved to Chatham where he resumed his medical practice. They eventually had three daughters and two sons. the first training hospital for Black nurses in the United States. He became the hospital's medical superintendent In 1896 but resigned the following year. Returning to Toronto, Abbott resumed his private practice and became more involved with writing for various publications including The Colored American Magazine of Boston and New York, the Anglo-American Magazine of London (for which he wrote "Some recollections of Lincoln's assassination"), and New York Age. Medicine, Black history, the Civil War, Darwinism, biology, and poetry were among his topics. A portion of it has been digitized and is available online through the Toronto Public Library, while the rest can be found as part of the Baldwin Collection of Canadiana at Toronto Reference Library.

Abbott's home at 119 Dowling Avenue, also known as Dr. Anderson Ruffin Abbott House, was where he lived from 1890 to 1903.

References

Further reading

  • Slaney, Catherine (2002). Family secrets: crossing the colour line . Toronto, ON: Dundurn Press.
  • Anderson Ruffin Abbott archival papers held at the Toronto Reference Library Baldwin Collection of Canadiana Manuscripts