Willard Parker, an eminent American surgeon, was born at Lyndeborough, N.H., on September 2, 1800, the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Clark) Parker. After receiving his A.B. from Harvard in 1826, Parker served an apprenticeship with one of America's greatest surgeons, John C. Warren, and S. D. Townsend in Boston, earning his medical degree in 1830. He held a series of faculty positions at various medical colleges for the next seven years before settling in New York City for what would prove to be his last job, professor of the principles and practice of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Parker held this post until his retirement in 1880, the last ten years serving as professor emeritus.

According to the New York Times, Parker was an unusually skilled surgeon. He was said to be ambidextrous and able to perform surgery equally with either hand. Among his other accomplishments, in 1867 he became the first American to remove a ruptured appendix successfully, and he was the author of several monographs on cancer, including a volume of case histories of breast cancer that was published posthumously in 1885. In addition to building an extensive surgical practice in New York City, Parker served as consulting physician to five urban hospitals during his teaching career. Further, he was extremely active in the associations of the profession, and served as an organizer of the New York Pathological Society, the Society for Widows and Orphans of Medical Men, the New York City Board of Health, and the New York Academy of Medicine, of which he was President in 1856.

Willard Parker was married twice: first, on June 21, 1831, to Caroline Sarah Allen, daughter of Dr. Luther Allen of Stirling, Mass.; second, on May 25, 1844, to Mary Ann (Bissell) Coit, daughter of Josiah and Henrietta (Perkins) Bissell. He had two children by the first marriage and three by the second. One of his sons from the second marriage, Willard Parker Jr., followed his father into medical practice, and a daughter, Mrs. Lindley (d.1870), became a missionary.

Willard Parker died at his home at 41 E. 12th Street in New York City on April 25, 1884. He is buried in New Canaan, Conn., where he owned a farm for many years.

Scope and contents:

The bulk of the Willard Parker Papers concern his activity as a consultant. The collection has been divided into two parts: Case Reports and Correspondence. The Case Reports document surgical practice, and include some postmortem reports (1855 November 20; 1857 December 23; 1864 March 14). The Correspondence Series is comprised of letters from patients describing their cases and letters from colleagues requesting Parker's professional opinion. The most interesting item in the latter category is a letter from Dr. Sylvester Willard of Albany (1855 November 21) describing the final hours of a distinguished colleague, T. Romeyn Beck, the American expert on medical jurisprudence. The cause of Beck's death was apparently a mystery, and Willard asks for Parker's thoughts on the matter, since Parker had been involved in the case of Beck's younger brother some years before (see the Dictionary of American Biography for more about the Beck brothers).

The saddest and most personal letter is one from a Mrs. Ludlow, a friend and perhaps distant relative of Parker's, who writes concerning the death of her daughter Minnie (1875 April 2) asking: "Do you think each individual's health is ordered by God, or that we are free agents, or that death often occurs from errors of judgment, etc.?" Parker had intended a career in the ministry before his conversion to medicine as a Harvard freshman.

Provenance:

These papers were separated from the Clarke Family Papers.

Cat. 1/92, cas

Subject index to the Willard Parker Papers

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