Mary Henderson Stinson

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Wife Mary Henderson Stinson ¹

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           Born: 14 Nov 1819 - Norriton Twp, Montgomery Co, PA 1
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         Father: Robert Stinson (      -      ) 1
         Mother: Elizabeth Porter (      -      ) 1

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General Notes: Wife - Mary Henderson Stinson

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Her school education began in the township school-house in Jeffersonville, Pennsylvania; continued in Mr. Ashton's private school in Philadelphia, and closed at the Female Seminary in Charlestown, Massachusetts, then a suburb, later a part of the city of Boston.
Having been an invalid many years, she studied medicine as a hygienic measure, and graduated in the class of 1869 of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Merrick Bemis, superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, having comprehended the difficulties insuperable by men physicians in the care and treatment of insane women patients, with a portion of the board of trustees of that institution, concluded to seek a woman graduate in medicine as a candidate for election as assistant physician in the department for women, scarcely believing she could be elected.
The members of the faculty of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania recommended Dr. Mary H. Stinson for the candidacy. At the regular monthly meeting of the board of trustees, in July, 1869, by a unanimous vote, she was elected asssistant physician for the department for women. This was the first appointment on record of a woman to such a position.
At the meeting of the board of trustees in September, 1869, she presented herself and went on duty. She remained through Dr. Bemis' administration as superintendent, and more than three years with his successor, Dr. B. D. Eastman, having in the mean time sent in two resignations, which she was induced to withdraw. After a third resignation, she left Worcester in January, 1875.
On February 4, 1875, she commenced a tour of the United States via the Atlantic States and their principal cities to Florida, across the Gulf States to New Orleans, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and via Union Pacific Railroad reached San Francisco, Californaia, May 25th. Visited intermediate Territories and States returning, and arrived home in Norristown about the close of December, 1875.
The summer of 1876 was given to the Centennial Exposition, the social interests it created, and to attending some of the sections of the World's Medical Conference, then in session in Philadelphia.
On September 23, 1876, she left Philadelphia on the steamship "Vaderland," with the threefold purpose of travel or sight-seeing, visiting and studying of hospitals for the insane and the sick, and for study in the medical department, of the universities of Europe.
She landed at Antwerp, on the Scheldt, Belgium, where she commenced by visiting the famous colony of insane persons of both sexes at Gheel. The winter of 1876-77 was spent in Vienna, Austria, attending clinics and lectures in the hospitals and Medical Department of the University.
The winter of 1877-78 was spent in Paris in similar pursuits. The spring following, the absorbing interest was the World's Exposition in Paris. The summer was given to London and the British Isles. Having embarked for the return voyage at Glasgow, Scotland, she arrived in New York August 27, 1878.
Upon the organization of the hospital for the insane for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, located at Norristown, Dr. Stinson was tendered the position of resident physician of the women's department, but declined the honorable preferment.
Dr. Stinson was elected a member of the Montgomery County Medical Society November 10, 1880. She was sent by this society as delegate to the State Medical Society's meeting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1881, and in 1882, as delegate from that same society, she attended the session of the American Medical Association held at St. Paul, Minnesota.
Dr. Stinson was one of the pioneers of her gender in determining a standard of practical usefulness for educated and trained women, and her recognition by the medical society of the county, by the management of one of the largest corporate institutions in New England, and by one in her native State furnishes the gratifying evidence of her successful career. She later lived in useful retirement at her home in Norristown.

1 Theodore W. Bean, History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Everts & Peck, 1884), Pg 673.