Samuel Akerly
BornMay 1785 Edit this on Wikidata
DiedJuly 6, 1845 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 59–60)
Staten Island Edit this on Wikidata
Alma materColumbia College (BA, MA) College of Physicians and Surgeons (MD)
OccupationPhysician Edit this on Wikidata

Samuel Akerly (May 1785 – July 6, 1845) was an American physician, superintendent of the New York Institution for the Deaf from 1821 to 1831, and co-founder and president of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind from 1831 to 1842.

Early life

The Akerly family came from Lancashire, England, and settled in Long Island by way of Connecticut.[1] Samuel Akerly was born in May 1785[2] in New York City.[3] He graduated from Columbia College in 1804[4] and was awarded a Master of Arts in 1807.[5] He studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1807[6] and was awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree. That same year, he was married to Mary Ketchum of Waterford, NY.[7]

Career

Over his lifetime, Akerly contributed to medical and scientific periodicals, was active in institutions for the education of both deaf and blind people. In 1808, he exchanged letters with Benjamin Rush over the use of mercury as a possible cure for tuberculosis.[8] During the War of 1812, he served as Post Surgeon for the United States Army at Fort Gansevoort.[1][9] Later in his life, he was active in War of 1812 veterans organizations.[10]

Beginning in 1817, Akerly was affiliated with the New York Institution for the Deaf and from 1821 to 1831, he served as the superintendent, secretary and attending physician of the institution.[11] During this period he corresponded with Mason Fitch Cogswell, co-founder of the American School for the Deaf[12] in Connecticut. In their correspondence, they discuss the prior animosity between the two institutions, stemming from the fact that the earliest teacher of the New York Institution, though he came from Hartford, instead followed the pedagogical philosophy of Joseph Watson.[11] Akerly and Cogswell hoped their differences could be overcome through a new shared pedagogical philosophy. In 1826, he gave an address at Washington Hall concerning the education of its students.[13] Apart from education of the deaf, Akerly also researched medical cures for deafness, but due to the general state of medicine at the time, had no success.[11]

Given that he was active in developing instruction for deaf-mutes, he subsequently became interested in education for the blind. In 1831, he co-founded the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind along with Samuel Wood and John Dennison Russ. In 1833, he created an early alphabet for the blind.[14]

Besides his work on the education of the deaf and blind, he was also interested in science more broadly: including conchology, entomology,[15] geology, and ichthyology,[16] and serving as one of the early vice-presidents of the New York Academy of Sciences.[17]

Akerly was also interested in educational causes more broadly. In 1829, he served on a committee lead by Albert Gallatin that promoted common schools in Greece, in the immediate aftermath of the Greek War of Independence.[18]

He also was engaged in New York City politics. In 1817, he was an assistant to the aldermen of the New York City Council, and in that capacity supported a proposal for gas lighting for downtown Manhattan.[19]

Personal life and death

With his wife Mary, Akerly had 6 children.[1] Akerly was brother-in-law to Senator Samuel L. Mitchell, who founded the New York Academy of Sciences.[20]

Akerly lived in what is today known as the Olmstead-Beil House from 1839[21] until his death on July 6, 1845, in Staten Island. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.[2]

Bibliography

  • Mineralogical description of the country near the Wall-kill and the Shawungunk mountains in New York (1804)[22]
  • Conchology of New York and its vicinity (1806)[23]
  • Medical topography of the Military Positions in the third United States Military District (1817)[9]
  • Essay on the Geology of the Hudson River and the Adjacent Regions (1820)[17]
  • Observations and Correspondence on the Nature and Cure of Deafness, and other Diseases of the Ears (1821)[24]
  • Address Delivered at Washington Hall (1826)[25]
  • Medical Dictionary (1831)[26]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Greene, Richard Henry; Stiles, Henry Reed; Dwight, Melatiah Everett; Morrison, George Austin; Mott, Hopper Striker; Totten, John Reynolds; Pitman, Harold Minot; Ditmas, Charles Andrew; Forest, Louis Effingham De (1896). The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
  2. 1 2 "Dr Samuel Akerly (1785-1845)". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  3. ↑ Hughes, Thomas Patrick; Munsell, Frank (1895). American Ancestry: Giving Name and Descent, in the Male Line, of Americans Whose Ancestors Settled in the United States Previous to the Declaration of Independence, A. D. 1776. Munsell.
  4. ↑ Columbia College (New York, N. Y. ) (1826). Catalogue of Columbia College in the City of New-York : embracing the names of its trustees, officers, and graduates, together with a list of all academical honours conferred by the institution from A.D. 1758 to A.D. 1826, inclusive. U.S. National Library of Medicine. New York : Printed by T. and J. Swords.
  5. ↑ Columbia College (New York, N. Y. ) (1826). Catalogue of Columbia College in the City of New-York : embracing the names of its trustees, officers, and graduates, together with a list of all academical honours conferred by the institution from A.D. 1758 to A.D. 1826, inclusive. U.S. National Library of Medicine. New York : Printed by T. and J. Swords.
  6. ↑ "Columbia university alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on general catalogue". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/uc1.b4525470. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  7. ↑ Hughes, Thomas Patrick; Munsell, Frank (1895). American Ancestry: Giving Name and Descent, in the Male Line, of Americans Whose Ancestors Settled in the United States Previous to the Declaration of Independence, A. D. 1776. Munsell.
  8. ↑ Akerly, S. (1808). "An Account of the Efficacy of a Salivation in the Cure of the Pulmonary Consumption; in a Letter from Dr. Samuel Akerly, to Dr. Benjamin Rush". The Medical and Physical Journal. 19 (109): 224–227. PMC 5689336. PMID 30492384.
  9. 1 2 Mitchill, Samuel Latham (1817). The Medical Repository (And Review Of American Publications On Medicine, Surgery And The Auxiliary Of Science). Swords.
  10. ↑ "Minutes of the common council of the city of new york, 1784-1831 v.9 1917-18". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/uc1.b3623314. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  11. 1 2 3 Assembly, New York (State) Legislature (1844). Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York. E. Croswell.
  12. ↑ "disability history museum--Samuel Akerly To Mason Cogswell And Response, August 21, 1821". www.disabilitymuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  13. ↑ "Address delivered at Washington Hall: in the city of New-York, on the 30th May, 1826, as introductory to the exercises of the pupils of the New-York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, with an account of the exercises, and notes and documents, in relation to the subject - Digital Collections - National Library of Medicine". collections.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  14. ↑ "Institutions and Communities · Alphabet for the Blind, from An Account of the New-York Institution for the Blind · Disabilities Past". disabilitiespast.english.lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  15. ↑ Weiss, Harry B. (December 1946). "The Contributions of Physicians to Entomology in the United States from 1723 to 1865". Journal of the New York Entomological Society. 54 (4): 309–314. JSTOR 25005185. Retrieved 2023-09-24 – via The Wikipedia Library.
  16. ↑ "Urban Neighbors". web-static.nypl.org. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  17. 1 2 Samuel Akerly (1820). An Essay on the Geology of the Hudson River, and the Adjacent Regions: Illustrated by a ... unknown library. A. T. Goodrich & co.
  18. ↑ "Plan for promoting common school education Greece. Adopted by the Greek school committee, New-York, May, 1829". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/hvd.32044079702338. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  19. ↑ "Minutes of the common council of the city of new york, 1784-1831 v.9 1917-18". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/uc1.b3623314. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  20. ↑ Blind, New York Institute for the Education of the (1922). Year-book of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. Bradstreet Press.
  21. ↑ "Owners". FRIENDS OF OLMSTED-BEIL HOUSE. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  22. ↑ The Medical Repository. T. & J. Swords. 1806.
  23. ↑ Mitchill, Samuel Latham (1806). The Medical Repository (And Review Of American Publications On Medicine, Surgery And The Auxiliary Of Science). Swords.
  24. ↑ "Akerly, Samuel", Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, retrieved 2023-09-24
  25. ↑ "Address delivered at Washington Hall: in the city of New-York, on the 30th May, 1826, as introductory to the exercises of the pupils of the New-York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, with an account of the exercises, and notes and documents, in relation to the subject - Digital Collections - National Library of Medicine". collections.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  26. ↑ Hooper, Robert (1831). Lexicon Medicum: Or, Medical Dictionary : Containing an Explanation of the Terms in Anatomy, Botany, Chemistry, Materia Medica, Midwifery, Mineralogy, Pharmacy, Physiology, Practice of Physic, Surgery, and the Various Branches of Natural Philosophy Connected with Medicine. Collins & Hannay.
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