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Things to do in Minnesota
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W. W. Mayo House
Dr. William Worrall Mayo began a
famous medical heritage in Minnesota, being born in England in
1819, in Eccles, and going to college in Manchester. Mayo was
inspired by the world famous scientist, John Dalton, creator of
the atomic theory of chemistry; which drew Mayo into the realm
of the unknown and undiscovered arenas of chemistry, and would
set him apart from other frontier doctors. After studying in the
cities of Manchester, Glasgow and London, Mayo came to the
United States in 1845 and began working as a pharmacist in
Bellevue Hospital, New York City. Eventually the opportunities
of the west beckoned and Mayo stopped in Buffalo for a little
while and then moved on to Lafayette, Indiana, starting a men's
tailor shop called, "Hall of Fashion" since he had done some
work as a tailor in England. In 1849, Mayo went back to his
first calling with Dr. Elizur Deming, one of the city's best
physicians and founder of Indiana Medical College in La Porte.
In the fall, after having helped considerably in a cholera
epidemic in Lafayette, he enrolled in the college for a 16 week
course. At that period in time, the preceptor system, where a
hopeful doctor apprenticed with a practicing physician for some
months or years, was on the wane, the medical schools were
growing up to give these aspiring young doctors some kind of
training, although the curriculum varied widely, with very few
offering some clinical experience. Some of these early
practitioners would open an office without ever having seen a
patient, just book learning. Some of the private schools, like
Indiana Medical College, didn't have any admission requirements
and many of the students were illiterate, with the courses
upgraded and the professors teaching the same course year after
year. Sometimes, there would be some demonstration of surgery or
optional course about dissection, but rarely, and Indiana was
one of the few to actually have a microscope for the hundred or
so students. In fact, this valuable aid wasn't available at
Harvard until 1869, but Mayo would soon develop a keen and
lasting interest in the microscopic analysis. In 1860, in Le
Seuer, he was believed to have been the only doctor in Minnesota
that made his own and used the microscope in his practice.
Getting his degree in 1850, he married Louise Abigail Wright, a
young woman he'd met when he studied in La Porte, a year later,
and she would soon realize that her young husband wasn't one to
stay put in one place too long. Within two years, Mayo was on
his way to St. Louis, finding a job as an assistant in anatomy
at the University of Missouri medical department, and got
another M.D. degree. Meanwhile, back in Lafayette, Louise
started a millinery business and had a daughter, Gertrude in
1853. In 1854, Mayo was getting more annoyed with his attacks of
malaria that he endured in Indiana and during one of those told
his wife he was going away until he got well or died. Mayo ended
up in Galena, Illinois, and headed west on a steamboat going to
Minnesota, a popular growing territory that had boasted of its
wonderful climate that was healthful to all that came and thus
brought many from the southern malaria infested area to the
northern area. After being in St. Paul a short time, Mayo
realized that his malaria attacks were abating, and he went back
to Indiana to bring his family to this great area. Once his
family was settled, he was off to Lake Superior, where he began
taking the census for the lakeshore area around current Duluth
and in 1856 Mayo went south on the Minnesota River to the region
around Le Seuer, called Cronan's Precinct, and took over an
abandoned farm and moved his family here into a one room log
cabin. Called the little doctor, because he was rather short in
statue, being 5 foot four inches, he supported his family
practicing medicine and having two more daughters, Sarah and
Phoebe. He tried farming a bit, started and ran a ferry service
from Cronan's Precinct to Le Sueur, across the river and some
miles upstream, also becoming the justice of the peace and
practicing medicine when called upon. Mayo started building a
two story house on Main Street in Le Seuer after the terrible
flood during the spring of 1859, with the help of his brother,
James, and the family moved in that year. Mayo started his first
medical practice in the state of Minnesota, and in the beginning
had little need for his practice. There were medical problems
with the frontier people, but they had always used home remedies
and medicines to cure themselves, unless of a dire need to see a
doctor. In 1861, his son, William James was born, and Mayo
continued working on a river steamboat to supplement his income,
and began a weekly newspaper, the Le Seuer Courier, that only
lasted three months. The Civil War started and he tried
enlisting in the army as a regimental surgeon, but was turned
down. However, in 1862, the U. S. Dakota War broke out on the
Minnesota frontier and he volunteered to march with a quickly
organized group that was going to help the beleaguered New Ulm,
a ways up the Minnesota River. Mayo and other doctors set up a
triage to take care of the wounded and other refugees that came
here from the area's farms. Louise stayed in Le Seuer and opened
her house and barn to 11 refugee families. In 1863, Mayo was
appointed the examining surgeon of the draft enrollment board that
served the lower half of the state, headquartered in Rochester,
so the doctor left his wife and family once more and headed to
that city to examine the volunteers and drafted men. He liked
Rochester and soon had his family moved there in 1864, and had
another son, Charles Horace, in 1865. His practice grew
significantly, with his involvement in the school board, being
mayor and alderman, giving him little time, he never had to find
other supplemental work again. He grew to be a marvelous medical
practitioner, pioneering various surgical techniques like
ovariotomy for the relief of woman's diseases, and in 1869,
would spend some months in New York and Pennsylvania studying
gynecology and general surgery. He went around Rochester doing
"kitchen surgery", with great success and his two sons, Will and
Charlie, went with him and helped occasionally. After a
destructive tornado came through the city in 1883, he organized
treatment for the injured, with his sons helping, and other
doctors coming in to assist. He also asked for help from the
Sisters of St. Francis, and sometime later, Mother Alfred talked
the doctor into helping them build and run a hospital; St.
Mary's. The hospital opened in 1889, and Mayo, then 70, became
head of the medical staff and his two sons became the medical
staff. Many other doctors were invited to join the group, but
they declined, since the belief at the time was that hospitals
didn't work and would soon fail. But it didn't, and from the
start, the Mayo Clinic, with its group of medical and surgical
specialists, working in co-operative practice, brought world
wide recognition and fame to the Mayos and their outstanding
clinic. Mayo passed on in 1911, just before his 92nd birthday,
and Louise passed four years later. Their sons, Drs. Charlie and
Will, had become established and well known physicians
themselves, and they continued to enlarge the clinic's programs
for medical care, surgery, research and teaching and were always
thankful to their parents who had helped them achieve as much as
they did.
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