Edmund Charles Fox Strudwick (born March 25, 1802) at Long Meadows, north of

Hillsborough Hillsborough may refer to: Australia *Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie Canada *Hillsborough, New Brunswick *Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick * Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County *Hillsborough (electoral d ...

, in

Orange County, North Carolina Orange County is a county located in the Piedmont region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 148,696. Its county seat is Hillsborough. Orange County is included in the Durham–Chapel Hill, NC Metrop ...

. He eventually designed the first building at Dorothea Dix mental hospital (then called the State Hospital for the Insane) in 1848, where he also was chosen as the first "Physician and Superintendent," a temporary position he held until 1853. He was also instrumental in the founding of the medical school at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

, and was elected the

North Carolina Medical Society North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

's first president April 17, 1849. His early education was at Hillsborough's

Bingham School Bingham School is a historic school complex located at Oaks, Orange County, North Carolina. The complex includes a large, expansive, multi-stage headmaster's house, a contemporary smokehouse and well house. The oldest section of the house is ...

. After his father, William Strudwick, died in 1810, Dr. James Webb became his guardian. Strudwick was listed as a "transient member" of the Dialectic Society of the University of North Carolina in 1823, and graduated as a doctor of medicine from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1824. After graduation, he served for two years as a resident physician at the Philadelphia Almshouse and Hospital. He returned to Hillsborough, North Carolina, in 1826 or 1827, and in 1828, married Ann E. Nash, with whom he had five children with (two of them—daughters—died in infancy). One of the children was Frederick N. Strudwick (1833-1890) who was the leader of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan and wrote the articles of impeachment for North Carolina's first republican Governor William W. Holden (1818-1892) who was elected with the aid of the Freeman vote. In the 1860s, Edmund Strudwick was the doctor for the

Hillsborough Military Academy North Carolina Polytechnic Academy, founded as Hillsborough Military Academy and also known as North Carolina Military Academy, was a school in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Col. Charles C. Tew CSA founded Hillsborough Military Academy. He was ...

in Hillsborough, and also cared for soldiers wounded in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

at his home nearby. He also was an elder in Hillsborough's Presbyterian Church. He died at age 77 on November 29, 1879, from an accidental ingestion of

atropine Atropine is a tropane alkaloid and anticholinergic medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate, and to decrease saliva production during surgery. It is typically given i ...

. He is buried in th
Hillsborough Old Town Cemetery

References

''Edmund Strudwick: Surgeon''. North Carolina booklet 15, July 1915. ''The Strudwicks—Family of Artists''. Durham Morning Herald, (Durham, N.C.), March 26, 1950. University of North Carolina. ''Catalogue of the Members of the Dialectic Society, Instituted in the University of North Carolina, June 3, 1795''. Raleigh: The Office of the Weekly Post. Kelly, Howard A. ''A Cyclopedia of American Medical Biography''. Volume II. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1912. {{DEFAULTSORT:Strudwick, Edmund 1802 births People from Hillsborough, North Carolina Physicians from North Carolina People of North Carolina in the American Civil War 1879 deaths