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Dr. William Worrall Mayo and the Minnesota Territory
Historical Profiles ofMayo Dr. William Worrall Mayo and the Minnesota Territory
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his year marks the sesquicentennial of the organization of the Minnesota Territory on Mar. 3, 1849. The founders of the Mayo Clinic, Drs. Charles H. and William J. Mayo, took special pride in being members of a pioneer Minnesota family. Before becoming one of the state's leading physicians, their father, Dr. William Worrall Mayo, undertook the first census of the growing population of Superior (later, St. Louis) County, the northern part of the new territory that bordered Lake Superior. The elder Mayo was an English immigrant who attended Indiana Medical College in LaPorte and then practiced medicine in Lafayette, Indiana. Apparently, his attraction to Minnesota was due, in part, to the absence of malaria in the territory, an affliction that was called the "scourge" ofIndiana's Wabash River valley. Mayo had witnessed the recurring debilitating chills and fever that plagued residents of the valley each summer and characterized "hell" as "a place where people have malaria." Leaving Indiana in 1854, Mayo traveled on the War Eagle, a Mississippi River packet, from Galena, Illinois, to Saint Paul, capital of the Minnesota Territory. He said that he was "perfectly charmed with the new country, and was anxious to see it in all its wild beauty and to tread where the foot of man had never trod before, unless it be that of an Indian." In the fall of that year, he set out on foot from Saint Paul on the first of three round-trips from the capital city to Lake Superior, a distance of 130 miles in each direction; his last trip was a 6-day trek on snowshoes the following January. On these journeys, he became acquainted with the Native American residents of the area and with the growing number of men searching for reportedly rich deposits of copper. Like many others, Mayo succumbed to the "mining fever" and staked a claim near Duluth. When his claim was "jumped," he returned to Saint Paul. Mayo's northern explorations led territorial governor Willis A. Gorman to appoint him a commissioner for Superior County. Subsequently, he was deputized by the sheriff of Chisago County and assigned to gather a census of the Superior lakeshore area. Beginning in May 1855, he undertook three more trips north to compile population statistics. He and his two associates soon discovered that they faced an almost impossible task-the area's scattered population was often on the move, looking for better opportunities. As a result, Mayo had to rely on people with access to the county's remote areas to assess who was living there. His final count, therefore, was subject to the changeable circumstances of the time and place. Mayo's notes regarding his northern trips reveal the challenges and hardships faced by travelers of that era. He carried a 50-pound backpack made from a blanket roll adorned with a coffee pot, frying pan, and tin cup and containing a supply of sugar, flour, pork, tea, and coffee. He described himself as "aged thirty -five, of the profession of medicine, was small of stature, five feet four, thin of flesh, weighing one hundred twenty pounds, but wiry and active and capable of great endurance and fortitude as my previous experience has proved ....[My] dress consisted of a straw hat, red flannel shirt, coarse, thick pants and stockings with Indian moccasins-and of the last, three pairs." Mayo's final census count caused extensive debate between democrats and republicans in the state legislature. He was conscientious about trying to clarify his findings, but before the party politics were settled, he had moved from Saint Paul to Le Sueur, where he built a home and expanded his medical practice and where his oldest son, William James, was born in 1861. Clark W. Nelson, B.S. Emeritus Mayo Archivist
MayoClinProc 1999;74:210
210
© 1999 Mayo Foundation/or Medical Education and Research
For personal use. Mass reproduce only with permission from Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
T
his year marks the sesquicentennial of the organization of the Minnesota Territory on Mar. 3, 1849. The founders of the Mayo Clinic, Drs. Charles H. and William J. Mayo, took special pride in being members of a pioneer Minnesota family. Before becoming one of the state's leading physicians, their father, Dr. William Worrall Mayo, undertook the first census of the growing population of Superior (later, St. Louis) County, the northern part of the new territory that bordered Lake Superior. The elder Mayo was an English immigrant who attended Indiana Medical College in LaPorte and then practiced medicine in Lafayette, Indiana. Apparently, his attraction to Minnesota was due, in part, to the absence of malaria in the territory, an affliction that was called the "scourge" ofIndiana's Wabash River valley. Mayo had witnessed the recurring debilitating chills and fever that plagued residents of the valley each summer and characterized "hell" as "a place where people have malaria." Leaving Indiana in 1854, Mayo traveled on the War Eagle, a Mississippi River packet, from Galena, Illinois, to Saint Paul, capital of the Minnesota Territory. He said that he was "perfectly charmed with the new country, and was anxious to see it in all its wild beauty and to tread where the foot of man had never trod before, unless it be that of an Indian." In the fall of that year, he set out on foot from Saint Paul on the first of three round-trips from the capital city to Lake Superior, a distance of 130 miles in each direction; his last trip was a 6-day trek on snowshoes the following January. On these journeys, he became acquainted with the Native American residents of the area and with the growing number of men searching for reportedly rich deposits of copper. Like many others, Mayo succumbed to the "mining fever" and staked a claim near Duluth. When his claim was "jumped," he returned to Saint Paul. Mayo's northern explorations led territorial governor Willis A. Gorman to appoint him a commissioner for Superior County. Subsequently, he was deputized by the sheriff of Chisago County and assigned to gather a census of the Superior lakeshore area. Beginning in May 1855, he undertook three more trips north to compile population statistics. He and his two associates soon discovered that they faced an almost impossible task-the area's scattered population was often on the move, looking for better opportunities. As a result, Mayo had to rely on people with access to the county's remote areas to assess who was living there. His final count, therefore, was subject to the changeable circumstances of the time and place. Mayo's notes regarding his northern trips reveal the challenges and hardships faced by travelers of that era. He carried a 50-pound backpack made from a blanket roll adorned with a coffee pot, frying pan, and tin cup and containing a supply of sugar, flour, pork, tea, and coffee. He described himself as "aged thirty -five, of the profession of medicine, was small of stature, five feet four, thin of flesh, weighing one hundred twenty pounds, but wiry and active and capable of great endurance and fortitude as my previous experience has proved ....[My] dress consisted of a straw hat, red flannel shirt, coarse, thick pants and stockings with Indian moccasins-and of the last, three pairs." Mayo's final census count caused extensive debate between democrats and republicans in the state legislature. He was conscientious about trying to clarify his findings, but before the party politics were settled, he had moved from Saint Paul to Le Sueur, where he built a home and expanded his medical practice and where his oldest son, William James, was born in 1861. Clark W. Nelson, B.S. Emeritus Mayo Archivist
MayoClinProc 1999;74:210
210
© 1999 Mayo Foundation/or Medical Education and Research
For personal use. Mass reproduce only with permission from Mayo Clinic Proceedings.