On September 17

On this day in ...

Dr. Mercy Jackson

... 1802 (210 years ago today), Mercy Ruggles was born in Harwick, Massachusetts. Following "what was for the time a good education," in her early 20s she married a preacher. He died before she turned 30, and she supported herself and 2 children, 1st as a teacher and then as a storeowner. Remarried a few years later, Mercy Jackson, as she was then known, became well-versed in medical care of the day -- she eventually gave birth to 11 children, 5 of whom predeceased her, as did both her husbands. She began studying homeopathy, and in 1860, she was graduated from the New England Female Medical College, now known as Boston University College of Medicine.She practiced medicine and wrote articles on women's rights from then till her death, in Boston, at age 75.

(Prior September 17 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)