Was Mary Alice Swayze the first woman doctor in Schuylkill County?

Her 1925 obituary remembered her as "one of the first woman doctors in Pennsylvania and one of the first graduates of the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia." No contemporary source calls her the first woman physician in Schuylkill County specifically. What the record does establish is that she practiced in the county from 1874, and that she was the only woman among the six officers the Schuylkill County Medical Society elected in 1885, when it chose her as its vice-president.

Did Mary Alice Swayze really move to Iowa?

In April 1911 the Pottsville Republican reported that she was leaving Pottsville "for the West" and that "her route will lay straight to Iowa," where she meant to make her home. Her later record, however, is entirely Pennsylvania. Her 1925 obituary traces her from Pottsville to Philadelphia — where she lived with her brother Dr. George Swayze until his death in 1914 — and then to Bloomsburg, with her brother Theodore; she married in 1921 and died at Lancaster in 1925, and is buried in Bloomsburg. Whatever came of the 1911 plan, she did not settle or die in Iowa.

Where did Mary Alice Swayze study medicine?

She graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, in the class of 1873 — confirmed by the college's own 1872–73 matriculant list and its 1885 graduate roll (which records her thesis subject, "Fever") as well as the 1893 county cyclopedia. Before medical school she attended Wyoming Seminary in Kingston and Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, and she read medicine under her elder brother, Dr. George B. H. Swayze. The 1906 American Medical Directory gives her degree year as 1895, where the three earlier records — two of them the college's own — give 1873.

Did Dr. Swayze ever marry?

Once, and late in life. In 1921, at about seventy-five, she married Rev. John M. Sampson, of Ronceverte, West Virginia — a former railroad engineer turned minister — who died the following year. Through her roughly thirty-seven-year medical career she was unmarried, and she practiced and is remembered under her own name, Dr. Swayze.

Mary Alice Swayze (1845–1925)

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Pottsville’s Victorian-era woman physician — a Woman’s Medical College graduate of 1873 who practiced in Schuylkill County for some thirty-seven years, led its temperance union, and rose to the second office of its medical society. Markers: verified · confirmed · corrects a common error · open/caution.

Mary Alice Swayze was a physician in Pottsville and Mahanoy City from 1874 to 1911 — a graduate of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in the class of 1873, vice-president of the Schuylkill County Medical Society, and president of the county Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Her 1925 obituary remembered her as “one of the first woman doctors in Pennsylvania and one of the first graduates of the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia.”

A Montour County farm family

Swayze was born on August 12, 1845, at Sharp Ridge, in Montour County, Pennsylvania — the youngest of five children on her parents’ farm. The birth year is fixed by her obituary, which gives her age at death as eighty; the exact day is the one recorded on her gravestone. Her father, Robert Beavers Swayze (1809–1902), and her mother, Sarah (McMurtrie) Swayze (1812–1856), were both born near Hope, in Warren County, New Jersey, and had come early to the Pennsylvania farm on land that lay in Columbia County until the division that created Montour. Her mother died of typhoid fever when Mary Alice was still a child, and her father — a farmer who moved into the merchant trade in Mahanoy City around the opening of the Civil War — later settled at Rohrsburg in Columbia County.

She grew up in a family that produced more than one professional. Her eldest brother, Dr. George B. H. Swayze (1833–1914), took his degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1859, served as an army surgeon, founded and first edited the Mahanoy City Gazette, and practiced medicine in Mahanoy City and later Philadelphia. Her brothers Clark M. and Theodore P. Swayze were merchants, and her sister Lizzie (Ann Elizabeth) married Perry D. Black of Rohrsburg. Before she took up medicine she had herself lived in Mahanoy City, in her father’s household.

Woman’s Medical College, class of 1873

Swayze prepared at Wyoming Seminary in Kingston and Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport before turning to medicine, and she read medicine “under the preceptorship of her eldest brother, George B. H. Swayze, M. D., in Philadelphia.” She then entered the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and graduated in the class of 1873.

That date is fixed by the college’s own records: she appears as a senior matriculant in the Annual Announcement for the 1872–73 session and on the 1885 graduate roll, which records her thesis subject as “Fever,” and it is repeated in the 1893 county biography. The 1906 American Medical Directory records her degree year as 1895, where three earlier and independent records — two of them the college’s own — give 1873.

A practice in the anthracite country

Swayze began to practice in 1874, first at Mahanoy City — where her brother George had practiced before her — and within a few years moved her office to Pottsville, the county seat, where she remained for the rest of her career. The city directories and the local press track the move and the years that followed: she first appears in Boyd’s Pottsville directory in 1877, at 10 North Second Street, and at 204 West Mahantongo Street by 1879; in the spring of 1886 she removed to 224 North Second Street — the Pottsville Republican announced the move that March — where the directories carry her down to the 1911 edition. Her practice was a general one with a stated emphasis: the 1879 directory advertises that “diseases of women and children receive special attention.” Her standing in the county’s official record is documented as well — the prothonotary’s roll of registered physicians, reproduced in the 1893 cyclopedia, lists “Mary A. Swayze” of Pottsville.

Her Pottsville home and surgery from 1886, 224 North Second Street, was the corner house at Second and Race that the press called “the Strouse residence” — it had been the home of the congressman Myer Strouse, who died there in 1878, eight years before Swayze took it. (The building itself is documented separately.)

The medical society and the temperance union

By the middle of the 1880s Swayze was among the recognized leaders of the county’s profession. On January 7, 1885, at the Schuylkill County Medical Society’s annual meeting in Grand Army Hall, the society elected her its vice-president — the second office, after the president, Dr. G. F. Brendle of Mahanoy City. In a slate of six named officers, and among a room of physicians drawn “from all parts of the county,” she was the only woman. The 1893 county cyclopedia records that she had been elected to membership in the society, appointed to prepare professional papers, and made a delegate to the State Medical Society of Pennsylvania, and it set her standing in a wider frame — writing that the “very kindly recognition of Dr. M. Alice Swayze by the generous-minded profession in Schuylkill county has done much to disperse the narrow prejudice which medical men formerly entertained toward women physicians.”

She was equally prominent in the county’s temperance movement. Her 1911 farewell in the Pottsville Republican described her as “one of the organizers and … one of the prime movers in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Pottsville,” and recorded that she had been “for many years president of the county union of the W. C. T. U.” Her obituary, fourteen years later, said the same in fewer words: “a member of the Schuylkill County Medical association and president of the Schuylkill County W. C. T. U.”

Leaving Pottsville

In the spring of 1911, after some thirty-seven years in practice, Swayze gave up her Pottsville office and sold her house on North Second Street to P. J. Joyce. The Pottsville Republican of April 27 announced her departure warmly — “Dr. Swayze to Leave Pottsville” — and reported that she was bound “for the West,” that “her route will lay straight to Iowa,” and that it was “with deep regret … that she leaves her many Pottsville and Schuylkill County friends.”

Whatever came of the announced Iowa plan, the later record does not bear it out. Swayze’s own 1925 obituary traces her from the end of her Pottsville practice not to Iowa but to Philadelphia, where she lived with her brother Dr. George Swayze until his death in 1914, and then to Bloomsburg, where she made her home with her brother Theodore. No record places her in Iowa, and she is buried in Pennsylvania.

Marriage, death, and burial

Late in life, and for the only time, Swayze married. In 1921, at about seventy-five, she married Rev. John M. Sampson of Ronceverte, West Virginia — “formerly a railroad engineer, and later a minister” — who died the next year. She had practiced and been known her whole career under her own name; the marriage came a decade after she left medicine.

Mary Alice Swayze Sampson died at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1925, of heart failure, aged eighty. Her obituary ran the next morning in the Lancaster and York papers, opening with the line that has followed her since — “one of the first woman doctors in Pennsylvania and one of the first graduates of the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia.” She was buried at Old Rosemont Cemetery in Bloomsburg, in Columbia County, beside the family whose Pennsylvania farm she had been born on eighty years before.

Family

The firm points in Swayze’s family record are those carried by the 1893 county cyclopedia and the cemetery record. Her parents were Robert Beavers Swayze (1809–1902) and Sarah (McMurtrie) Swayze (1812–1856); she was the youngest of their five children. Her siblings were Dr. George B. H. Swayze (1833–1914), the physician who was also her medical teacher; Clark M. Swayze (1835–1907); Theodore P. Swayze (1838–1925), with whom she lived at Bloomsburg in her last years; and Ann Elizabeth “Lizzie” (Swayze) Black (1841–1909), who married Perry D. Black. Her only marriage, to Rev. John M. Sampson in 1921, produced no children; she had none.

Sources

Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania (Wiley & Ruoff, 1893)
License: public-domain
Her sketch (pp. 587–589): born at her parents' farm in Montour County; father Robert Beaver Swayze and mother Sarah McMurtrie, both born near Hope, Warren County, N.J. (the mother "died of typhoid fever while the latter was yet a little girl"; the father, a farmer, "about the time of the beginning of the war of the rebellion … embarked in mercantile pursuits in the … town of Mahanoy City," and later "removed" to Rohrsburg, Columbia County); educated at Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport; "she began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of her eldest brother, George B. H. Swayze, M. D., in Philadelphia; and in due course of hard study she graduated at the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia class of 1873." Names her siblings — Dr. George B. H. (Jefferson Medical College, class of 1859, army surgeon, founder and first editor of the Mahanoy City Gazette), Clark M., Theodore P., and sister Lizzie A. (wife of Perry D. Black). On her career: "she in 1874 began an extensive general and special practice in women's and children's diseases … in Schuylkill county, locating her office and home meanwhile in Mahanoy City … Two years later she removed to Pottsville"; her parents were born near Hope, N.J. ("the former in A.D. 1809, the latter in 1812"). The profession's "very kindly recognition of Dr. M. Alice Swayze … has done much to disperse the narrow prejudice which medical men formerly entertained toward women physicians." The county prothonotary's physician-registration list (p. 148, June 25 1881–Aug. 7 1893) records "Mary A. Swayze," Pottsville. Despite the book's title, her entry carries no portrait engraving.
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania — Annual Announcement, 1885 (graduate roll)
License: public-domain
The alumnae/graduate roll (year | name | residence | thesis subject): "1873 Swayze, Mary Alice … Pennsylvania … Fever" — her graduation year and thesis subject. The same roll lists the college's 1869 graduate Clara Swain, confirming it as the authoritative graduate list.
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania — Twenty-third Annual Announcement, session of 1872–73 (matriculants)
License: public-domain
The "List of Matriculants" for the 1872–73 session names "Swayze, Mary A … Philadelphia" as a senior matriculant — the class that graduated in March 1873.
'Schuylkill County Medical Society,' Pottsville Republican, January 7, 1885, p. 4 (Newspapers.com) [subscription]
License: publisher
The society's annual meeting at Grand Army Hall, with "a goodly attendance of physicians from all parts of the county"; the officers elected for the year: "President—Dr. G. F. Brendle, of Mahanoy City. Vice President—Dr. M. A. Swayze, of Pottsville." She is the only woman among the six named officers.
'Dr. M. A. Swayze will remove …,' Pottsville Republican, March 2, 1886, p. 4 (Newspapers.com) [subscription]
License: publisher
"Dr. M. A. Swayze will remove April 1st, to 224 N. Second St., formerly the Strouse residence, two squares from Market St." — dates her move to 224 North Second Street to April 1, 1886, and identifies the corner house as the late congressman Myer Strouse's former residence.
'Dr. Swayze to Leave Pottsville,' Pottsville Republican, April 27, 1911, p. 4 (Newspapers.com) [subscription]
License: publisher
"Dr. M. Alice Swayze, who has made Pottsville her home for many years … intends to leave Pottsville for the West … her route will lay straight to Iowa. Dr. Swayze was one of the organizers and is one of the prime movers in the Women's Christian Temperance Union in Pottsville … She was for many years president of the county union of the W. C. T. U. … Dr. Swayze has sold her residence, on N. Second Street, to P. J. Joyce."
Boyd's Pottsville City Directory, 1877 (Internet Archive)
License: public-domain
Her first Pottsville listing: "Swayze Mary Alice, physician, 10 N Second, h do." She is absent from the 1867–1875 editions, and is listed continuously thereafter through the 1911 edition ("Swayze M. Alice, physician, 224 N 2d"); by 1913 the 224 N. Second address is occupied by the Devitt family.
Boyd's Pottsville City Directory, 1879 (Internet Archive)
License: public-domain
Her practice card at 204 W. Mahantongo: "SWAYZE MARY ALICE, physician; diseases of women and children receive special attention; 204 W Mahantongo, h do" — her advertised specialty.
Dr. Mary Alice Swayze Sampson — Find a Grave Memorial no. 192489833 (Old Rosemont Cemetery, Bloomsburg)
License: reference
Records her dates (b. Aug. 12, 1845; d. Dec. 20, 1925, aged 80, Lancaster) and burial at Old Rosemont Cemetery, Bloomsburg, and transcribes her obituary in full: "One of the first woman doctors in Pennsylvania and one of the first graduates of the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia, Mrs. Alice Swayze Sampson, M. D., died … of heart failure … She was born at Sharp Ridge, Montour county … educated at the Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, and the Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, going from the last named school to the Women's Medical College. She began to practice medicine at Mahanoy City, later establishing her office in Pottsville … She was a member of the Schuylkill County Medical association and president of the Schuylkill County W. C. T. U. After ending her practice of medicine, she lived with her brother, Dr. George H. Swayze, Philadelphia, until his death, and then made her home with another brother, Theodore Swayze, Bloomsburg. In 1921, she married Rev John M. Sampson, of Roncerverte [Ronceverte], W. Va., formerly a railroad engineer, and later a minister, who … died … in 1922." The obituary was published December 21, 1925 in the Lancaster New Era (p. 3), the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer (p. 2), the Lancaster News-Journal (p. 22), and the York Gazette and Daily (p. 6), each verified on Newspapers.com.
Swayze family — Find a Grave memorials (Sharp Ridge Cemetery, Montour County; Old Rosemont Cemetery, Bloomsburg)
License: reference
Her father Robert Beavers Swayze's memorial (no. 140944348, Sharp Ridge Cemetery) cross-links the family and fixes their life-dates: father Robert Beavers Swayze (1809–1902); mother Sarah Curliss McMurtrie Swayze (1812–1856, no. 140944370); and the five children — Dr. George Banghart Henry Swayze (1833–1914, no. 51377288), Clark McMurtrie Swayze (1835–1907, no. 51377632), Theodore Paul Swayze (1838–1925, no. 149945737), Ann Elizabeth Swayze Black (1841–1909, no. 192490011), and Mary Alice (no. 192489833). User-contributed but internally cross-linked; the dated obituary memorials (Mary Alice, George, Clark) are consistent with period death notices.
American Medical Directory, 1906 (American Medical Association)
License: public-domain
Lists "Swayse, Alice M." still in practice at Pottsville in 1906, with the college code "Pa.7" — the directory's own key gives "Pa.7 = Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania." Its degree year is given as "'95," where the college's own 1872–73 and 1885 rolls and the 1893 county cyclopedia give 1873.

Frequently asked

Was Mary Alice Swayze the first woman doctor in Schuylkill County?: Her 1925 obituary remembered her as "one of the first woman doctors in Pennsylvania and one of the first graduates of the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia." No contemporary source calls her the first woman physician in Schuylkill County specifically. What the record does establish is that she practiced in the county from 1874, and that she was the only woman among the six officers the Schuylkill County Medical Society elected in 1885, when it chose her as its vice-president.
Did Mary Alice Swayze really move to Iowa?: In April 1911 the Pottsville Republican reported that she was leaving Pottsville "for the West" and that "her route will lay straight to Iowa," where she meant to make her home. Her later record, however, is entirely Pennsylvania. Her 1925 obituary traces her from Pottsville to Philadelphia — where she lived with her brother Dr. George Swayze until his death in 1914 — and then to Bloomsburg, with her brother Theodore; she married in 1921 and died at Lancaster in 1925, and is buried in Bloomsburg. Whatever came of the 1911 plan, she did not settle or die in Iowa.
Where did Mary Alice Swayze study medicine?: She graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, in the class of 1873 — confirmed by the college's own 1872–73 matriculant list and its 1885 graduate roll (which records her thesis subject, "Fever") as well as the 1893 county cyclopedia. Before medical school she attended Wyoming Seminary in Kingston and Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, and she read medicine under her elder brother, Dr. George B. H. Swayze. The 1906 American Medical Directory gives her degree year as 1895, where the three earlier records — two of them the college's own — give 1873.
Did Dr. Swayze ever marry?: Once, and late in life. In 1921, at about seventy-five, she married Rev. John M. Sampson, of Ronceverte, West Virginia — a former railroad engineer turned minister — who died the following year. Through her roughly thirty-seven-year medical career she was unmarried, and she practiced and is remembered under her own name, Dr. Swayze.