Early Life
Abbott was born in Toronto as the son of Wilson Ruffin Abbott and Ellen (Toyer) Abbott. The Abbotts were a prominent black family in Toronto who had left Alabama as “free people of color” after their store had been ransacked. After living a short time in New York, they relocated to Canada in 1835 or 1836. Wilson Abbott soon began to purchase real estate in and around Toronto. He owned 48 properties by 1871 and also became active in politics. He was also the first black Canadian who served the American civil war.
The family's prosperity allowed Anderson Ruffin Abbott to receive an excellent education. He attended both private and public schools including William King’s school in the black settlement of Buxton, near Chatham. He was an honour student at the Toronto Academy and later attended at Oberlin College in Ohio. After returning to Canada he graduated from the Toronto School of Medicine in 1857. He matriculated in medicine that year at the University of Toronto and then studied for four years under Alexander Thomas Augusta, a fellow black physician. Abbott received a licence to practise from the Medical Board of Upper Canada in 1861, thus becoming the first Canadian-born black doctor.
Read more about this topic: Anderson Ruffin Abbott
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)