Happy 280th Birthday to John Archer

While working on a huge project writing the biographies of all 101 of our founders, and as beginning to write the one for John Archer, it was realized that today’s the 280th anniversary of his birth.  Dr. Archer is notable in that he was the first person in the United States to receive a medical diploma. 

John Archer was born in Churchville on May 5, 1741, and was the only one of five siblings who survived childhood. He was educated at Nottingham Academy and Princeton College. After graduation, he briefly considered opening a grammar school in Baltimore, but instead attended Princeton’s School of Theology, after which he became a Presbyterian minister. Although he mastered the prayers and the order of service, he did not find theology satisfying, and his first sermon was a serious bomb, so he began medical school.