Adamson, Charles, who lived at Corner Stores, near Phoenixville, in Schuylkill Township, married Mary Corson, sister of Dr. Hiram Corson, of Conshohoeken.  The Adamsons were one of the old Chester County Quaker families.  Both Charles and his wife are deceased.

Thomas Adamson, son of the above, was born at Corner Stores, Chester County, and is one of the oldest members of the consular service.  In 1870 he was appointed consul to Melbourne, Australia, which position he held until 1878, when he was appointed by President Hayes as consular-general at Rio de Janeiro.  During his residence abroad he has taken 'active part in every movement of social utility, and not content with existing charities, ranked among the leading promoters of several new ventures of benevolence, among which was the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society."

Sarah R. Adamson (Mrs L C Dolley, MD), sister of Thomas, and daughter of Charles and Mary, has the honor of being the 2nd woman in this country who received a full medical education and the degree of Doctor of Medicine - Elizabeth Blackwell, being the first.  She attended the select school of Graceanna Lewis, whose load to her pupil of a work on physiology first fascinated, and then led to the determination to make medicine a special study and its practice her life-work.  She continued her studies at the Friends' Central School, in Philadelphia, and as a medical student with her uncle, Dr. Hiram Corson.  In 1849 she made application for admission to one and another of the medical schools, with the consent and encouragement of her preceptor, but in vain.  For a time she studied practical anatomy under Dr. Edwin Fussel, who later became professor of anatomy in the Woman's College of Philadelphia.  Soon after she was received by the Central Medical College of NY, at Syracuse, from which she was graduated in 1851, with the degree MD.  She spend a year in Blockley Hospital, and received from its board of managaers the same certificate as that awarded to the male physicians.  Soon after she married Dr. LC Dooley, of Rochester, NY, whither she moved, and which continues to be her residence.  She is president of the Rochester Society of Natural Sciences, an outgrowth of a course of lectures by Graceanna Lewis.  Mrs Dr. Dolley is a sister in law of Elijah F. Pennypacker.





This page updated on February 26, 2009