Title: Physician, hospital superintendent
Birthdate: May 1, 1849
Death Date: June 29, 1908
Plot Location: Section 6, Lot 53, northeast corner, north line

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The story of Walter’s childhood is blank, except that he was born in New York to parents of English descent, but whether it refers to the city of New York or the state is unclear.

His first association with Philadelphia came when he attended a small medical school in the building shown here on South 9th Street. It was started in 1853 as the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College (of Gettysburg), which merged with the Philadelphia College of Medicine in 1859. The Eclectic Medical College of Philadelphia took over in 1861, then became known as the Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery in 1865. 

That’s what it was called when Walter went there, graduating in 1871. (The last classes offered there were in 1876 but the dean of the school sold bogus diplomas after the school closed. In 1880 a newspaper reporter exposed the fraud so the dean left town.) Walter returned to New York to work after he graduated. 

Exactly what he did there initially is unclear, but a physician’s directory says he became assistant superintendent of New York Hospital in 1879, then superintendent of Roosevelt Hospital in 1882. The latter had just been founded in 1871 through the million-dollar bequest of James Henry Roosevelt, a distant cousin of the Hyde Park Roosevelts that produced two U.S. presidents.

A job offer as superintendent of Hahnemann University Hospital drew him back to Philadelphia. He found a partner for life that kept him here, because he wooed and won the hand of Isabella Christie in 1887. They settled at 1943 North 20th Street but never had any children.

Established in 1885, Hahnemann was the teaching hospital of Hahnemann Medical College, founded in 1848. It was about two miles from Walter’s home to the hospital at 15th and Vine Streets, so he may have walked or used a horse-drawn street car until the electric trolleys we know today were introduced in the 1890s.

He remained in charge at Hahnemann until about 1904 when his health forced him to leave his position. Walter and Isabella moved to Hammonton, New Jersey where his obituary says, “he suffered long, with alternating hope and fear, having every attention that love and skill could give.”

After his death from heart disease in 1908, Isabella lived the rest of her days in Philadelphia. Their grave is marked with the simple stone shown above in Section 6, not far behind the statue of Father Time that used to greet visitors entering through the old Gatehouse.

Japanese maple tree in front of a monument at Mount Moriah Cemetery

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