San Francisco County
JOSEPH H. SOPER, M.D.
Joseph H. Soper, M.D., whose office is in the Phelan building, Market street, San Francisco, was born in Gerard, Pennsylvania, in 1844, the son of Alonzo and Sarah (Dyke) Soper, both natives of Connecticut, whose ancestors came to the United States a short time prior to the Revolutionary war, in which his grandfathers on both the father’s and mother’s sides served. On his mother’s side his grandfather served in the war of 1812. His father was a farmer, and later owned a blast furnace in Pennsylvania for many years before his death. He died when the Doctor was but four years of age; the mother still lives in Ohio.
Our subject received his early education in Erie, Pennsylvania, and at the age of sixteen years, in 1861, he enlisted in the First Regiment of Western Engineers, a command raised in St. Louis, and served under Fremont in the campaign against Price in southwestern Missouri. In 1862 the regiment was under the command of General Pope, and engaged in cutting the canal around Island No. 10, which resulted in its capture. Their first fight was at New Madrid, just before the surrender of Island No. 10. Later they were under General Halleck in the campaign at Corinth, then under Grant in the early stage of the Vicksburg campaign, when part of his company was captured at Holly Springs, Mississippi. While out on a foraging expedition from Moscow, Tennessee, the Doctor being the Acting Commissary Sergeant, with one other of the command was captured and later paroled, and returned to St. Louis until exchanged. He then rejoined his regiment and was under Sherman in the campaign from Lookout Mountain to Atlanta, and then on the march to the sea. After the close of the war he took part in the grand parade at Washington, and was finally mustered out at St. Louis, Kentucky, and with his regiment was veteranized in 1864.
Dr. Soper then entered the Central Ohio Seminary at South Toledo, Ohio, where he remained three years. He commenced the study of medicine in 1861, at the medical department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and later graduated in Chicago in 1869. He then entered into practice in Chicago, remaining four years; then removed to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where he practiced nine years; next he returned to Chicago, and took a post-graduate course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1883; then he returned to Sturgeon Bay, remaining until 1886, and then came to California, where he has since been actively engaged in practice in San Francisco. He is a member of the State Medical Society of California and of the County Medical Society of San Francisco.
Transcribed
by David Rugeroni.
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 228 - 229, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 David Rugeroni.