WILLIAM P. SPRAGUE, M. D.

San Francisco County

Biographies

WILLIAM P. SPRAGUE, M. D.

William P. Sprague, M.D., whose office is at 502 Taylor street, San Francisco, was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1860. His early education was received in the public schools of several of the New England States, passing three years at the Boston Latin School. He also attended for some time the Adelphi Academy,of Brooklyn, New York, where his father, Dr. Homer B. Sprague, late president of Mills' Seminary, California, and now president of the University of Northern Dakota, was then principal. Later he took a special course in the Chauncy Hall School of Boston, preparatory to taking up the study of medicine, which he commenced in 1879, under the preceptorship of Dr. Welcome W. Sprague, of New York, with whom he remained one year. He then entered the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1880, graduating at that institution in 1882, and receiving his degree as Doctor of Medicine. Mr. Sprague practiced for one year at Worcester, Massachusetts, next for three years at Brooklyn, New York, and then came to California in 1886, where he has since been engaged in medicine in San Francisco. The Doctor is a member of the State Medical Society of California, and of the County Medical Society of San Francisco. He is also a medical director of the Bankers' and Merchants' Mutual Life Association of San Francisco.

Dr. Sprague's family are of early New England stock, on his father's side from Massachusetts, and on his mother's (nee Antoinette Pardee) from Connecticut. Dr. Sprague's father, Colonel Homer B. Sprague, now president of the University of Northern Dakota, is a self-made man, and one who has added honor to every position in life he has been called upon to fill. He was the second of nine children, whom he, at the early age of nine years, began to assist in supporting. He worked successively in a cotton factory, later at shoemaking, and afterward at farming while a boy. He carried himself through the Leicester Academy, and later through Yale College, by working at odd jobs, and later by teaching during the term and vacations. He continued that occupation after graduating at Yale, and at the same time studied law. At the breaking out of the war of the rebellion he was practicing law at Worcester and New Haven with marked success. He at once, in 1861, turned his office into a recruiting depot, and went out as Captain of the Thirteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry.He saw service with his regiment in the Department of the Gulf, and in 1864-'65 in the Shenandoah valley, under Sheridan. His record was a splendid one in Louisiana at Irish Bend, Port Hudson, and on Banks' Red river expedition of 1863-'64. At Irish Bend he was wounded in the arm, but continued in the fight until the battle was won, and still carries part of that bullet which was splintered on his sword hilt. His regiment fought its way step by step up to the breastworks of Port Hudson, Captain Sprague there volunteering as one of a storming party of 200 to leap into the rebel works, but they were recalled. Another storming party of 1,000 men was called for the next day by General Banks, as a forlorn hope to again storm the works. Of sixty-five officers and 918 soldiers who joined this column, Captain Sprague's regiment furnished fifteen officers and 225 enlisted men. The news of the surrender of Vicksburg and the certainty that Port Hudson must follow, rendered that assault unnecessary. Captain Sprague was brevetted Colonel for gallant and meritorious conduct. He was later promoted through the various grades of the colonelcy of the Eleventh Regiment, C. D. A. Early in the summer of 1864, after the failure of Banks' Red river expedition, Colonel Sprague's regiment went to Virginia as part of the Nineteenth Army Corps, and took a conspicuous part in the Shenandoah valley campaigns, Colonel Sprague with his regiment holding the enemy at the battle of Winchester, until they were surrounded in front, flanks and rear, and finally captured. He was afterward exchanged, but did not regain the strength lost in rebel prisons for two years.

He remained in military service until 1886, when he again engaged in teaching, as principal of the State Normal School of Connecticut, and later as Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Cornell University. He has since held some of the most prominent and responsible positions as an educator in the United States, lately, for some time, as president of the American Institute of Instruction, founder and president of the Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute, the oldest and largest of the summer schools of the world, and now as president of the University of Northern Dakota. Colonel Sprague has made an honored place for himself in literature and statesmanship, as well as in educational work; is the author of the article on education in the Constitution of Northern Dakota. At the present writing the press and the best men in the State are calling on the people of Northern Dakota to honor him by sending him to the United States Senate.

Transcribed 4-11-05 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, pages 55-56, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

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