Charles Boarman Harris

Charles Boarman Harris (1857 to 1942) was an American physician and surgeon who became the first licensed doctor to serve the general population of Pembina County in the Dakota Territory, later North Dakota. Born in Charles Town, Virginia, he studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore, graduating in 1880, and practised briefly in Martinsburg, West Virginia, before travelling to Pembina in January 1883 carrying only his clothes and medical instruments. About 4,000 settlers then lived in the Pembina and St. Vincent area with no civilian doctor. Over a career of nearly sixty years he made countless house calls through severe weather over poor roads, delivered more than 3,000 babies, served as Pembina Health Officer from 1888 for nearly five decades, and spent thirty years as a county medical commissioner examining cases of insanity. He also managed farms, presided over the school board and a bank, and was still practising in his eighties.