William Worrall Mayo

William Worrall Mayo (1819 to 1911) was an English-born physician and chemist who built a frontier medical practice in the American Midwest. Born in Salford, Lancashire, he studied science under the chemist John Dalton in Manchester before emigrating to the United States in 1846, working as a pharmacist, and then turning to medicine in Indiana and at the University of Missouri. After years of farming, ferry-keeping, newspaper work and occasional doctoring in Minnesota, he settled in Rochester in 1863 and opened a solo practice. When a tornado struck the town in 1883 he recruited the Sisters of Saint Francis as nurses, an effort that led to the opening of St. Marys Hospital in 1889, where he and his sons William James and Charles Horace Mayo worked as surgeons. His practice is the origin of the Mayo Clinic. He also served as mayor of Rochester and in the Minnesota State Senate. One point remains uncertain: no document confirms that he graduated from the Indiana Medical College, although he reportedly said he had.