Biography

05/05/1824 - 03/25/1893

Doctor Thomas St. Clair (R22) Indiana County 1864-1865 (R37) Indiana and Jefferson Counties 1877-1880

Early Life:

Doctor Thomas St. Clair, born May 5, 1824, White Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania; son of James and Jennie Slemmons St. Clair; common school education; Indiana Academy; studied medicine with Doctor John Jenks, 1843; Jefferson Medical College, 1847; entered private practice, 1849; member, Indiana borough council; president, Indiana Agricultural Society; Surgeon General’s Volunteer Surgical Corps, Civil War, 1862- 1863; elected, Pennsylvania State Senate, 1864-1865; married Charlotte D. Patton, 1848 (d. 1868), children, John Patton St. Clair, James H. St. Clair, Doctor Charles M. St. Clair, Charlotte St. Clair Hazlett, Jennie Slemmons St. Clair, Mary St. Clair Ellis and Sarah Josephine St. Clair; married Sarah Walker, 1869; reelected, Reform Republican, Pennsylvania State Senate, 1877-1880; died, March 25, 1893, Latrobe, Indiana County, Pennsylvania; interment Oakland Cemetery and Mausoleum, Indiana, Indiana County, Pennsylvania.

Early Career:

Practiced, medicine

Civil War, Surgeon General’s Volunteer Surgical Corps, battles participation, Seven Days Campaign, Richmond, Virginia, 1862; Gettysburg, 1863.

Professional titles; business ownership; board memberships; local government; club memberships:

Member, Indiana borough council; president, Indiana Agricultural Society.

Pennsylvania Politics: 

Member, Indiana borough council.

Elected, Republican, Pennsylvania State Senate, 22^nd district, Indiana County, vacancy, Senator and prisoner of war Major Harry White, 1864-1865; reelected, Republican, Pennsylvania State Senate, 37^th district, Indiana and Jefferson Counties, 1877-1880; Committee assignments, Agriculture, Banks Centennial Affairs and Pensions and Gratuities.  

Legacy:

First surgeon, west of the Alleghenies too successfully remove an ovarian tumor.

Cited: 

Smull, W.P., (1879) Smull’s Legislative Hand Book, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, pages 705, 710-712, Biographical Sketches of Senators, page 668.

Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong Counties (Philadelphia: Gresham and Co., 1891); Indiana Messenger, March 29, 1893.