of materials and the bills of workmen.” When the church was completed, “on May 11, 1747, the vestry passed a vote of thanks, and ordered a piece of plate of the value of forty pounds, to be given to Dr. John Kearsley, for his care and trouble in rebuilding and ornamenting the church, and as a lasting testimonial and acknowledgment of his services done for this church and congregation.”[1]
Dr. Kearsley died in January, 1772, at the advanced age of eighty years, and “left by his will a large part of his estate both real and personal, in trust to the corporation of the united churches of Christ Church and St. Peter’s, to found the institution which he named ‘Christ Church Hospital,’ the design of which is to afford a comfortable home for respectable, aged, indigent females.”[1] By judicious management this benefaction has proved a munificent one.
Dr. Thomas Graeme, after a long career in medicine, in which pursuit he from time to time performed the duty of health officer, became an officer of the customs, and a justice of the Supreme Court.[2] He finally retired to his country seat in Bucks County, where he spent the remainder of his life. This country seat has been known by the name of Graeme Park.
The influence of the intelligent and educated men whose names have been mentioned, was of incalculable advantage in all the ways where science and learning could be brought into requisition, but especially were their services important as teachers of their art and preceptors of the rising generation. The physicians who succeeded them were natives of the country. Of their number may be named Lloyd Zachary, Thomas Cadwalader, William Shippen, Sr., Thomas Bond, Phineas Bond, Cadwalader Evans, John Redman, John Bard, and John Kearsley, Jr. Several of these, as Zachary, Redman, and Kearsley, Jr., were the pupils—or, in the language then in vogue, the apprentices of the elder Kearsley, who, if the account speaks truly, was no lenient master.
