Anderson Abbott Ruffin Canada’s First Black Doctor

"It is just as natural for two races living together on the same soil to blend as it is for the waters of two river tributaries to mingle." Anderson Ruffin Abbot

Anderson Ruffin Abbot was born in 1837 in Toronto to a prominent black family. His parents were ‘free people of colour’ who had left Alabama after their store had been ransacked. Wilson, his father was an active real estate investor and he was active in politics. His family’s prosperity allowed Anderson to attend excellent schools where he excelled. He went to Oberlin College in Ohio. He also went to the University of Toronto and studied at that Toronto School of Medicine graduating in 1857. He then studied under Alexander Thomas Augusta another Black doctor and obtained his license to practice from the Medical Board of Upper Canada in 1861 to become Canada’s first Canadian born Black doctor.


During the Civil War in the United States, Abbott served as a civilian surgeon in Washington D.C from June 1863 to August 1865. He was one of only eight Black surgeons. While there he developed a close relationship with Abraham Lincoln so close in fact that he stood vigil at his bedside after the President had been shot keeping the minutes of Lincoln’s condition as he died. In gratitude, Mary Todd Lincoln presented Abbott with the plaid shawl that Lincoln has worn during his 1861 inauguration. Abbott received many commendations for his service during the war. In 1866, Abbott returned to Canada. In 1871, he married Mary Ann Casey and moved to Chatham.

He was appointed the coroner for Kent Country in 1874. After some time spent in Chicago he returned to Toronto.Abbott became an important member of the community in Toronto and he fought against racially segregated schools. In Chatham, he contributed to the newspaper and was associate editor of the journal for the British Methodist Episcopal church. He was also president of the Chatham Literary Society, the Medical Society and the Debating Society. He moved his practice to Dundas in 1881 and became a trustee of the high school and chairman of the town’s internal management committee from 1885 to 1889.

He remained a prolific writer and advocate throughout his life believing that Blacks should be culturally assimilated not segregated. At the age of 76, Abbott died in 1913 at the Toronto home of his son-in-law Frederick Langdon Hubbard.