George Parkman (February 19, 1790November 23, 1849), a Boston Brahmin and a member of one of Boston's richest families, was a prominent physician, businessman, and philanthropist, as well the victim in the sensationally gruesome Parkman–Webster murder case, which shook Boston in 1849–1850.
Family
Samuel Parkman (August 22, 1751June 11, 1824) and Sarah Rogers had five children: Elizabeth (1785), Francis (1788), George (1790), Samuel (1791), and Daniel (1794). Samuel Parkman had also had six children by his previous marriage to Sarah Shaw. Samuel Parkman, George's father and family patriarch, had bought up low-lying lands and income properties in Boston's West End. He also founded and was part owner of the towns of Parkman, Ohio and Parkman, Maine. His sons from his first marriage oversaw the Ohio properties, while his second set of boys were responsible for the Maine parcel. Samuel's daughters inherited wealth as well. The most notable was George's sister Elizabeth Willard Parkman, whose spouse Robert Gould Shaw (17761853), grandfather of Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837July 18, 1863, Union Army colonel during the American Civil War), grew his wife's share of the fortune to become the senior partner in the most powerful commercial house in a city glutted with the proceeds of the China Trade.
The eleven Parkman scions united in marriage with the Beacon Hill families of Blake, Cabot, Mason, Sturgis, Tilden, and Tuckerman. Of his eleven offspring, Samuel chose George as the one to administer the Parkman estate.
Early life
George Parkman's poor health as a youngster led him to want to study medicine. He entered the freshman class of Harvard University when he was 15 years old, and delivered the "Salutory Oration" in 1809. Despite his assured wealth, a lecture by Benjamin Rush inspired him to take an interest in the terrible state of asylums for the mentally ill. He spent two years at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland obtaining his medical degree. After returning to Boston, he traveled aboard the to Europe and was under the charge of a former Bostonian, Benjamin Thompson, who introduced him to the Minister to France, Joel Barlow. Barlow introduced him to many doctors in Paris. While there, he observed the pioneering and humane treatment methods of two famous French psychiatrists, Philippe Pinel and Étienne Esquirol. He studied at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital for his graduate work. "My first knowledge of the Salpêtrière, was with the high privilege of the guidance of its great physician, Pinel, and of his new illustrious associate, Esquirol. Pinel received me kindly, and inquired with much interest after Benjamin Rush, who had lately written his book on Diseases of the Mind," Parkman wrote from Paris. That same interest helped to cement the relationship between Parkman and Pinel. The 70-year-old Pinel's ideas impressed Parkman. Under teachers like Pinel and Esquirol, Parkman practiced at the Parisian Asylum, and learned the history and treatment of mental "diseases." At this time Parkman developed his own path of his career. He spent time in England studying with men of Science, as well.
Parkman returned to the U.S. in 1813. The War of 1812 called for the service of young men and Parkman “received a commission as a surgeon in a regiment of the third brigade belonging to the first division of the Massachusetts militia.” He began in South Boston and simultaneously served as a physician to the poor with a desire to replicate the practices of Pinel and Esquirol.