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Monterey County
Doctors
Peninsula Diary, April 12, 1950
By Mayo Hayes O'Donnell
Today we would like to tell the readers something about the life of one,
Dr. Samuel Milton Archer, whose daughter. and other members of the family
are living in various parts of the county. In a souvenir edition of "Monterey
County, Resources, History and Biography," published by E. S. Harrison,
there is this account of his life and work:
"Dr. S .M. Archer is not only an eminent physician and genial gentleman,
but one of the landmarks of Monterey County, having resided here since
1869. He came to California in 1868 from Louisville, Kentucky. He comes
from a long line of American ancestors, the first of whom were early colonial
settlers in Virginia and Maryland. At a later date members of the family
participated in the wars of the revolution, and 1812, and in the early
Indian wars, many of them filling important positions in the Army and
the government.
Among Dr. Archer's ancestors is John Archer, of Maryland, who was the
first man to graduate in medicine in the United States. He obtained his
diploma from the Philadelphia Medical College in 1768. The subject of
this sketch received his education at the Indiana Asbury University, and
graduated in medicine at Louisville. He then attended the clinics at the
Bellevue and Blackwell Island Hospitals, New York, for a considerable
time.
After arriving in San Francisco in 1868, as a matter of adventure, and
with a desire to see more of the world, he made a trip to China via the
Sandwich Islands and Japan, as a surgeon on the boat. The passage was
rough both ways, dangerous and disagreeable, and when the young medico
got back to San Francisco he concluded that he had had enough of "life
on the ocean wave". He determined to locate in the country and so
arrived in this county, intending to return to the city in a few years
to locate. But he- soon became a fixture in Monterey County, although
he was often called to San Francisco professionally.
In 1872 he was appointed county physician, an d took charge of the County
Hospital, which buildings he had built and sold to the county. In his
lifetime he had perhaps treated, successfully, more desperate cases of
dropsy than any other physician in the state. He served one term as coroner
and public administrator, from 187B to 1878, but declined re-nomination,
and also declined the nomination for Assembly in 1886.
Dr. Archer's office was in the Scott building, over the drug store of
that name, on the main street in Salinas. He also maintained offices at
the County Hospital where he was resident physician. His coupe with two
horses and his driver, with Doctor Archer and his black physician's bag
on the seat beside him, was a familiar scene on the streets of Salinas
in the early days. Dr. Archer passed away in 1902 and was buried in Salinas
with great honors.
Dr. Archer married Luisa Robertson and to them were born seven daughters,
four of whom are still living. Mrs. Luisa Dahlgren and Mrs. Mary Davis,
who reside up the Carmel Valley; Mrs. Agnes Meline of San Francisco and
Mrs. Sallie Zane, wife of Colonel E. L. Zane of Pebble Beach.