3. A. T. Still from moving to Kansas to his second marriage
In 1853 A.T. Still moved to the Wakarusa mission, where he learned the Shawnee language and completed his apprenticeship with his father, becoming an Orthodox physician. After the closure of the mission, he practiced the profession, although with some initial doubts about the effectiveness of orthodox remedies. He founded a sawmill, bought land and was an abolitionist politician in the State of Kansas before its annexation. In 1859 he became a widower with three young children, and the following year he married his second wife, Mary Elvira Turner.
The Wakarusa mission 1853-54
In 1850 the elders of the congregation proposed to Abram Still to found a mission in Kansas, to bring teachings and medical care to an antislavery part of the Shawnee tribe. There he could have expressed himself more freely and returned to preach in a new state that had yet to be annexed.
Martha was undoubtedly put to the test by the news of a new move, this time to a place still wild, without shops, churches or schools. And what is more to a mission that housed some descendants of the same Indian tribe that had slaughtered his grandparents and more of her family members when they lived in Abb’s Valley. In addition, she would have moved away from some of her children and grandchildren.
Abram and Martha Still left in mid-March 1852, leaving behind their eldest son Ed, their third son Andrew Taylor and their first daughter, Barbara Jane, who was married. Andrew Taylor would join them in May 1853 following the invitation of his father, who needed help to treat Indians suffering from erysipelas, fevers, pneumonia, cholera and the so-called flux (Trowbridge 1991:45). To prepare for his apprenticeship, A.T. Still purchased Robley Dunglison’s book “Practice of Medicine” (Lewis 2012:25).
Arriving at the mission in the summer of 1853, Andrew Taylor Still plowed 90 acres of land with a pair of oxen (Trowbridge 1991:45) and in the autumn began to practice medicine with his father and immersed himself in Indian culture.
He earned the nickname of big talker (Lewis 2012:25), learned the Shawnee language, and became interested in the ancient methods of care of the native Americans – he would later claim that these methods had seemed to him just as ridiculous as those of the orthodox medicine. He also gained experience in manipulation: frequently the hips of cholera-induced deaths dislocated due to spasms induced by the disease, so it was necessary to correct them so that corpses could fit in the coffins (Still 1897:61).
With the help of an interpreter, his wife Mary taught at the local school that counted about thirty children.
Abram continued to preach, but his sermons were no longer as spontaneous as they were in the past because he had to rely on translators. Moreover, the Shawnee Indians tended to be faithful to their traditions and did not convert en masse to Christianity as the missionaries had hoped: according to some sources, around 1846 almost a fifth of the “removed” population of Kansas had joined the Western religion, equal to 175 people (Lakomaki:202-203). Abram also organized camp meetings, in which other missionaries from the area participated (Trowbridge 1991:45). The family befriended some members of the tribe, including Paschal Fish, son of the eponymous Paschal Fish senior, a white man who originally bore the name William Jackson, who had been kidnapped by the Shawnee at an early age and had remained with them. This group, led by the Fish, had embraced Christianity and had demanded a school as early as 1830. Paschal Junior had taken orders from the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church shortly after the schism, but then turned away because of his anti-slavery beliefs (Trowbridge 1991:40).
The Wakarusa mission had a short life because of the political events, connected on the one hand to the increasingly heated debate on slavery and on the other to the expansion of American settlers on increasingly vast territories with the consequent repeated “removal” of Indians. On May 10, 1854, the Shawnees signed a treaty in Washington, D.C., and the mission remained in the portion of the lands assigned to Paschal Fish. He allowed Dr. Abram Still to remain in the building for the following winter and was probably the one who paid him $800 (not due) for the property (Trowbridge 1991).
Coal Creek 1854-56
After leaving the mission, the Still family moved into a log house about two miles away on the Kansas river. Abram had built it on land he had claimed but then the house was occupied by someone else so they gave it up
They began again in the spring of 1855, in Blue Mound, on Coal Creek, five miles to the south-east of Lawrence. John Wesley and Mary left their father’s house to attend high school.
In 1854, the Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which decreed that the decision on the admissibility of slavery in the new states to be annexed to the Union would be made by their residents through a referendum. The law exacerbated existing tensions, and in Kansas it resulted in a race to grab territories by opposing factions: on one hand there was a large influx of pro-slavery Missourians, and on the other hand there were new settlers coming from the Boston region, organized by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, an abolitionist organization.
Among the first settlers to arrive in Lawrence in 1854 was Major Abbott, an educated man, skilled mechanic, naturalist, art collector, inventor and avid reader who was a very active militant in the battle against slavery. Major Abbott settled in a house on the road to Hickory Point, which became a meeting point for abolitionists in the area.
Missourians founded the cities of Atchison and Leavenworth. In 1855, a group of abolitionists, including Major Abbott and Dr A.T. Still, traced the borders for the site of the city of Palmyra, which would later be called Baldwin City (Trowbridge 1991:57).
Tensions over slavery continued to rise, to the point that abolitionists formed an eighty-man militia led by H.F. Saunders and Major Abbott that was mantained until the outbreak of the Civil War. The Still brothers also served in these ranks (Trowbridge 1991:58).
Secret societies were also created which met every week to develop operational strategies. According to some sources, Abram, Andrew, Thomas, John, and James Still belonged to a militia called the Hickory Point Company, and carried tags on which they had written their name backwards to be identified in case of death.
On July 4, 1855, despite the festivities and processions organized to celebrate Independence Day, the inhabitants of Lawrence spoke mainly of the serious political situation. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had turned the new territories of Kansas into a ticking time bomb: for the inhabitants of the neighboring slave state of Missouri the victory of abolitionists in Kansas would have had disastrous economic consequences, therefore they were ready to use any means to prevent it. Settlers from the east coast were equally fierce in defending anti-slavery values and a different model of development.
Andrew Taylor Still and his family took an active part in the guerrilla war preceding the Civil War in what was thereafter known as Bleeding Kansas.
The first dispute that led to an armed confrontation was the so-called Wakarusa War, which began in November 1855 following a dispute over ownership of a plot of land, culminating in the killing of an abolitionist. The murderer fled to Missouri, but his house was set on fire in revenge, and the sheriff arrested another abolitionist, co-owner of the disputed land. Major Abbott led an anti-slavery squad, including A.T. Still, which blocked the road to the sheriff and freed the prisoner. On that occasion it was possible to resolve the issue politically and avoid armed conflict; James Henry Lane, a lawyer and former Indiana congressman who had recently moved to Kansas, participated in the negotiations. In December 1855, the famous activist who supported the armed uprising to abolish slavery, John Brown, arrived in Lawrence. These two men led the guerrilla episodes of the following years, several of which were attended by the Still brothers.
Although a truce had been called, Major Abbott and A.T. Still found themselves in the crosshairs of the Missourians and were forced to hide in the woods for some time. In this occasion they had long conversations and A.T. Still was impressed and fascinated by the Major’s vast knowledge and ideas. However, he was stunned when Abbott stated that “one day something would come up that would take the place of allopathy, eclecticism, and homeopathy.” As A.T. Still himself recalled many years later, he was at the time in love with allopathy and had confidence in his methods of treatment, so it seemed to him that the major had made a hasty claim (Journal of Osteopathy, March 1897).
In retrospective, A.T. Still stated that it was exactly in 1855 that he had his first doubts about allopathic medicine (Still 1902:9). On march 9 of that same year his third child had died, George W., mothered by his first wife and survived only for one day.
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In the spring of 1856 A.T. Still moved with his family to the city of Palmyra and in the following years participated in political and social life, practiced medicine, founded a sawmill and devoted himself to the study of many topics, including anatomy, physiology, chemistry and mineralogy (Stark 2007:48). Susan, the fourth daughter, was born on 11 April 1856.
Episodes of violence linked to the issue slavery continued and escalated, giving rise to riots that took the name of Bleeding Kansas: on May 21, 1856, the pro-slavery faction attacked and sacked the city of Lawrence. During the summer all work on the fields was suspended and raids began on both sides leading to the destruction of many farms. At night, the women of Abram’s house in Blue Mound slept on the ground next to a small fire to avoid attracting attention, while the men scattered in the woods. In June 1856, the House of Representatives passed a bill annexing Kansas as a free state by a vote of 99 to 97, but it was not confirmed by the Senate, and the situation remained stuck. Thefts and murders continued on a daily basis.
Despite the episodes of guerrilla warfare, colonization and city construction continued in Kansas; it was a time of great political instability, ten governors attempted to reorder the territory, and four different Constitutions were drafted (Trowbridge 1991:47). Andrew Taylor Still ran for one of the ballots and was elected to the Kansas Legislative Assembly in 1857. The episodes of violence on the Kansas-Missouri border ended in January 1861, when Kansas was annexed as a free state. A few months later the Civil War broke out.
In Kansas, a Methodist community was active and was spreading its evangelization activities: beginning in 1856, it was considering the project of founding an educational institution. For this purpose, both Abram Still and several others offered to donate some land, and after a lengthy discussion the education committee decided to choose the plot proposed by the city of Palmyra. A.T. Still and his brothers John and Thomas contributed with the plot of land they had claimed on the south of the city of Palmyra. The institute opened in 1858 and took the name of Baker University. One of A.T. Still’s sisters, Mary, taught at the school. She also worked in the first Baldwin City newspaper together with her brother John Wesley Still. The paper focused mainly on “news, education and religion” (Trowbridge 1991:79).
A.T. Still bought a sawmill and attended a course to learn how to work its machinery, he continued to treat the sick and participate in political life. He made no secret of the doubts he was beginning to have about medicine and this provoked the hostility of the medical class not to mention the Methodist community.
The difficult situation of progressive isolation was compounded by the death of the fifth and last child by his first wife, Lorenzo Waugh, who was born on July 29, 1859 and lived only until August 4. His wife Mary Margaret died on September 29 of the same year – A.T Still described her as a good woman, “kind, active, full of love and common sense” (Trowbridge 1991:81).
Andrew Taylor Still was now widowed with three children: 10-year-old Marusha, 9-year-old Abraham Price, and 6-year-old Susan. On November 25, 1860, he married Mary Elvira Turner, a Methodist girl from New York. As a graduation gift, in 1858 Mary Elvira had received from her father the money to visit her sister Louise who had moved to Kansas. She liked to live there and started teaching in a school.
She had a good education and had been exposed to the many currents of thought which had followed one another in the New York region, such as mesmerism, phrenology and spiritualism, and the various follower currents such as, for example, Swedenborg, Mormons and Millerites. She was also an expert in drug preparation because she helped her father, so she was often asked for advice.
One evening in the year 1859 she was called to the bedside of two girls and, fearing that they had scarlet fever, recommended calling a doctor. She herself suggested the name of A.T. Still even though she had only heard of him and had never met him. They married on November 25, 1860. A.T. Still had much in common with Mary Elvira’s beloved father: both were physicians, had a curious mind, were avid readers, and had many interests (Trowbridge 1991:84-89).
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Register nowLife of Andrew Taylor Still
7. Andrew Taylor Still founds the first school of Osteopathy
By this time, A.T. Still had become well established and well known, therefore he could no longer manage by himself the patients who crowded his practice. The first school of osteopathy was founded in 1892 to train new practitioners and it was a crucial turning point: the town of Kirksville attracted teachers, students and patients who, at the turn of the century, developed the theoretical and practical aspects of osteopathy. As a consequece of such collective work, osteopathy gained the same recognition as the other forms of medicine in several US states.
Read6. Kirksville (1875-1917): first steps towards the first school of Osteopathy
In 1875 A.T. Still settled in Kirksville, but he was not well received either in the religious community or within respectable society. However, he became friends with some people close to spiritualism who gave him moral and material help. For about ten years he lived in poverty, working as a doctor traveling in nearby cities, presenting himself as a magnetic healer and then as a "lightning-fast adjuster". In 1886 he could afford to buy a house where he opened a studio.
Read5. 22 June 1874: osteopathy is born
A few months after moving into his brother Edward's house, A.T. Still had no certainty about his future while his brother was sick and in need of care. Suddenly, in the morning of June 22, 1864, he was struck by an overwhelming vision: all his reasoning of many years about health and disease came to a solution. At that moment he raised the flag of "osteopathy", the name that, years later, he would give to his new science.
Read4. The Civil War 1861: A. T. Still's enlistment and the post-war years
A.T. Still enlisted with the Northerners to defend the ideals of freedom and witnessed the most atrocious aspects of the war working in the infirmaries. In 1864 he lost three children to illness and this fueled his doubts about traditional medicine remedies. In the post-war period he was socially accepted as an entrepreneur, doctor and politician, but his studies led him to express ideas unacceptable for the social and religious community, which exhausted him until forcing him to move.
Read2. A. T. Still: from birth to his first marrige
Andrew Taylor Still was born into a devoted family of pioneers who devoted many hours of their day to Bible study and to the education of their children while living in the wilderness. Two important home moves interfered with regularity of his school attendance. Even though, A. T. Still's great curiosity pushed him to study his father’s medical books, to analyze the anatomy of the animals he would hunt, to carry out mechanical repairs and to keep himself informed on the state of the art of new technologies and ideas.
Read1. Origins and descent of Andrew Taylor Still
The roots of A.T. Still reflect the typical confluence of America’s diverse sociocultural contributions in that era. His mother, Martha Poage Moore, came from a wealthy and proud family of pioneers with Scottish origins. His father, Abram Still, had English, German and Dutch ancestry, but also - on his mother’s side - a Native American grandmother; growing up on a plantation, he converted to Methodism and became a physician and a staunch abolitionist.
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