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historical notes
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John Van Surly DeGrasse was born in June 1825 in New York City to the Count George DeGrasse, of Indian-French parentage, and Maria Van Surly, whose family was African-American with more distant Dutch, German, and Moroccan ancestors. He studied medicine at Aubuk College in Paris, and received his medical degree with honors from the Bowdoin College’s Medical School of Maine in Brunswick in May 1849. He was the second Black American to receive a medical diploma in the United States.
DeGrasse was also an active abolitionist and helped organize vigilante groups to intercept slave hunters in Boston immediately after passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. In May 1863 DeGrasse volunteered for the Union Army and in September he received a commission as assistant surgeon with the 35th United States Colored Infantry. He was the only Black surgeon to serve in the field with his regiment in South Carolina and one of only eight to serve in the Union Medical Corps. After the war, DeGrasse returned to his practice in Boston.
DeGrasse was a collector of the work of the painter Edward Mitchell Bannister of the American Barbizon school; the sculptor Edmonia Lewis; the engraver Patrick H. Reason; and Henry O. Tanner, who had been a protegé of Thomas Eakins.
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