Dr. H. Wheeler Bond, a St. Louis physician and surgeon, comes from a family that has left many distinguished names upon the records of the medical profession in America. His ancestral line can be traced back to Dr. Thomas Bond who was the progenitor of the family in the new world and who later founded the first school of medicine in the United States. This was established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which city has always been a center of medical learning. The records show that Dr. Thomas Bond came to this country from England with a nephew, John Bond, who studied medicine and surgery under him in Philadelphia. This Dr. John Bond at the outbreak of troubles between the French colonies of Canada and the British colonies along the Atlantic, joined a Pennsylvania regiment and was with General Braddock in the French and Indian war, in which he was taken prisoner and was for a time incarcerated at Fort Duquesne, which is now the city of Pittsburgh. He was afterward taken by the Indians to Canada. In recognition of his service to the chief’s son he was given his freedom. After his return home he again entered upon active military professional duty in the British Colonial army.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary war his sympathies were entirely with the colonies, so he resigned from the British service, but owing to his oath of allegiance to the Crown he felt in honor bound to remain neutral during the struggle. It was then he settled in Calvert county, Maryland, and established the Bond family in that state. From that time they have been active in the affairs of Maryland. They were large land and slave-owners up to the Civil war period, at which time Basil Duke Bond was the head of the family. His son, Thomas H. Bond, father of Dr. H. Wheeler Bond of this review, was born in the old home at Port Republic, Calvert county, where the birth of H. Wheeler Bond also occurred. After the close of the Civil war Thomas H. Bond took up agricultural pursuits and after a few years settled in St. Mary’s county, Maryland, and here he still resides at the ripe old age of eighty-one. He was active in state and national politics and during the ’70s served in the general assembly of Maryland, always giving his prompt support to the democratic party. He married Adelaide Briscoe, a native of St. Mary’s county, Maryland, and a descendant of a very prominent old colonial family of that state of English lineage. A great-uncle, Thomas Stone, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from Maryland. One of the Briscoe’s, who is now on the supreme bench of Maryland, is a relative of Dr. Bond of this review. The mother of the doctor passed away in 1881 at the comparatively early age of thirty-four. She had a family of four children, all sons, three of whom are living.
Dr. H. Wheeler Bond, the eldest of the family was born in Calvert county, Maryland, September 29, 1867, and was educated in the Charlotte Hall Military Academy of Maryland, from which he was graduated in 1884. He next took up the study of medicine and completed his course in the Missouri Medical College of St. Louis and in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Following his graduation in 1890 he served for two years as interne in the St. Louis City Hospital, acting as junior and senior physician there. He likewise took up the teaching of anatomy in the Marion Sims Medical College, now the St. Louis University, remaining in that position for five years, from 1891 until 1896. In the latter year he entered upon general practice in which he has continued up to the present time. In 1903 he was appointed by Mayor Rolla Wells as a member of the city board of health to fill an unexpired term, was appointed in 1905 by Mayor Wells to the position of health commissioner, and in 1907 reappointed to the same office, serving until 1911. During the mayoralty of Fred Kreisman in 1911 he was appointed a member of the hospital board. While serving as health commissioner he secured the passage of a most important measure by the legislature, the Missouri Vital Statistics Law, this being the first act of the kind ever successfully enforced in this state. His value is widely acknowledged from a health statistical standpoint and the work accomplished by Dr. Bond well entitles him to prominent mention in this connection. Dr. Bond belongs to the St. Louis, Missouri State and American Medical Associations and the proceedings of these bodies keep him in touch with the trend of modern professional thought and investigation.
On the 1st of June, 1899, Dr. Bond was married in St. Louis, Missouri, to Miss Isabell Scudder, a daughter of John A. and Mary A. (White) Scudder, both representatives of prominent old families of St. Louis. The father was a wealthy steamboat man during the palmy days of river transportation. Two children have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Bond: Mary Scudder and Isabell Brooke.
During the World war Dr. Bond was a medical examiner, serving without a commission. His political endorsement is given to the democratic party and he is well known in club circles of the city, having membership in the St. Louis, St. Louis Country and University Clubs, having at one time been president of the last named. His religious faith is that of the Episcopal church and he has ever been guided by high and honorable principles which have found their expression in every relation of his life. Loyal to high professional standards he has been equally true to those qualities which characterize honorable and advanced manhood and citizenship. His record reflects credit and honor upon a family name which has figured prominently in connection with the medical annals of the country since the early colonization of the new world.