"David Jones Peck"(1826-1855)

Was the first African-American male to graduate from an American Medical School.David was born to John C. and Sarah Peck in Carlisle Pennsylvania around 1826.John was a prominent abolitionist and minister who founded the local African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Carlisle.He was also a barber and a wigmaker.John and Sarah moved to Pittsburgh in the early 1830s where they established the first school for black children in the area.David was one of their first students.Between 1844 and 1846 David studied medicine under Dr.Joseph P.Gaszzam,an anti-slavery white doctor in Pittsburgh.He then entered Rush Medical College in 1846,three years later after the institution opened.After graduation in 1847,David toured the state of Ohio with William Lloyd Garrison,and Frederick Douglass promoting abolitionist ideals.His status as as the first black graduate of a medical college was used by abolitionist to promote the idea of full black citizenship was implicitly an attack on slavery.In 1849 he established his practice in Philadelphia.David lived in and worked from a red brick row house with his wife,Mary E.Peck,whom he married on July 24,1849.His medical practice,was not successful.Few doctors recognized his status,referred patients to him,or consulted with him.David closed his medical practice in 1851and was preparing to travel California when Martin Delany,an old friend and fellow Pittsburgh abolitionist,persuaded him instead to participate in an emigration project  that woould resettle U.S. free blacks in Central America.Martin,David, and black emiigrants moved to Nicaragua in 1852,settling on the east coast of the nation.The emigrants established San Juan Del Norte with Martin as the mayor and commander of the millitia.David practiced medicine and became the town physician.In 1854 he joined the Liberal side of in the Nicaraguan Civil War and was killed by cannon fire in the town of Granada in January 1855.Dr.Peck is buried in the town square of the city of Granada.