Camden People - Dr. Sophia Presley

DR. SOPHIA PRESLEY M.D. was one of Camden's first female doctors. Born in Ireland around 1839, her family came to America when she was quite young, and settled in Stuebenville OH. After graduating from the Grandville Episcopal Seminary in Grandville OH she took a teaching position, and followed that line of work for about eight years. In 1876 she enrolled in the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1879. After interning at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia and doing some teaching at the Women's Medical College, Dr. Presley came to Camden and in 1881 she opened an office in Camden at 215 North 4th Street, where she remained through 1889.

After seven years of struggling to gain recognition as a physician in the face of opposition from local doctors, Dr. Presley was elected to a membership of the Camden County Medical Society in 1890. She built up a successful practice, and was quite well known in her time. At her death the Resolutions Committee of the Camden County Medical Society reported that after beginning her practice in Camden, "by her earnest zeal and ability, she soon had the confidence of many of our prominent families, and secured a large clientele under adverse circumstances." After 1890 Dr. Presley made her home and office at 405 Penn Street, on ground that is now the Rutgers campus. In April of that year, she served as one of five medical attendants for the newly organized Methodist Episcopal Home, which was opened at 531 York Street in Camden on April 15, 1890 to provide housing and care for elderly widows.

Dr. Presley authore a nuymber of medical papers, beginning with her class thesis on "Acquired Syphillis". She read her treatise on "Rectal Polypi" at the December 1891 meeting of the Camden City Medical Society. In May of 1892 she reported on "Puerperal Fever. Dr. Presley was elected secretary of the Society in 1894 and again in 1895. She was one of three members reporting reporting from the Scoiety's Pathology Section in October of 1895.

Dr. Presley served as gynecologist at the Camden City Dispensary, and succeeded Dr. Isaac Mulford as physician at the West Jersey Orphanage for colored children at 6th and Mechanic Streets. She also served on that institution's Board of Managers, and in 1894, as Second Vice-President under Lucy Cooper. In the late 1890s she was an instructor at the New Jersey Training School for Nurses. Dr. Presley was a member of the Camden County and Camden City Medical Societies, the Camden City Medical & Surgical Society, and the American Medical Association. Outside of her associations in the medical field, she was a member of the Woman's Club of Camden, the Woman's Park Association, and St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Market Street. In May of 1899 and and again in 1900 she was elected as to the Board of Directors of the Woman's Club of Camden.

Dr. Sophia Presley passed away in 1909. At her death the Resolutions Committee of the Camden County Medical Society reported that after beginning her practice in Camden, "by her earnest zeal and ability, she soon had the confidence of many of our prominent families, and secured a large clientele under adverse circumstances.

From
Biographical Review:
Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens of Camden and Burlington Counties, New Jersey
Boston: Biographical Review Publishing Co., 1897

SOPHIA PRESLEY, M.D., whose office is at 405 Penn Street, Camden, N.J., is one of the most successful and widely known women physicians of the day. A daughter of William and Leticia Presley, she was born in County Fermanaugh, Ireland. Her grandfather, James Presley, was a well-to-do farmer and large land-owner in Fermanagh; and in that county her father was born.

William Presley was reared and educated in his native place, and for some time was extensively engaged in farming there. In 1850 he sailed for America, taking with him his wife and children. The little family landed in New York, and then, traveling westward to Ohio, settled in Stuebenville, Jefferson County, where Mr. Presley, who was a well educated man, afterward obtained a position as a clerk in a glass manufactory. He is now living in that city, retired from active work, being over eighty years old. His wife, Letitia Moore, also a native of Ireland, was daughter of William Moore. She died at the age of fifty-four, shortly after arriving on these shores. Mr. and Mrs. Presley were the parents of three children: Sophia, the subject of this sketch; Alice, wife of Isaiah James; and William, who resides in Stuebenville. The father was a second time married, and by this union had two children. The family are all members of the Episcopal church.

Sophia Presley acquired the rudiments of her education in private schools in her native land before coming to this country. In Ohio she attended the Grandville Episcopal Seminary, and after graduating began immediately to teach, in order to pay for the money forwarded for her expenses on that condition. She began her work as an assistant teacher in the grammar and high school of Dresden, Ohio, and at the end of four years resigned to take a position in the Barnett Academy at Charleston, Indiana. Here she was associated with her former teachers. She gave instruction in the English language and the higher mathematics for three years; and then, the principal leaving the school, she shortly followed. A year later she went to Wellsville OH, where she was engaged in teaching until 1876.

While in Charleston she was advised by an eminent physician to study medicine, and for some time prior to resigning her position in the school she studied in private. In 1876 she entered the Woman's Medical College m Philadelphia; and after graduating in 1879 she was for some time intern at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, and was also demonstrator or instruction surgery at the Women's Medical College, and clinic physician at the Woman's Hospital. In 1881 she opened an office in Camden, where she was an entire stranger, and by the strength of her unusual merits and her ambition to succeed has worked up a large practice. Her visiting list now includes the best families in the city, and she is called in consultation with the most eminent physicians on Philadelphia and other cities.

An indefatigable worker, Dr. Presley belongs to a number of societies and has written several valuable papers on medical and sanitary subjects that have been received with approval. She is a member of the Alumni Association of the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia; a member of the Camden City Medical Society of which she was for two years Secretary; a member of the Camden County Medical Society and the American Medical Association. She is now instructor in the New Jersey Training School for Nurses. Dr. Presley is also a member of the Woman's Club of Camden and the Woman's Park Association, and has written some interesting papers in regard to the latter society which were published in the Camden papers. She attends worship at St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church.