My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM L. ESTES, M. D., Director and Physician and Surgeon in Chief of St. Luke’s Hospital of South Bethlehem, is well known in the ranks of his profession in this state. He was born November 28, 1855, in Brownsville, Tenn., being a son of Albert M. Estes. His grandfather removed from Virginia to western Tennessee with his family, and was there an extensive planter.

Albert M. Estes was only a youth when he removed with his father to Tennessee, where he received a college education. He became the owner of a plantation near the Big Hatchie River. He died about the close of the war, in his sixty-sixth year. He was a Captain of militia, and was a Whig in politics. His wife, Marcia Burton Owen, was a daughter of Dr. William Owen, who was born in Virginia, and whose wife was Margaret Burton. He was a practicing physician near Richmond, where he died, his family afterward removing to western Tennessee. One of his sons, Prof. Thomas Owen, was a well known educator in western Tennessee. Our subject’s mother died in that state in 1880, when about seventy years of age.

Dr. Estes was reared in the South, and was educated in Brownsville Academy for Boys, and in Bethel College at Russellville, Ky., which he entered in 1869. In 1871, on account of ill health, he was obliged to leave college, but later completed the course, receiving the degree of Master of Arts. In 1875 he entered the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, graduating therefrom two years later with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Next he went to New York City, and after completing the course in the University of New York was graduated in 1878 from the institution with the adeundem degree of M. D. For the three succeeding years the Doctor practiced in Mt. Sinai Hospital in that city, during the last year being chief of the staff. From May until October, 1881, he was engaged in regular practice in the metropolis, his office being on East Seventy-ninth Street.

In November, 1881, Dr. Estes came to St. Luke’s Hospital, being first Superintendent and Physician and Surgeon in Chief. Since 1891 he has been Directing Physician and Surgeon in Chief, his specialty being surgery. Since 1887 he has given lectures on physiology and hygiene at Lehigh University, and he is frequently called into consultation by neighboring surgeons in difficult cases. The hospital was started in 1873, being then located in the heart of South Bethlehem, but three years later it was removed to its present place in the old water-cure building, surrounded by twenty-five acres of ground. In 1879, on the death of Judge Packer, he left an endowment, with the provision that the Lehigh Valley Railroad employes be treated gratis. This helped to support the institution, and since 1881, when the first new pavilion was opened, it has stead ily increased in usefulness. In 1885 a training-school for nurses was started.

The new administration building was completed in 1888, and two years later the children’s pavilion became a feature of the hospital. From 1881 until 1891 two thousand six hundred and forty-one patients were treated, and ten thousand seven hundred and ninety-four have received assistance in the dispensary department; and during ten years one hundred and thirty-three thousand eight hundred and five have been cared for at the hospital, the expense being $157,854.50. The hospital now has some sixty-two beds, and is treating in the dispensary about two thousand people a year. Non-sectarian, it also draws no line at race or poverty, treating poor people from the whole valley. The office is in the administration building, and Dr. Estes gives his personal attention to all departments. Chief Surgeon for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, he belongs to the National Railroad Surgeons’ Association, in which he takes an active part; to the American Medical Association, the State Medical Association and the National Academy of Medicine, and has besides been President of the Lehigh Valley and County Medical Associations. The Doctor is a contributor to various medical journals, and is one of the Publication Committee of the Lehigh Valley Medical Magazine published in Easton, an organ for the Lehigh Valley Medical Association.

Dr. Estes was married in New York City, in 1881, to Miss Jeanne W. Wynne, who was born in Cincinnati, being a daughter of John Wynne, a wholesale merchant of Cincinnati. Four children have been born to the Doctor and Mrs. Estes: Jeanne, William, Marcia and Anna.