Free Ebony and Ivy by Craig Steven Wilder

the second round of testimony again appeared of a single mind. A president of the Medical Society of New York County and a founder of Physicians and Surgeons, James Tillary testified that there were “no principles of physiology nor philosophical data” to support the idea that this was the child of a black man. Born in Scotland, Dr. Tillary studied at “the great medical school of Edinburgh,” a colleague later noted, but left and finished his surgical training in the British army. He came to New York during the American Revolution andstayed after the British surrender. William Moore, a professor at Columbia and Queen’s, also exonerated Whistelo. He had done his medical training in London and Edinburgh, and, in 1793, received an honorary doctor of medicine degree from Queen’s. Moore served as president of the local medical society and, like Post and Kissam, had worked as a doctor for the almshouse. Dr. Anthon again testified and further strengthened the defense. 7
    A Pennsylvania alumnus, Matthias Williamson, dramatically called the question: “If this was the child of that woman by that man, it is a prodigy,” he declared, and “he did not believe that prodigies happened, though daily experience unfortunately proved that perjuries did.” Williamson enjoyed close ties to the families who funded and governed the colleges in Princeton and New Brunswick. Brought in because of his long residence in the South, John C. Osborn was equally vehement that Whistelo could not be the father of the child and that the child’s complexion was not the consequence of albinism or any other extraordinary condition. The prior year Osborn had moved to New York City from North Carolina and joined the faculty of Columbia, teaching obstetrics and the diseases of women and children. Benjamin DeWitt, professor of chemistry at Physicians and Surgeons, closed this cycle of testimony with an assurance that the child’s father was likely white and certainly not black. 8
    The almshouse’s case now rested upon the testimony of Dr. Samuel Mitchill. The Columbia professor held to his opinion. After defining the racial categories of mulatto, quadroon, and sambo, Mitchill informed the court that there were reliable rules of race but these operated with greater complexity than the majority opinion permitted. For instance, changes to skin color, hair color or texture, and the presence or absence of hair were all possible during conception. The doctor added that he had little reason to doubt Lucy Williams’s sworn testimony that Alexander Whistelo was the father of her child. Under direct and cross-examination, Mitchill provided a spirited rehearsal of cases in which skin color changed at various periods in the life cycle. Aside from albinism, which he argued rarely presented in New York, changes in complexion were common. He offered examples of the malleability of colordocumented in his own research, historical accounts, biblical texts, and classical literature. He even revived the idea that shocks during conception or irritations to the minds of women could influence the appearance of babies: A pregnant woman who discovered the slaughter of a favored domestic animal later gave birth to a deformed infant. Mitchill swore that he had seen the child, armless with disfigured legs, playing in the street, and he personally interviewed the parents to learn the cause. 9
    The defense could not easily dismiss Dr. Mitchill. He had so excelled in the medical program at Edinburgh, during the high point of its scientific influence, that Columbia awarded him an honorary master’s degree upon his return to the United States. A professor at Columbia, Physicians and Surgeons, and Queen’s, he later became the founding vice president of Rutgers Medical College after it reopened, under the equally famous David Hosack. Mitchill wrote on subjects ranging from medicine to mineralogy and published the nation’s first