Dr. William Ludlow McIntyre of Ogden “always treated Indians kindly” and his son remembers “thirty or forty Indians” waiting in their yard for treatment

Copied from Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak: A History of Weber County, 1824-1900, pg 346-347

The earliest and the most prominent of the pioneer doctors was William Ludlow McIntyre. He was born in Otego County, New York, in 1811, and graduated from a medical college in 1838. Moving west about the time of the Mexican War in 1846, he was commissioned assistant surgeon for the Mormon Battalion and went with the troops on the long march via Santa Fe to San Diego. Roseanna Brown, his wife, with her two sons, joined him in California after the war was over. Shortly thereafter she died, and later he married Mary Roscoe.

In 1852 Dr. McIntyre came to Utah and settled in Ogden. He was the first physician to practice there, contributing his share in laying the foundation for the present health department. He served as City Physician several terms. In the days of smallpox scourges, sucha s the one that killed 60 Huntsville children in 1879, he made his own vaccine from cows that had recovered from cowpox. There were no hospitals in those days and a yellow flag was used as a quarantine sign.

When he first came to Ogden, he went about the country on a huge grey horse which stood seventeen hands high. Often he mounted his steed and took the necessary medical equipment and supplies in the saddle bags and fought through the snowdrifts many miles into the country to some injured or sick person or to bring a new baby into the world.

Dr. McIntyre attended the birth of hundreds of residents of Weber County in the fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties. Often he received a sack of wheat as pay, but more often he received nothing for his skill and time. His son, Aaron R. McIntyre, reported:

“Father never sued a patient for his pay; he never took a poor widow’s last cow, and he never took anything from people unable to pay for his services. He always treated the Indians kindly and attended their needs the same as anyone else. I have seen thirty or forty Indians at a time in our yard waiting while some of them were treated for wounds or ailments. They paid when they could in the only way they could, with buckskins, moccasins, furs, robes, beaded gloves, and the like.” Dr. McIntyre died in 1887 at Ogden.

A collection of documents, excerpts, and photographs relevant to the so-called Weber Ute people of Northern Utah. Not a complete history — research aid only.