African American doctor Alexander Thomas Augusta operated a private practice and his own pharmacy on Yonge Street between Elm and Gould. He migrated to Canada West in 1853 from the United States after being rejected from American medical schools because of his race. He was born free in Virginia. In 1856, he graduated from the Toronto School of Medicine or Trinity Medical College, which is now part of the University of Toronto.
Augusta’s pharmacy offered medicinal drugs, perfumery, and dye-stuffs over the counter. He offered a range of services including filling the prescriptions of other physicians, leeching treatment, bloodletting, cupping, and teeth extractions. Augusta also served as an assistant physician for the House of Industry, on Elm Street at Elizabeth Street in the heart of St. John's Ward.
Anti-slavery activist
Augusta was an anti-slavery activist. He participated in community-led activities and helped found The Provincial Association for the Education and Elevation of the Coloured People of Canada.
Augusta was a mentor to Anderson Ruffin Abbott, the first Canadian born Black doctor. Abbott entered the Toronto School of Medicine in 1857 and studied for four years under Dr. Augusta. Dr. Abbott received a license to practice from the Medical Board of Upper Canada in 1861. Abbott was admitted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Upper Canada and had a long and very successful medical career.
Return to the US
In 1863, Dr. Alexander Thomas Augusta left Canada West to return to the US where he served as a major in the Union army. Pres. Abraham Lincoln appointed Augusta as the head of the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C, a hospital established in 1862 to provide medical care to the formerly enslaved.
Abbott also left his hometown of Toronto to enlist in the Union Army, serving as a member of the Medical Corps. He then joined Dr. Augusta at the Freedman’s hospital and eventually returned to Canada West.
First Black Hospital Administrator in USA
Augusta became head surgeon of the 7th Regiment Infantry, US Colored Troops. He was the first of eight Black officers to serve during the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln appointed Augusta as the head of the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., a hospital established in 1862 to provide medical care to the formerly enslaved. This appointment made Augusta the first Black hospital administrator in the United States.
In 2023 a plaque was erected near College Street and Queen’s Park in honour of Augusta and a plaque was erected in the Doctor’s Parkette in Kensington Market in honour of Abbott.