Biography: Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Walter Kempster

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Submitted by Kathy Grace, <gendiva@charter.net> November 2004

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History of northern Wisconsin: containing an account of its settlement,
growth, development, and resources, an extensive sketch of its counties,
cities, towns and villages, their improvements, industries, manufactories,
biographical sketches, portraits of prominent men and early settlers, views
of county seats, etc.
Chicago: Western Historical Co., 1881 p. 1151

Dr. Walter Kempster, Superintendent of Northern Hospital for the Insane;
was born in Syracuse, Onondaga Co., N.Y., May 25, 1841; attended common
graded and high schools in Onondago Co.; then spent about five years
traveling with a tutor in the United States and Europe; returned to New
York State about 1857, and then entered upon the study of his profession at
the Long Island Medical College, from which he graduated June 30, 1864.  He
went into the civil war as private, in Co. H, of the 12th New York
Infantry; became Hospital Steward of the 10th New York Cavalry; was
detached and placed on duty at the United States General Hospital at
Patterson Park, Baltimore, Md.;  made First Lieutenant of Co. D, in 10th
New York Calvary; participated in the various battles of the Potomac,
including that of Gettysburg; and, in 1864-65, served as Acting Assistant
Surgeon of the United States Army; was in the service in all from 1861 to
1865, with the exception of six months, during which he absented himself to
take his degree in medicine.  In 1866, he was the Assistant Superintendent
of the New York Asylum for Idiots, at Syracuse, N.Y.; from 1867 to 1873,
Assistant Physician of the New York State Insane Asylum, and, from 1873 to
present time, Superintendent of the Northern Hospital for the Insane at
Oshkosh, Wis.  He was married, in Baltimore, Jan. 1, 1863, to Miss Mirriem
P. Baynes, eldest daughter of Thomas Baynes, of Baltimore.  They have three
children living- Sarah W., Agnes, Mary.  For a number of years, Dr.
Kempster has been engaged in the study of the microcopic pathology of the
brain, on which subject he has written several papers, beside taking a
large number of photo-micrographs of brain tissue, normal and abnormal, a
work in which he was the first in this country to engage.  He delivered a
lecture in the fall of 1881 before the Chicago Biological Society.  His
most notable case in surgery is that of the excision of three inches of the
tibia, with recovery, reported in the American Journal of Medical Science. 
His literary contributions to medicine consist of articles in the American
Journal of Insane, of which he was for five years associate editor; in
transactions of the International Medical Congress in 1876, as also in the
transactions of the Wisconsin State Medical Society, and the reports of the
Northern Wisconsin Hospital for the Insane.  He is a member of the
Winnebago County Medical Society, of which he has been President; of
Wisconsin State Medical Society, of which he has been Vice President; of
New York State Medical Society; of American Medical Association, of which
he has been Chairman of the section on Physiological Medical Jurisprudence
and Chemistry; of the Association of Superintendents of American
Institutions for the Insane; of the United States Association for the
Advancement of Sanitary Science, and of the Wisconsin State Historical
Society.