BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HARDY

He was educated at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, and received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1840. Following graduation he served as a resident physician in the Philadelphia Alms House and took a course in "Practical Instructions in Obstetrics" at the Lying-In Department of the Philadelphia Dispensary for the Medical Relief of the Poor.

Dr. Hardy began his practice at New Bedford, Massachusetts, having received his "certification certificate" from the Censors of the Massachusetts Medical Society on January 27, 1841. On June 5, 1845, the doctor and Sarah S. Coggelshall were married in the Friends Meeting House in new Bedford.

In October, 1850, Dr. Hardy arrived in Honolulu aboard the American schooner, "George Hallet", out of Boston. Within a short time after his arrival he was active in civic and professional affairs, serving on a committee to help prepare a Constitution and By-Laws for the establishment of a News Room and Library and being appointed a member of the first Board of Health in December, 1850.

In January, 1851, Dr. Hardy entered into partnership with Dr. Edward Hoffman with an office at the corner of Merchant and Kaahumanu streets, and in April of the same year the two doctors opened a drug store. Their partnership lasted until January, 1853, after which Dr. Hardy continued to operate the drug store by himself and each man had his own office. In the small-pox epidemic of 1853, Dr. Hardy was in charge of a section of the city and of the hospitals at Mauna Pohaku and Kulakahua set up to care for the patients in the area. He was also on the staff of the Honolulu Marine Hospital established by Dr. George Lathrop in 1855.

Sailing on the "Frances Palmer" for San Francisco on August 31, 1856, Dr. Hardy left the Islands to settle in that city. His first wife died sometime after they had moved to California, and on April 30, 1874, Dr. Hardy married Miss Victoria Andres of Chambly, Canada, in San Francisco. Two daughters were born of this marriage: Victoria Abby and Bernice F.

The doctor was the founder of the San Francisco Lying-In Hospital and Foundling Asylum, incorporated in 1868. He considered this his life work and was manager, physician, and surgeon until two months of his death.

Dr. Hardy died November 22, 1886, in San Francisco at the age of 78.

He was a member of Excelsior Lodge, IOOF, of Honolulu, the California State Medical Society, and a corresponding member of the Gynaecological Society of Boston, Massachusetts. The doctor was a Quaker, and in a law suit in 1856 he balked at taking an oath but would "affirm" to the truth of the evidence.

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