Dr. S. M. Archer is not only an eminent physician and genial gentleman, but one of the landmarks of Monterey County, having resided here since 1869. He is forty-two years old and came to California in 1868, from Louisville, Kentucky. He comes from a long line of American ancestors, the first of whom were early colonial settlers in Virginia and Maryland.
At a later date members of the family participated in the wars of the Revolution and 1812, and in the early Indian wars, many of them filling important positions in the army and Government. Among Dr. Archer’s ancestors is John Archer, of Maryland, who was the first man to graduate in medicine in the United States. He obtained his diploma from the Philadelphia Medical College in 1768.
The subject of this sketch received his college education at the Indiana Asbury University, and graduated in medicine at Louisville. He then attended the clinics at the Bellevue and Blackwell Island Hospitals, New York, for a considerable length of time.
After arriving in San Francisco in 1868, as a matter of adventure, and with a desire to see more of the world, he made a trip to China via Sandwich Islands and Japan, as surgeon of a vessel. The passage both ways was rough, dangerous, and disagreeable, and when the young medico got back to San Francisco he concluded that he had enough of “life on the ocean wave.” He determined to locate in the country, contrary to the advice of Dr. H. H. Toland, the well-known physician of San Francisco, to whom he had letters of introduction from personal friends.
In 1869 he went to Monterey County, intending to return to the city in a few years to locate permanently. But he soon became a fixture in Monterey County, although he has often been called to the city professionally. In 1872 he was appointed County Physician, and took charge of the County Hospital, and has held that position ever since, during which time he has perhaps successfully treated more desperate cases of dropsy than any other physician in the State. He served one term as Coroner and Public Administrator, from 1876 to 1878, but declined a renomination, and also declined the nomination for the Assembly in 1886. Dr. Archer is married and has seven children, all girls. While his modesty will not permit him to claim the professional and other honors which are his due, he un-blushingly considers that in this respect he has done well for his country.
Source: Harrison, E. S., Monterey County, part of Harrison’s Series of Pacific Coast Pamphlets, No. 3, Salinas, Calif. : E. S. Harrison, 1890.