Ingham County Biographical Sketches



Johnson W. Hagadorn, M. D.


Dr. Johnson W. Hagadorn, a well-known physician of Lansing, prominent not only as a private practitioner, but for his long official connection with the School for the blind and the Industrial School, is the second in a family of five children, his younger brother being Dr. Alex. D. Hagadorn, whose biography also appears in this volume. His parents were William and Nancy Hagadorn, both natives of New York. His father, who was a farmer, located at South Lyons in 1833, being a young man of twenty-five, and taking up one hundred acres of Government land, founded the homestead where he and his wife lived and died and where our subject himself was born. The mother died in 1883, November 15; the father, June 13, 1879.

Dr. Hagadoen was born in South Lyons, Oakland county, Michigan, September 9, 1839. He acquired his early education in its district schools, afterward taking a three years' course at the State Normal School at Ypsilanti. During his senior year at the latter institution he commenced the study of medicine. His schooling was by no means continuous, as he lacked the means to pursue uninterrupted courses and was to independent to borrow of relatives or friends. His plan, which he persistently followed, was to teach for one year and spend the next as a student. Even then, he was often obliged to practice the strictest economy, as well as take any kind of work which he could find to do. A portion of the time, while at Ypsilanti, he sub-rented a room and did his own cooking. Jobs of wood sawing were always welcome at this period of his life. He has ever been an enthusiastic friend of athletics and while at the State Normal, his slender income was slightly increased by his directorship of the athletic department.

After a three years' course in the medical department of the State Univesity, Dr. Hagadorn graduated with the class of 1870, many years afterward taking post-graduate work at the Eye and Ear Infirmary and Rush Medical College, Chicago, in 1889. Although he practiced some before graduation, his regular work did not commence until his location, after he had received his degree, at Ovid, Clinton county, Michigan. In the fall of 1873 he removed to Lansing, and established in that city a substantial and select practice, having been physician to the School for the Blind for seven years and the Industrial School for eleven years.

The doctor is identified with the Masonic fraternity, Blue Lodge No. 33, and is also a member of the Elks. He is a Republican in politics and although he is connected with no special church, is a Prostestant in beliefe and an upholder of strict morality. In the fall of 1866 Dr. Hagadorn was married to Miss Dora Raymond, daughter of Stephen Raymond of Adrian, Michigan.




Taken from:
"Past and Present of the City of Lansing and Ingham County, Michigan", by Albert E. Cowles.
Published by The Michigan Historical Publishing Association Lansing, MICH., 1905.
Pages 231 - 232




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