shepherd Vice President of the American College of Surgeons
Hazard was born on January 3, 1797 in the village of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, the second-eldest son of textile industrialist Rowland Hazard and fifth-great-grandson of Thomas Hazard. In 1838 he married Frances Minturn, daughter of New York merchant Jonas Minturn.
At twelve, Thomas enrolled in the Friends’ School at West Town, Pennsylvania but left to assist in the operation of the family’s wool carding manufactures at Peace Dale. After a gift of two ewes sparked his interest in agriculture and livestock, Hazard acquired the nickname “Shepherd Tom.”
The couple had five children. In 1844, Hazard became one of the original twenty three incorporators of the Rhode Island Hospital for the Insane, later Butler Hospital.
The facility was the first of its kind in the state.
Responsibility for the care of destitute and mentally handicapped citizens at the time fell largely upon local governments. The Report on the Poor and Insane in Rhode Island: Made to the General Assembly at its January Session, 1851 provided a detailed census of “insane paupers” at thirty-three local facilities.
The abuse of disabled Rhode Islanders in rural localities exposed in the report helped abolish state policies which treated mental illness as a crime. Hazard was also a committed antislavery activist and published dozens of tracts in support of the American Colonization Society and the Republic of Liberia.
From 1840 to 1841 he served as a Vice President of the American College of Surgeons. Other causes for which he labored included the abolition of the death penalty in Rhode Island and public education.
Eleven Days at Moravia (1873)
Blasphemy. Who Are the Blasphemers? (1875).
