Dr. Henry Martyn Scudder, Jr.^[1]

1852 - 1892  (40 years)

• Name	Henry Martyn Scudder
  Prefix	Dr.
  Suffix	Jr.
  Nickname	Harry
  Birth	23 Feb 1852	Arcot, Madras, Tamil Nadu, India   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	22 Jun 1892	Chicago, Cook, Illinois   [2]
  Person ID	I1271	Scudder
  Last Modified	17 Feb 2011

  
  

  Father	Dr. Henry Martyn Scudder,   b. 5 Jan 1822, Panditeripo, Taffna District, Ceylon d. 4 Jan 1895, Winchester, Middlesex, Massachusetts (Age 72 years)
  Mother	Frances Lewis,   b. 6 Aug 1819, Walpole, Norfolk, Massachusetts d. 8 Nov 1900, Walpole, Norfolk, Massachusetts (Age 81 years)
  Marriage	18 Apr 1844	Walpole, Norfolk, Massachusetts   [4]
  Family ID	F519	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Bessie Morris Scudder,   b. 23 Mar 1856, India d. Jan 1890, India (Age 33 years)
  Marriage	1876  [2, 5]
  Children	1. Henry Martin Scudder,   b. 5 Feb 1875, India d. 27 Jan 1876, India (Age 0 years)   2. Bertram Campbell Scudder,   b. 30 Oct 1876, India d. 19 Jun 1933 (Age 56 years)   3. Charlotte Doremus Scudder,   b. Jul 1878, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, India d. 1945, Battle Creek, Michigan (Age 66 years)
  Family ID	F532	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

  Family 2	Dora Dunton,   b. 11 Apr 1858, Wisconsin d. 31 Jan 1895, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts (Age 36 years)
  Marriage	10 Sep 1891	Chicago, Cook, Illinois   [2]
  Family ID	F3308	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

• Notes

  At the age of 13, Henry accompanied his parents to America and lived in San Francisco where his father had a pastorate. He was educated at Yale and received his medical degree from Philadelphia Medical School. He and his new wife left immediately after their marriage for India, where their first child was born. Henry was given charge of the Ranipet Hospital to release Dr. John for other duties. Henry established a lying-in hospital in Ranipet. During the first year, it had 86 deliveries and in the second year, 206. During the famine of 1875-77, Henry began to speculate in rice, hoarding stores of it to force prices upward. According to his personal testimony, he had bought this rice with his personal funds. This act led to his resignation and return to America in August 1880. On March 4, 1892, Henry was arrested in Chicago on the charge of murdering his mother-in-law, Mrs. F.H. Dunton. The case against him included allegations that he forged Mrs. Dunton's will, leaving her fortune to his wife. Henry, who had recently married Mrs. Dunton's daughter, was accused of bludgeoning the old woman to death with a wooden club. On June 22, while the family's lawyers were mounting an "insanity" defense, he injected himself with an overdose of morphine and commited suicide in the Cook County Jail. Prison authorities concluded that "the morphine or other poison which caused his death was given to him by someone who visited him in jail." Since Henry as a physician had ready access to morphine, there was suspicion that either he, or his brother Doremus, had provided the fatal dose to terminate what had become an intolerable scandal for the family.

  
  

• Sources

  [S15] Genealogy of Early Settlers of Trenton and Ewing, "Old Hunterdon County," New Jersey, p. 245. [S30] Email from Jack & Nancy Soper, 18 June 2000. [S64] A Thousand Years in Thy Sight, the Story of the Scudder Missionaries of India, p. 151. [S64] A Thousand Years in Thy Sight, the Story of the Scudder Missionaries of India, p. 83. [S64] A Thousand Years in Thy Sight, the Story of the Scudder Missionaries of India, p.151.