The Life and Legacy of Aaron Ansell: Military Surgeon and Freemason (1835–1880)

Aaron Ansell, military and contract surgeon, was born in Middlesex, England, on June 4, 1835, to Jacob and Rachel (Isaacs) Ansell. He moved to Jamaica in the West Indies in his adolescence. In July and August 1856 Aaron Ansell, a twenty-one-year-old Jewish druggist, went through the degrees of Freemasonry at Friendly Lodge No. 539 in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

At some point, Aaron Ansell moved to the United States. He was credited as a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War and was present at the first battle of Bull Run (first battle of Manassas). He received his M.D. degree on March 3, 1862, when it was conferred by the Medical Department at Georgetown College in Washington, D. C. Ansell was appointed assistant surgeon and commissioned a first lieutenant in the First Maryland Infantry when he was mustered into service in Maryland on February 15, 1865. He was present at the battles of White Oak Road on March 31, 1865, Five Forks on April 1, 1865, and finally at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Assistant Surgeon Ansell was mustered out with the rest of the regiment on July 2, 1865, at Arlington Heights, Virginia.

On August 25, 1865, Ansell was assigned to be the assistant surgeon for the Seventy-eighth U. S. Colored Troops (USCT) Infantry, which had recently had the Ninety-eighth Colored Infantry consolidated with it, on August 1, 1865. The Seventy-eighth USCT served at Donaldsonville, Thibodeaux, and other points in the District of LaFourche, Department of the Gulf, and was connected to U. S. forces at Ship Island, Mississippi, where Ansell was appointed post surgeon on October 25, 1865, and left for Greenville, Louisiana, on December 21, 1865. On January 6, 1866, Assistant Surgeon Ansell was mustered out of the Seventy-eighth USCT and took a position as acting assistant surgeon of U.S. Volunteers.

On October 1, 1866, he reported for duty at the newly-established Camp Sheridan, Texas, a military camp of the Fourth United States Cavalry, north of Main Plaza near Dwyer Avenue in San Antonio, and had standing orders to continue to Fort Inge near Uvalde. Ansell served as acting assistant surgeon, a citizen physician. While stationed at Fort Inge in June 1867, the surgeon tended to the lacerated head wounds of an officer of the Fourth U. S. Cavalry and performed an operation of the genitourinary organs of a soldier in Troop G, of the Ninth U. S. Cavalry. Acting Assistant Surgeon Ansell served as post surgeon until March 4, 1868, when his contract was annulled. John Ridgely, a citizen physician, replaced Ansell at Fort Inge. Following his service at Fort Inge, the Ansells moved across the Rio Grande and lived in Mexico.

Ansell moved back to Texas in 1872 and took up private practice in Corpus Christi. On July 4, 1876, during the county’s celebration of the nation’s centennial, Ansell was present along with doctors T. Somerville Burke and Arthur E. Spohn who conducted an amputation on former district judge and deputy collector of U. S. customs Stanley Welch, whose arm was terribly mutilated after a gun misfired in the celebration.

Ansell was also involved in the Masonic rites in Corpus Christi. He served as chairman in the founding of a local “Lodge of Perfection” in the Orient of Corpus Christi of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in June 1875. He received the fourth to fourteenth degrees in July 1875. By November 11, 1875, Corpus Christi Lodge of Perfection No. 2 was formed, and Aaron Ansell was elected as its first Venerable Master and Thrice Puissant Grand Master. At the bequest of Sovereign Grand Commander Albert Pike, Ansell was vested with the thirty-first and thirty-second degrees of the rite in September 1877. Ansell wanted to move back to Jamaica and did so by way of Canada, where he obtained a legal qualification to do so.

He arrived in Montreal during the fall of 1877, when he enrolled in and attended Bishop’s College. In 1878 Ansell earned a C.M., M.D. as a master of surgery and doctor of medicine from Bishop’s College. He was credited for his superior ability in conducting operations. After graduation, he returned to Falmouth, Jamaica, where his wife and family were residing. Ansell established a successful practice when he was encouraged by one of Panama’s leading residents to move his practice for a more lucrative income. Ansell soon sailed for Panama and his family followed. Soon after arriving, Aaron Ansell died at age forty-four on March 2, 1880, in Panama, United States of Columbia.

He was survived by his wife, Angelina Nunez, who was born in the West Indies on October 1, 1838, and in 1894 died in Jamaica and was buried there. Their children were born in the United States of America, Mexico, and Jamaica, and included John, Michael, Rose Annie, Victoria, Emily, George, Florence, Eva, and Charlotte.