Montgomery County PA Archives Biographies.....Corson MD, Dr. Joseph K. November 22, 1836 - 
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Source: Biographical Annals of Montgomery County Pennsylvania, T. S. Benham & Company and the Lewis Publishing Company, 1904
Author: Ellwood Roberts, Editor

  JOSEPH K. CORSON, M. D., of Whitemarsh township, 
Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, a physician and surgeon of 
high repute, and who made an excellent military record in 
the line and in the medical department of the army during 
and subsequent to the Civil war, is a representative of the 
Corson family whose ancestral history is given on other 
pages of this work.
  He was born at Maple Hill, in the township in which he now 
resides, November 22, 1836, son of Dr. Hiram and Ann 
(Foulke) Corson. He began his education under private tutors 
in the parental home; studied advanced branches under the 
preceptorship of Frederick Anspach, of the Lutheran church 
at Barren Hill, and then finished a course under the Rev. 
Samuel Aaron, an accomplished teacher, in the famous 
Treemount Seminary at Norristown. He then entered the drug 
store of William and John Savery, in Philadelphia, and in 
1858, at the age of twenty-two, received his degree in 
pharmacy. Being offered a situation in St. Paul, Minnesota, 
then a small but growing town, he accepted, but the failure 
of his employers soon left him without employment, and he 
returned home. There he engaged in the lime business with 
his cousin, Laurence F. Corson, at Norristown. Soon 
afterward he matriculated in the Medical Department of the 
University of Pennsylvania, but his studies were almost 
immediately suspended on account of the outbreak of the 
slaveholders' rebellion. Laying aside his text books, he 
enlisted in a company of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, 
recruited in Norristown, and of which Walter H. Cook was 
captain. 
  His company was mustered into the service of the United 
States at Harrisburg, and then proceeded to Perryville. Mr. 
Corson was honorably discharged on July 26, 1861, having 
completed his three months term of service under President 
Lincolns first call for troops, and retiring with the rank 
of sergeant. He then resumed his medical studies in 
Philadelphia, and received an appointment as medical cadet 
in the army hospital at Broad and Cherry streets, and served 
in that capacity from June 1, 1861, until March 1863. In the 
same month he graduated from his medical school with the 
degree of doctor of medicine, and was at once commissioned 
assistant surgeon of the Sixth Regiment, Pennsylvania 
Reserve Corps, a position which he filled from March 23, 
1863, to June 11, 1864, and he was subsequently acting 
assistant surgeon at Camp Discharge, in Lower Merion 
township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. During his army 
service he was present at the battles of Gettysburg, Falling 
Water, Manassas Gap, Bristow Station, Mine Run, Rappahannock 
Station, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna River, 
and Bethesda Church in Virginia, and acquitted himself so 
creditably that he received from the President the brevet 
commission of major, "for faithful and meritorious service 
during the Wilderness Campaign in Virginia." He subsequently 
received the congressional Medal of Honor, conferred "for 
most distinguished gallantry in action near Bristow Station, 
Virginia, with the Pennsylvania Reserves," and his honorable 
discharge from the army, consequent upon the close of the 
war, he practiced medicine at home in association with his 
father.
  October 9, 1867, Dr. Corson was commissioned assistant 
surgeon with the rank of first lieutenant, in the United 
States army. From November of that year to March 1, 1868, he 
was on duty at Governors Island, in New York Harbor and 
during this time made a sea voyage to Galveston, Texas, with 
recruits, and at New Orleans cared for forty of their number 
who were stricken with cholera. From March to September of 
the same year he was on duty at the cavalry depot at 
Carlisle Barracks; to December 6, 1869, was stationed at 
Fort Fred Steele, in Wyoming, and while here (July 23, 
1869), was promoted to a captaincy in the medical corps. His 
further army service was as follows Omaha Barracks, to July, 
1870; Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming, to September, 1870; Fort 
Bridger, Wyoming, to November, 1872; Mobile Barracks, 
Alabama, to September, 1873; Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, 
to May, 1876; Plattsburg Barracks, New York, to May, 1878; 
Fort Whipple, Arizona, to October, 1878; Fort Yuma, 
California, to August, 1882; Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, 
to November, 1886; Fort Sherman, Idaho, to September 15, 
1890; Washington Barracks, District of Columbia, to October, 
1894, during which time he was commissioned surgeon with the 
rank of major. After a leave of absence for one month, which 
he spent at home, he was assigned to duty at Fort D. A. 
Russell, Wyoming. He remained in the army until 1897, when 
he was placed on the retired list, and took up his residence 
at his elegant home, "Maple Mill," in Whitemarsh township, 
Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. Dr. Corson is a member of 
the Patriotic Order of the Sons of the Revolution, and of 
the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
  Dr. Corson married, November 2, 1874, Miss Mary Ada 
Carter, daughter of Judge William Alexander Carter, of Fort 
Bridger, Wyoming, originally from Virginia, where the family 
is one of the oldest and most honored in the state. Two 
children were born of this marriage, Mary Carter and Edward 
Foulke Corson. The daughter was born at Mount Vernon 
Barracks, Alabama, January 4, 186. For the obtainment of 
better educational advantages for her, her parents sent her 
to school in Philadelphia. On her return home after a years 
absence, in June 1890, the train in which she was traveling 
went over an embankment, and she sustained such injuries 
that she died within an hour. The remains were interred at 
West Laurel Hill Cemetery. The son, Edward Foulke Corson, 
was born at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in February 1883. 
He attended the Friends School in Washington City while his 
father was stationed there. In October 1895, he entered the 
Germantown Academy, from which he was graduated in 1901. He 
has just completed his second year in the Medical Department 
of the University of Pennsylvania.

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