Surgeon General of the Texas Navy. Treated prisoner of war Gen Antonio Lopez Santa Ana (of the Alamo fame), aged 66 at time of death, president of the Vigo County Medical Society. Pioneer physician in Terre Haute, only person to have been named to that position.
An aficionado of classical literature, Dr. Ezra Read often voiced his obstinate opinions, hardly fitting the image of a compassionate physician. Yet upon his death on May 10, 1877, at age 66, flags in Terre Haute flew at half mast and foundries and mills were closed to allow employees to attend the funeral. Read was a friend of the poor, often dispensing medical services without payment and working day and night. Meanwhile, he maintained the finest private library of classics in western Indiana, carrying a copy of Homer's The Iliad in his pocket. At a patient's bedside, his gruff frown became a comforting smile.
The fourth son of Ezra Read Sr., an early settler of Marietta, Ohio, young Ezra attended the college in Athens now known as Ohio University for three years before
accepting appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. Assigned to the Norfolk, he helped escort John Randolph, a controversial U.S. Minister to Russia, overseas in 1830. Resigning from the military, he studied medicine in Urbana, Ohio, and then at Cincinnati Medical College, graduating in 1836 with high honors. When the Texas revolution erupted that same year, Read abandoned his Cincinnati practice to volunteer his medical services to an Ohio military company. At the battle of San Jacinto, he treated Mexican General and prisoner of war Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. In 1837 Read was attending physician at an infamous duel between Gen. Felix Huston, for whom he was staff surgeon, and Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who would become a noted Confederate leader. Named "acting surgeon-in-chief" of the Texas army and navy, Read was soon commissioned Surgeon General of the Texas Navy, the only person ever to serve in that capacity.
In 1837, he married Lovilla Young and three years later founded a practice in Paris, Ill. In 1843 he situated in Terre Haute, joining Dr. Ebenezer Daniels in practice, rejecting an opportunity to run for Congress. Eventually, he served on the city council. Read's three oldest children — Sarah Okalla "Oakie," Jonathon and Kenton — were raised at the northwest corner of Seventh and Ohio streets. His friendship with the Richard Beste family during its tragic bout with cholera in 1851 was recounted at length in Beste's book The Wabash: Or Adventures of an English Gentleman's Family in the Interior of America. For 18 months during the Civil War, Read was surgeon with the 21st Indiana Infantry. Once identified as an anti-Lincoln Democrat, he made impassioned local pleas to support the Union cause. Later he was surgeon for the 11th Indiana Cavalry. President Andrew Johnson appointed Read Terre Haute postmaster in 1866 and he served until 1869. From 1874 to 1876 he was president of the Vigo County Medical Society. Wife Lovilla, sister of Terre Haute physician Stephen Young, died in 1856 and Read married twice more. He fathered two children — son Brodie and daughter Parke — by his third wife Margaret, who survived him. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.
