CLASS OF 1883

Colonel George Durfee Deshon, Medical Corps, U. S. A., chief surgeon on General Edwards' staff of the Department of the Northeast, died suddenly of heart disease June 24, in Brookline, Mass.

He was born in Brookline, August 5, 1864, his parents being George Pratt and Emma Alethea (Jones) Deshon. He left Dartmouth to accept an appointment to West Point, where he graduated in 1886. In 1903 the Dartmouth trustees voted him his degree with his class.

Upon his graduation from West Point he was appointed second lieutenant of the 23d Infantry, and was stationed at Fort Wayne, Detroit, Mich., until September, 1889. Meanwhile he had studied medicine for two winters at the Detroit College of Medicine, and during a six months leave of absence after leaving Detroit he studied at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, and graduated there in March, 1890. Soon after that he resigned his commission and began practice in Fall River, Mass. After further studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he was in 1891-2 medical officer and military instructor in Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake. In May, 1892, he returned to the Army, being commissioned as first lieutenant in the Medical Corps. He was stationed at Fort D. A. Russell, Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1894-5; in Denver in 1895-6; in Salt Lake City in 1896-7; in Washington in 1897-8; in the Philippines and China in 1899-1903; in Boston in 1903-4; at Fort Des Moines, Des Moines, lowa, in 1904-7. In 1907 he became commandant of the Army and Navy General Hospital at Hot Springs, Ark., with the rank of major. He had made a fine record for efficient service at the front during the Philippine insurrections of 1899 and 1901-2, and in the China relief expedition of 1900. He was later sent to the Canal Zone as superintendent of the United States Canal Hospital at Ancon. His service of three years in this capacity was especially noteworthy. When General Edwards was appointed to command the new Northeastern Department, Colonel Deshon was appointed chief surgeon upon his staff. Just before General Pershing sailed for France he asked Colonel Deshon to join his staff, but the latter's ill health prevented his acceptance.

Colonel Deshon was a member of the Army and Navy Club of Washington, the Psi Upsilon fraternity, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of the War of 1812, the Society of the Military and Naval Order of the Spanish War, and the Society of the Army of the Philippines.

July 7, 1886, he was married to Susie H. Copeland of Fall River, Mass., who survives him, with one, son, Percy Deshon '11, who is captain in the Field Artillery.