Copes, Joseph S.

Born: 1811-12-09 Delaware

Died: 1885-03-01 New Orleans, Louisiana

Flourished: New Orleans

Dr. Joseph S. Copes studied medicine and graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1833. He moved to Yazoo Valley, Mississippi, in 1834, and to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1839. There he helped establish Sharon College, and was a director of Oakland College. Copes was active in the medical community and in the development of the cotton industry in Mississippi. He moved to New Orleans where he served as president of the school board and served as administrator of the University of Louisiana. Copes was commissioner of the New Orleans House of Refuge, and for several years, was president of the New Orleans Academy of Sciences. He was a member of the board of physicians and surgeons for the Charity Hospital during the severe outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. Copes also contributed articles on surgery, medicine, and hospital management to numerous medical journals. He and his wife Mary had two children. Copes was a slaveholder, owning sixteen enslaved persons in 1860.

The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), 2 March 1885, 4:2; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 1, New Orleans, Orleans County, LA, 113; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedule, Ward 1, New Orleans, Orleans, LA, 13; Alcée Fortier, ed., Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (Madison, WI: Century Historical Association, 1914), 3:511-13; Gravestone, Lafayette Cemetery Number 1, New Orleans, LA.