John Wakefield Francis was born in New York City on November 17, 1789, the son of a German father and a Swiss mother. Francis graduated from Columbia College (now Columbia University) with a bachelor's degree in 1809 and became was the first graduate of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons (later absorbed by Columbia), from which he received a medical degree in 1811 or 1812. He formed a partnership with Dr. David Hosack, who had been his mentor throughout his medical studies, and in 1813 he became a lecturer at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Francis continued to teach until around 1826, when he joined Hosack and other physicians in founding a medical school at Rutgers University, where he lectured until the school's dissolution in 1831.
Francis served as the editor of several publications, including the American Medical and Philosophical Register, which he founded while a medical student, and the New York Medical and Surgical Journal ; he also helped establish several hospitals and intellectual societies. On November 16, 1829, he married Maria Eliza Cutler of Boston, Massachusetts. Among her siblings were Reverend Benjamin Clarke Cutler of Quincy, Massachusetts, and Louisa Cutler, who later moved to Savannah, Georgia. John and Eliza Francis had at least one son, Samuel Ward Francis (1835-1886), who also became a physician. John Wakefield Francis died on February 8, 1861.
From the guide to the John W. and Maria Eliza Cutler Francis family collection, Francis, John W. and Maria Eliza Cutler family collection, 1823-1854, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
