Ralph Wilcox (July 9, 1818 – April 18, 1877) was the first teacher and practicing medical doctor in Portland, Oregon.[1] He also served in the Provisional Government of Oregon, was a legislator during both the territorial period and when Oregon became a state, and a judge of Twality County during the provisional government. He killed himself at work at the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland.
A native of New York, Wilcox was born in East Bloomfield, New York, to Arminta Lee Wilcox and Ralph Wilcox Sr. on July 9, 1818.[1] In New York the younger Ralph graduated from Geneva Medical College in 1839.[1] He then moved to Missouri where he practiced medicine.[2] Then in 1840 Ralph married Julia Ann Fickel, and the couple would have five children.[1] In 1845 the family traveled the Oregon Trail to Oregon Country and took the ill-fated Meek Cutoff.[1]
After arriving in Oregon, Wilcox took a job teaching in Portland, Oregon, in 1847 and became the first teacher in that city.[1][3][4] Later that year George Abernethy, the governor of the Provisional Government, appointed Wilcox as a county judge for Twality (now Washington) County.[1] Also that year he was elected to the Provisional Legislature.[5] The next year he was elected again and served in the final sessions of the provisional government in 1848 and 1849, including time as the speaker of the assembly.[6]
In 1850 after Oregon had become a United States territory, Wilcox was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives of the Territorial Legislature, replacing David Hill and served as speaker of the body.[7] The following year he returned representing what had become Washington County, but was not selected as speaker.[8] In 1853 he returned to the legislature serving as president of the upper chamber Council.[9]
From 1856 until 1858 Ralph Wilcox served as a registrar for the U. S. Land Office in Oregon City, and then as county judge in Washington County from 1858 to 1862.[1] Wilcox was also elected Oregon City mayor during this time.[4] In 1862 he returned to state politics and was elected as a representative to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican from Washington County.[10] Also, from 1862 to 1863 he was the school superintendent for Washington County.[11] During the American Civil War he was surgeon-general for Oregon’s militia, but no Oregon companies saw action in the war due to the distance to the fronts.[3] Then from 1865 to 1877 he was a clerk for the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland.[1]
Ralph Wilcox died on April 18, 1877, at the age of 58.[1] He killed himself after heavy drinking.[12] He shot himself in the head with a Deringer pistol in his office of the federal court with Judge L. Sawyer being the first to discover the act after hearing the shot.[12] Wilcox killed himself in the afternoon just before court was to resume with Matthew Deady and Sawyer.[12] He left behind a wife, and a suicide note blaming drinking for the suicide.[12] Wilcox was buried at Lone Fir Cemetery in East Portland.[1]