Horace H. Hayden

Artist: Rembrandt Peale; Oil on canvas

Horace Hayden was born on October 13, 1769 at Windsor, Connecticut. After working as a cabin boy, carpenter, architect, and schoolteacher, influenced by John Greenwood, he turned to dentistry. In 1800, Dr. Hayden began a dental practice in Baltimore Maryland. He was well versed in anatomy, physiology, and the medical sciences. 

Dr. Hayden was issued a license by the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1810, the first for the practice of dentistry in America. During the War of 1812, he served as a private in the 39th Regiment, Maryland Militia, and later as an assistant surgeon.

Between 1819 and 1825, he delivered a series of lectures on dentistry to medical students at the University of Maryland, the first in the new world. Dr. Hayden was one of the founders of the Maryland Academy of Sciences and served as its president in 1825. In 1820, as a pioneer geologist and botanist, he published the first general work on geology to be printed in the United States. He discovered a new mineral, named Hadenite in his honor.

In 1839, he was the involved in establishing the American Journal of Dental Science, the world's first dental journal, eventually the official organ of the society. Dr. Hayden, architect of American system of dental education and organizer of professional dentistry died on January 25, 1844 “mainly of overwork” and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore. 

This Rembrandt Peale portrait was loaned to the Faculty in 1899 for the Centennial Anniversary Exhibition by Wm. Mozart Hayden, Esq. of Baltimore. It was later given to MedChi by Mrs. Mary Parkhurst Hayden in 1934. “In Dr. Horace H. Hayden, rich colors, strongly realized physical presence, and tight composition reveal Rembrandt's effort to paint a meaningful picture, as well as a specific likeness.”