DeLamar Professorship in Biological Chemistry

In 1849, when he was seven years old, JOSEPH R. DeLAMAR stowed away on a ship bound from his Amsterdam home for the Dutch Indies. The journey lasted 18 months, but he was eventually returned to his parents and to school. As a young man, he continued to seek adventure, immigrating to the United States, where he headed his own salvage company on Martha’s Vineyard. He sold the company–after nearly losing his life when he became trapped in the hold of a submerged ship–and went west, becoming a successful mine owner and Idaho state senator. Mr. DeLamar died in 1918 and left much of his substantial estate to be divided among “the three best medical schools of the day–Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Columbia.” This bequest was a crucial factor in the School of Medicine’s ability to expand during the Depression. In addition to this professorship, the DeLamar Fund supports numerous teaching and research initiatives at the School of Medicine.