John Elijah Comfort, physician and surgeon, was born in Manchester, Mo., Oct. 6, 1837, son of Silas and Electa (Smith) Comfort. His father was a Methodist Episcopal clergyman. He was graduated at Albany (N. Y.) Medical College in 1864 with the degree M.D. and immediately enlisted in the Federal services for the civil war, joining the 60th regiment, New York volunteer infantry, as assistant surgeon. He sailed for Savannah, Ga., with his regiment, joining Sherman’s army at the completion of the campaign in Georgia, and going northward with that army to Richmond and Washington. At the close of the war he was honorably discharged and began the practice of his profession at Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, N. Y. Three years later he removed to the old village of Morrisania, N. Y., now a part of the Bronx borough, New York city, and there practiced with marked success throughout the remainder of his life. When Morrisania was annexed to New York in 1874, he was appointed a sanitary inspector of the board of health, a post he retained for thirteen years, until the growth of his practice claimed his entire time. He numbered among his patients many of the oldest and wealthiest families of the Bronx borough, yet he always found time for innumerable charity cases. He was a vestryman and senior warden in the Protestant Episcopal church. Dr. Comfort was married May 23, 1867, to Lucy A., daughter of Samuel S. Randall of New York city, and left one son: Randall Comfort. He died in New York city, N. Y., May 29, 1901.

Sons of John Elijah Comfort and Lucy Ann Randall

• Randall Comfort 1871
• Frank Miller Comfort 1879

Sources

• White, James T. The National Cyclopædia of American Biography. Vol. XVIII. New York, 1922. 184. Web.