Cushing, Dr. Sarah Lamb

In 1880 Dr. Sarah Cushing was elected Tax Collector for Lockport, New York with 23 out of 26 votes. Cushing was born in New York state in 1818. She graduated from the Albany Academy in 1841. She married but her husband died three years into their marriage. Aftheir daughter also died, Cushing decided to study medicine, a radical step in the 1850s. She attended the Ohio Medical College, graduating in 1859. Unable to find a position locally, Cushing traveled to New York City where she worked beside pioneering woman physician Elizabeth Blackwell. Shortly after Cushing made the decision to establish a practice in Lockport, where she was town doctor for forty years. She lived to be one hundred years old.