Van Buren Hubbard was born on May 1, 1833, in Ohio to Eber and Honor Hubbard. His father was a physician who owned $5,000 of real estate and $3,000 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Ridgeville, Ohio, until the 1850s, when they moved to Westfield, New York. Hubbard enrolled at Yale University in the early 1850s, and by 1860, he was studying medicine.

 

On July 11, 1862, he became an assistant surgeon in the United States army. He remained in the army after the war, eventually earning a promotion to surgeon. He was stationed at Alcatraz Island in the early 1880s, and the army transferred him to New Mexico around 1884. By the mid-1890s, he was stationed at Fort McPherson in Georgia. One writer praised him as “one of the best known surgeons ever in the service of the government.” He was an “eminent physician” with a “reputation that was known everywhere.” He died at Fort McPherson on September 5, 1895.

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