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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Pasteur, William

by John Mercer Thorp, Jr., 1994; Revised December 2021

fl. 1770s

William Pasteur, physician and Revolutionary War administrator, may have been a brother of Dr. Charles Pasteur. He served as a surgeon for the Second Regiment of the North Carolina Continental Line from 1 Sept. 1775 to June 1776, after which he became paymaster of the Fourth Regiment. In 1778 he advertised a number of recently imported medicines for sale in New Bern. Throughout the war Pasteur was active in the procurement of both medicines and munitions for the troops. He was also authorized by the General Assembly to oversee the printing and distribution of state treasury notes. In the late eighteenth century he resided in New Bern. 

Historical information from Colonial Williamsburg reports on a physician named William Pasteur who opened an apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1759. This same William Pasteur apparently received his training apprenticing under Dr. George Gilmer of Williamsburg and then studying at St. Thomas's Hospital, London.Advertisement by William Pasteur in the <i>North-Carolina Gazette</i> (New Bern, North Carolina), March 6, 1778, p. 3. From North Carolina Digital Collections.

References:

Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina, vols. 11, 13–15, 22 (1895–1907).

New Bern North Carolina Gazette, 6 Mar. 1778.

Roster of Soldiers from North Carolina in the American Revolution (1932).

William L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, vol. 10 (1890).

Additional Resources:

"Pasteur & Galt Apothecary Shop."  History, Colonial Williamsburg. http://www.history.org/almanack/places/hb/hbpast.cfm?showSite=mobile-regular (accessed May 21, 2014).

Image Credits:

Davis, James. North Carolina Gazette (New Bern), March 6, 1778. https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84026629/1778-03-06/ed-1/ (accessed May 21, 2014).

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