Correspondence, documents, autograph items, notes, certificates, programs, artifacts and other memorabilia, architectural drawings, photographs, scrapbooks and clippings collected or created by or about Richard Beverly Cole.

Richard Beverly Cole was born in Manchester, Virginia on August 12, 1829. He began his medical studies at the age of sixteen when he became an assistant to Dr. Benjamin Dudley of Lexington, Kentucky. After a few months of this apprenticeship, he enrolled in the Medical Department of Transylvania University (now the University of Louisville). After a year he transferred to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, receiving his M.D. in March of 1849. In May of 1849 a cholera epidemic broke out in Philadelphia; Dr. Cole was made physician in chief of the Pine Street Cholera Hospital, living and working within the walls of this temporary institution until the epidemic subsided in August, shortly after his twentieth birthday. He continued in general practice in Philadelphia until 1852, when he emigrated to California.

Collection is open for research.