First American Graduate, 1749

In 1749 John Moultrie (1729-1798) became the first US-born graduate of Edinburgh University.

Moultrie was born in South Carolina to a Scottish father, James Moultrie (1702-1771), himself a graduate of Edinburgh University. He was the first of 117 American students to graduate from Edinburgh's Medical School by the end of the eighteenth century. Other distinguished US alumni of Edinburgh's medical school include:

• Samuel Bard (1742-1821), founder of New York Medical School
• James Blair (1656-1743), Scots-born founder of the second-oldest US university (College of William and Mary)
• John Morgan (1735-1789) and William Shippen (1736-1808), founders of Philadelphia Medical School
• Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), signatory of the Declaration of Independence
• Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846), co-founder of Harvard Medical School
• John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1794), Scots-born signatory of the Declaration of Independence and President of Princeton University