The hospital was established by the
Lutheran clergyman
William Passavant in 1863, housed in a former farm house. Passavant is now recognized as a
saint by the Lutheran Church and the
Episcopal Church. In 1884 the hospital built a new building designed specifically for patient care. Dr.
Nicholas Senn was on staff from 1879, internationally recognized for his use of antiseptic procedures to explore the pancreas and intestines. (The
germ theory of disease was just being adopted then.) Its original enclosing iron fence atop a rough cut Waukesha blue stone wall dates from 1903, with the wrought produced by German immigrant Casper Hennecke and marked "C. Hennecke Co. Iron & Wire Works, Milwaukee, Wis". The fence along State St. is different, later. ==References==