Benjamin Shurtleff (September 7, 1821 – December 21, 1911) was a pioneer physician in California, and later a politician in that state. Born in Carver, Massachusetts to Charles Shurtleff and Hannah Shaw, Shurtleff and was educated in the public schools until the age of fifteen, and then at , where he began teaching at age nineteen. He studied medicine with his brother, Dr. G.A. Shurtleff, and with Dr. Elisha Huntington, of Lowell, Massachusetts, and attended , and was taught by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Shurtleff graduated from the medical department of Harvard University in 1848.