President's Day

As we all know, George Washington was the first President of our country. He served from April 30, 1789 to March 4, 1797. President Washington died on December 14, 1799, not quite a year after the founding of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was established by the legislature in Annapolis. 

When Washington died, there were several physicians attended him, two of whom were Gustavus Brown!

Did you know that we have two Dr. Gustavus Richard Browns who were among our 101 Founders? One lived in Charles County, and the other in St. Mary’s County. They are clearly related, but the question is how.

For clarity, we are going to refer to them as GRB2 and GRB3, and the original Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown as GRB1.

Here’s what the Medical Annals of Maryland, and its editor, Eugene F. Cordell has to say:

Dr. GRB1 was born in Scotland in 1689 and immigrated to Maryland in 1708. In 1734, he purchased “Rich Hill” near Port Tobacco in Charles County. He had 12 children by his first wife, including three boys named Gustavus Richard Brown, all of whom died in their first year of life. When his first wife died, Dr. Brown remarried, and had two more children, one of whom was Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown (GRB2). He also operated a de facto medical school at Rich Hill and two of his students eventually became his sons-in-law. He died in 1755.

Dr. GRB2 was born in Charles County in 1747, and studied medicine at Edinburgh in 1768. While returning to Maryland, GRB1 spent time in the Medeira Islands where he collected numerous botanical specemins for his gardens at his home, Rose Hill. He was married and had four children, two of whom were named Gustavus and Gustavus Richard (!). In 1776, along with one of his nephews, he established an innocumation hospital, which he advertised in the portions of Maryland and Virginia along the Potomac River.

When President George Washington was on his deathbed, Dr. GRB2 was called to his side. He arrived from Maryland a scant seven hours before Washington’s death on December 14, 1799, and too late be be of any use. 

Washington at his Last Illness, with Drs. Craik and Brown. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

In a letter after Washington’s death, “he acknowledges that they were wrong in bleeding Washington so much.” GRB2 died at age 56 at his house, Rose Hill in 1804.

After much reading and digging over several years, I finally discovered that Dr. GRB3 was the son of GRB2’s brother, the Rev. Richard Brown, and was older than his uncle, GRB2. GRB3 was born in Scotland in 1744, and eventually came to St. Mary’s County, MD after studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1770. Dr. GRB3 received a summons on the night of December 13, 1799 to attend to President Washington, but by the time he arrived on the Maryland shore of the Potomac River, he received word that the President had already died.

Dr. GRB3 practiced medicine in St. Mary’s County for many years and eventually married the widow of one his patients, a Dr. Ireland, who was very wealthy and owned a property called “Summerseat.” He died there on July 3, 1801.

 Sources:    Medical Annals of Maryland, 1904. Edited by Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell, M.D. 

The Doctors Gustavus Brown of Lower Maryland. 1902. By Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell, M.D.