Dr. William Brown and His Dwelling

[212 South Fairfax Street. Owners: Honorable and Mrs. Howard R. Tolley.]

Between George Mason's house, Gunston Hall, and Mount Vernon, on Highway 1, about seventeen miles south of Alexandria, stands the colonial church of Pohick. There is an old cemetery behind a brick wall, beginning at the very door of the church and rambling over an acre or so of the yard. Among the tombs is that of one man peculiarly and intimately connected with the town of Alexandria.

He was one of the forty-odd officers of the Revolution to go from here, one of the twelve or more charter members of the Society of the Cincinnati, prominent for his contribution to his profession, and remembered for his friendship and association with Washington. His tomb was not originally placed at Pohick. It stood for many years in the private graveyard at Preston, now the site of the Potomac railroad yards, and was removed when that vandal of our port, "Progress" claimed the site.

Let us trace the worn letters on the old stone:

Dr. Brown's grandfather was Dr. Gustavus Brown who emigrated to Maryland in 1708 and in 1710 married Frances, the daughter of Colonel Gerard Fawke. Their son, Richard Brown, returned to England to prepare himself for the church. Richard's son, William, was born in Scotland in 1748; was educated at the University of Edinburgh, graduated in 1770, and came to America. This is Alexandria's Dr. Brown.

This young Scotsman, gentle born, learned, traveled, handsome, came to Virginia at the age of twenty-two. He began to explore the south side of the Potomac, and his path often led to Dumfries and to the homes of his relations there, the Reverend James Scott's family, at the rectory, and the Blackburns at Rippon Lodge. Sometimes the carriage was brought out, or the horses saddled, or even the barge manned, and off to Mount Vernon the family would go.

It was always pleasant at Mount Vernon for young people. Never the week went by but some of them gathered for dinner or to spend the night, and often both. When Washington returned from Alexandria, where he was attending court on May 19, 1772, he found his guests included Colonel Blackburn and lady, from Rippon Lodge, Miss Scott, Mrs. Blackburn's sister (both were daughters of James Scott, rector of the Church at Dumfries), Miss Brown and young Dr. Brown. "This company spent the night and went away the next morning."[116]

Whether this was the beginning or the culmination of the romance, none now can tell, but by 1774 Miss Scott was already Mrs. Brown, and the mother of two very small sons, William Jr. being born that year. The young family was doubtless residing in General Washington's town house, and for this there is the authority of the General himself. In a letter to his nephew, Bushrod, dated November 1788, he writes, "If you could accomodate yourself to my small house in Town (where Doctr. Brown formerly lived) you shall be very welcome to the use of it rent free."[117]

Previous to this, in 1785, Lund Washington's ledger reveals that he had received £40 from Dr. Brown on account of Gen^l Washington for "Rent of House in Alexandria."[118] In the General's own account ledger he refers to Dr. Brown's rent as having been fixed by "M^r L^d Washington at £60 a year for My House," and the sum is cancelled due to advances made by Dr. Brown and for professional services.[119]

In July 1783, Dr. Brown purchased from John Mills the white clapboard house that has been identified as his Alexandria home. He purchased twenty-six additional feet south on Fairfax Street adjoining his dwelling house, from Robert Townshend Hooe and Richard Harrison, merchants, on July 10, 1790. This property became his garden.

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Dr. William Brown's clapboard residence

An Alexandria tradition and the Brown family belief is that the house was built by him prior to the Revolution. It is, indeed, very old and probably dates between 1757, when the property was mortgaged by William Ramsay to John Dixon of White Haven, England, and 1783, when the property was sold to Dr. William Brown by John Mills, for the sum of £280, indicating a substantial structure. There was at least one house on lot No. 65, and Dr. Brown's house is the only one standing on that lot today at all indicative of a pre-Revolutionary dwelling. If the house was not built by Ramsay, the probability is that it was built by Mills between 1777 and 1783, which is doubtful, as building during the Revolution was so difficult as to make it almost impossible.

The home of the young Browns was the gathering place for the Élite of Alexandria and the countryside. The Washingtons dined and passed the evening frequently. The Blackburns came often from Rippon Lodge, the Brown cousins from Port Tobacco, and of course Dr. Craik from around the corner. Colonel Fitzgerald, Colonel Swope, and Colonel Lyles were all near neighbors.

The Doctor was a man of fine attainments. Active in the church, he served as vestryman at Christ Church; public spirited, he was the moving force in the founding of the Sun Fire Company; and the Alexandria academy was largely his idea. It was in great part due to his efforts that Washington was aroused to take an active part in this project, to contribute £50 annually, and at his death to will £1,000 to this institution.

At the outbreak of the war with England, Washington showed his confidence by appointing Dr. Brown Physician-General and Director of Hospitals of the Continental Army. He served throughout the Revolution. Brown wrote and published the first American Pharmacopoeia in 1778, "For the sake of expedition and accuracy in performing the Practice, and also to introduce a degree of uniformity therein throughout the several hospitals," the title pages read.

It was due to hardships suffered at Valley Forge that he died in 1792 at the age of forty-four years. The following notice appeared in the Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser for Thursday, January 19, 1792:

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Hall and stairway in Dr. Brown's House

There are not many reminders left of the good Doctor. In the Library of Congress a few bills rendered to Colonel John Fitzgerald for outfitting ships' medicine boxes and attending sick sailors; a letter from one Thomas Bond of Philadelphia written in April 1784 to Colonel Fitzgerald stating that his brother "goes to Virginia to study Physic under Dr. Brown." In the Virginia State Library is a tax report showing that for the year 1784 he owned eight slaves and one cattle, and that in 1789 the Doctor had three blacks and two horses. The minutes he wrote as clerk and treasurer of the Sun Fire Company are preserved and, of course, a few copies of his Pharmacopoeia.

The Dr. William Brown house stands today much as it stood during his lifetime. Architecturally and historically it is one of the most interesting in Alexandria. No great house, this modest home built of white clapboard over brick and sitting close to the ground, rises two and one-half stories, hiding behind its stout doorway some of the best and certainly the most original woodwork in the old town.

One enters a spacious hall, the wide board floors of which are worn with the passing of many years, and colored by use and time a deep amber. Running around the hall is paneled wainscoting in alternating vertical and horizontal panels. The stairway rises from about the middle of the hall in easy steps to the second floor, the spindles are rather primitive and the entire stairway has a provincial air. The white baluster rail is matched by a handrail and supported by half a matching newel post; wherever the cornice breaks, it turns against itself. An amusing feature, one found sometimes in old houses, is an inside window opening from the back drawing room into the hallway.

If the stair is simple, certainly the woodwork in the upstairs front room is most ambitious. Mantel, overmantel and matching cupboards cover one entire wall, the chimney end of the room. The mantel is flanked by two fluted pilasters, reaching from floor to denticulated cornice. Above the shelf is a rectangular dog-eared panel, in each of the four ears of which is a rosette. Under the shelf, oblong panels carry out the same design, divided by a carved half urn. The shelf is supported by consoles and decorated by a fret that returns around the urn. The cupboards on each side of the mantel have, at the top, circular glass doors, surmounted by an arch and keystone. The bottom doors are wood paneled. The remainder of the woodwork is conventional, plain chair rail, baseboard and trim.

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Dr. Brown's upstairs parlor

The kitchen with its Dutch oven in the great brick chimney; the large fireplace where the old crane still hangs sturdily enough to support Mrs. Brown's best dinner, are in an excellent state of preservation. One is intrigued by some very ancient and peculiar waterworks that formed a part of the sanitary equipment in the culinary department and which function to this day. There is a heavy hand-hewn stone sink and a copper caldron with its own firebox and ashpit. Formerly a large oaken bathtub stood in the back room off the kitchen and the water heated in the copper caldron was available to both rooms. An old brass spigot that served the bathtub remains.

At Dr. Brown's death the house passed to his widow. She left it in trust for her daughter, Sarah Maynadier, and the Maynadier grandchildren at her death in 1813. The house remained in the Maynadier family until April 26, 1842, when the property was purchased by James Green for seventeen hundred dollars. In 1940, the present owners, the Honorable and Mrs. H.R. Tolley, acquired the property.

Dr. Brown's home has fallen into sympathetic hands. Today Queen Anne chairs and piecrust tables grace the parlor. From the hall comes the vibrating tick-tock of a fine old clock. Logs blaze cheerfully in open fireplaces, the flames reflected in old and polished silver. The hall window frames Catherine Brown's garden, which is divided into three sections, one shut off from the other by wall or fence, making private living areas of each. Old trees, brick walks, ivy and flowering shrubs add their attractions. A tall brick smokehouse stands sentinel, all that remains of a number of outbuildings which clustered, village fashion, about the dwelling.

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Dr. William Brown. From a miniature.
(Courtesy Mrs. Bessie Wilmarth Gahn)

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