George Cabell (physician)

Dr. George Cabell Sr. (November 1, 1766-December 27, 1823) was a surgeon and builder of Point of Honor, a mansion in the city of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Cabell was born in Buckingham County, Virginia and attended Hampden-Sydney Academy. He became the first to earn an official medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1790.[1] Dr. Cabell was a friend and personal physician to the patriot Patrick Henry and a frequent correspondent with his neighbor, Thomas Jefferson.[2]

By 1798 Dr. George Cabell was practicing in Lynchburg, and that year married Sarah Winston (1770–1826), the eldest daughter of Judge Edmund Winston and Alice Taylor Winston. She was a lady of "great elegance, beauty and refinement".[3] The Winston family was well-connected in their own right, and the marriage created a very powerful union. One year later George was the attending physician at the death of his patriot friend. Patrick Henry's son Alexander Spotswood Henry would later marry George's daughter Paulina Cabell.[1] Alexander was named after his great uncle Alexander Spotswood, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. Spotswood was a leader in Virginia and American history for a number of his projects as Governor, including his exploring beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, his establishing what was perhaps the first colonial iron works, and his negotiating the Treaty of Albany with the Iroquois Nations of New York.[4]

George was the son of Col. John Cabell, who was the son of William Cabell the immigrant. From the time the immigrant William came ashore in 1726, the Cabells established a family tradition of medical care which continued into the nineteenth century when the practice of medicine became highly regulated, and formal training a prerequisite. William Cabell, who may not have had any formal training before arriving, more than made up for it by purchasing dozens of medical books. He embraced a "no cure, no fee" policy, in which he charged only those patients who recovered.[1] George also mentored his cousin, Dr. George Cabell, Jr., who later took his own degree from Philadelphia. The tradition continued with Cabell, Jr.'s son, Dr. James Lawrence Cabell, who became a Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at the University of Virginia and the president of the short-lived National Board of Health, 1876-1883.[1]

Point of Honor, Lynchburg

In 1806 Dr. Cabell and his wife began construction of a mansion on a sprawling 737 acre plantation in Lynchburg. Finished in 1816, the grand estate would depict a colorful history in the Lynchburg annals and later be named Point of Honor to reflect stories of it being an alleged location for settling arguments with duels.[5] George died in Lynchburg in 1823 as a result of a fall from his horse. There he would be laid to rest. His wife Sarah died in Lynchburg in 1826.

Famous relatives include Col. William J. Lewis[6] and John Cabell Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the U.S. under James Buchanan.[6]

The home is now a museum and open to the public.