Down Memory Lane
March 31, 1983
From a news series about the history of country doctors in the county: Dr. J. G. Brown of Woodville, who practiced in a wide area of the county for a span of almost 50 years, is remembered by patients, neighbors and friends.
Folks who needed his services — and these ranged from Woodville all the way down to Madison and up into the mountains in between — remembered him as a conscientious, very modern doctor for his day. Stories abound of him saving lives and limbs — sometimes with only the most primitive of tools and conditions.
Dr. Brown was, in addition to being a regular practicing doctor, the chairman of the health board of the county. And speaking of doctors, it was a murderer’s bullet in 1967 that ended the life of a local doctor who had practiced in Rappahannock, Fauquier and Warren Counties since the age of 21.
Dr. William E. Lynn died in the driveway of his Huntly home in a case that has never been solved.
He is remembered in all three counties as a doctor who cheerfully made house calls, accepted produce for payment, and treated migrant workers free of charge.
By 1939 he had founded and built the Front Royal Hospital. He was 25 years old.
Otherwise, two young brothers,
Joseph and Henry DeJarnette, who visited their sister Carolyn DeJarnette
Keyser here, settled in this area for a while and practiced medicine in the town of Washington, where the Rappahannock Medical Clinic is now.
Dr. Joseph went on to Staunton, where he founded a sanitorium and specialized in psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Henry became an eye doctor and lived at the family estate, Mt. Comfort, in Spotsylvania.
Dr. Henry DeJarnette kept a ledger during the years he practiced in Rappahannock, between the years 1896 to 1898. Dr. DeJarnette was the great uncle of Margaret DeJarnette Baumgardner of Sperryville.
His ledger tells that he charged from $1 to $2 for an office visit. Many of his patients paid their bills with hay, which was worth fifty cents a hundred pounds in 1897. Clarence Miller was one of those who furnished the doctor with hay, providing 1,130 pounds for a credit of $5.65 on his bill.