In the early years of our nation's history Dr. Gustavus Brown was a celebrated physician, and became surgeon-general of the Revolutionary army. This fact is of interest in the present connection, for the reason that he was the patron and educational guide of Dr. Gustavus Brown Horner, the father of the subject of the present sketch. The acquaintance of the two men had this beginning: Surgeon-General Brown was, by the special order of General Washington, inspecting the Maryland troops and enrolling the names of the able-bodied men, when he discovered the youth Gustavus Brown Horner, and recognized him as his nephew. He took this nephew from the ranks, educated him in his marquee, or surgeon's tent, and made him an associate and assistant during the entire Revolutionary War. Thus, enlisting as a patriot soldier at the age of seventeen, young Horner soon achieved success in the medical profession, and in 1778 received from the continental congress a commission as surgeon's mate. Connected with the army in the North, he was for a time stationed at Valley forge. During an illness of the Marquis Lafayette, the general was placed under his especial care.
Soon after the close of the war (1783), Horner emigrated to Virginia and settled at Farquier Court House (now Warrenton), where he married Frances Harrison Scott, a daughter of Captain James Scott, a Revolutionary officer. Scott had clothed and armed his company at his own expense, and served gallantly in the regiment commanded by Col. Thomas Marshall, father of the famous chief justice. Among the eight children born to Dr. Gustavus Brown Horner and Frances Harrison Scott, John Scott Horner was the third son. At the age of ten he was sent to a private boarding school conducted by the Rev. William Williamson, near Middleburg, Loudoun County, Virginia. Here the youth learned many wholesome lessons, for Mr. Williamson was a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman with considerable local celebrity as a man of learning, and a master of rigid discipline in morals, manners, and even diet. |