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George Steptoe (1746–1784)

Role

Steptoe was Bushrod Washington's mother's physician.

Description

George Steptoe was born on 3 March 1746 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1767 with a thesis titled Disputatio medica inauguralis, de febre nervosa ("Inaugural Medical Discourse on Nervous Fever"). A self-described "Doctor of Physic," Steptoe was Hannah Bushrod Washington's physician. He and widow Elizabeth Sturman Ransdell Davenport (m. 1778) had one son. George Steptoe died in Westmoreland County in 1784.

Citations

Wyndham B. Blanton, Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century (Richmond: Garrett & Massie, Inc., 1931), 87, 379.

George Steptoe in Virginia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 16521900 (Ancestry.com).

Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), 23 October 1778, page 2, column 3 (Colonial Williamsburg).