Hugh Mercer was a Scot, a warrior, a friend of George Washington, and a socially acceptable witch doctor who started his own apothecary on the advice of Washington himself.

A Scottish war doctor who fled his homeland, Mercer came to America in 1747 to escape loyalist forces who were intent on hunting down the survivors of the Battle of Culloden. After arriving in the North American colonies, Mercer befriended then-Colonel George Washington through their mutual participation in a local Masonic lodge. Mercer opened his rural medicine practice in Virginia in the late 1760s, and Washington’s own mother, who lived nearby, became one of Mercer’s patients. The doctor would go on to fight and perish in the Revolutionary War, but not before leaving behind a trail of historic honoraries including counties, museums, and even his old shop. 

While the building that holds the museum was not his apothecary, it does date to the same time period.  His apothecary was nearby, and historically there was confusion on its exact location. The staff are in period costume and will happily explain the methods and ingredients used in the awkward Colonial version of medicine. The guides are passionate and knowledgeable and will explain in graphic detail, 18th century cures such as blood letting (there are real live leeches available for critical observation), the grittiness of dentistry of the time, and the gruesome details of amputation and surgery during the Revolutionary War. There is also a garden in the back that is still growing the numerous herbs used inside to prepare authentic remedies. 

The museum is located in Historic Downtown Fredericksburg just minutes away from the Kenmore House, the home of George Washington’s sister Betty, the Mary Washington House, the home of George Washington’s mother, and the Rising Sun Tavern museum, as well as a mixture of antique shops and hipster hangouts which is an appropriate mix of places to accent Mercer’s eccentric piece of American history.