Shaftoe, Doct.

The Doctor Shaftoe mentioned in Stevens Thomson Mason’s family manuscript account book was most likely the physician James Shaftoe (also spelled Shafto). He was likely born before 1764. In late 1793, Shaftoe provided inoculation services to Mason’s overseer, Joseph Williams, charging £10. Inoculation involved purposefully infecting a person with a mild case of a disease—usually smallpox—to provide future immunity to the disease.

Like most physicians of his time, Shaftoe probably did not have much formal training, though he could have been apprenticed in his youth to an older doctor. He may also have started his medical career as an apothecary or pharmacist, like many other doctors in eighteenth-century America who taught themselves medicine while providing drugs to clients. In September 1784, a James Shafto supplied medicines to Bryan Fairfax, 8th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who lived in Fairfax County.

Though he does not appear in the land tax records for Loudoun County, Shaftoe appears in the personal property tax lists for the county throughout the late 1780s and 1790s. These records indicate that Shaftoe lived in the “first battalion” of Loudoun County, in the same general area as Stevens T. Mason’s Raspberry Plain. The first battalion administrative district covered a portion of the county above Leesburg between Catoctin Creek and the Potomac River.

In each year that Shaftoe appears in tax records, he was taxed for one horse, but no enslaved people or cattle. This lack of the taxable property valued by planters indicates that Shaftoe was not a member of that elite class, though it is not a clear marker of poverty. Shaftoe could have lived in town or rented land as a tenant. A medical career, however, did not guarantee financial success. Shaftoe’s most lucrative year appears to have been 1790, when he was taxed for two chariot wheels plus his horse. The doctor could also have suffered financial loss as a result of gambling. A James Shafto appears in the Loudoun County criminal papers in 1782 for gambling, though the case was dismissed in 1790.

Whatever his financial situation, Shaftoe was known and respected in Loudoun County, as evidenced by his appearance as a witness for several legal proceedings detailed in the county court order books. In October 1788, the court ordered Dr. James Shaftoe to “view [the] wounds and make report to the court of [William Peake’s] disability,” a legal acknowledgement of Shaftoe’s medical credibility.

James Shaftoe died before 14 October 1800, the day the court proved his will of 25 August 1792. In his will, after providing for the payment of debts and a decent burial, Shaftoe left his estate to William Ellzey Jr. “as a testimonial of the great respect and esteem I possess for him and his family.” Though the relationship between Shaftoe and Ellzey remains unclear, they may have been gambling buddies. A William Ellzey was also charged with gambling in the court of Loudoun County in 1782, and his case was dismissed in November 1790 along with Shaftoe’s.

By Tom Seabrook