fe of forty years
watched over her for the seventeen days that remained and was with her,
too, when she breathed her last.

Doctor Craik lived for fifteen years after the death of his friend and
patron, hale and hearty to the end. In 1810 he put up his Alexandria
house as security for a loan and it was sold at public auction March 23,
1810, to Rebecca Taylor.

Doctor Craik died on February 6, 1814, in his eighty-fourth year at his
country estate, Vauclause, near Alexandria. He lies in the graveyard of
the old Presbyterian meetinghouse.

His house in Alexandria, at 210 Duke Street, was fittingly enough in
1943 made habitable once again by another physician, Dr. Laurence A.
Thompson, and Mrs. Thompson.

[Illustration: Dr. James Craik and Dr. Elisha Dick]

[Illustration]

Chapter 17

Alexandria's Old Apothecary Shop

[With the settlement of the Leadbeater estate in 1933, these two
adjoining buildings were acquired by the Landmarks Society of Alexandria
and the contents purchased by the American Pharmaceutical Association.
Under the direction of Mrs. Robert M. Reese the buildings have been
restored and opened to the public as a museum with displays generously
lent by the American Pharmaceutical Association. Entrance at 107 South
Fairfax Street.]

Among the Quakers who settled in Alexandria there was a young man by the
name of Edward Stabler, who came from Petersburg, Virginia. By 1792 he
had established himself in the drug business on Fairfax Street between
King and Prince. The major portion of his first stock of drugs came from
London and cost about L106. Today his shop is famous as the second
oldest apothecary shop in the United States in continuous operation and
has been conducted by five generations of Stabler's descendants, the
name of the proprietor changing to Leadbeater in 1852.

Always the proprietors maintained the most unique relations, business
and social, with their patrons. Extant today are orders for one quart of
castor oil from Martha Washington, an order for paint from George
Washington Parke Custis, and many other curious and historical records,
including the comments on a bad debt. In 1801 Mr. Stabler ordered from
his dealer in London:

One medicine chest, complete with weights, scales, bolus knives, etc.
I want this to be mahogany, of good quality as it is for the
granddaughter of the widow of General Washington, the cost to be
about 12 guineas.

[Illustration: Alexan