Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

DISEASE LEADS TO HIS CHANGE OF HOME.

For several years previous to 1808, Mr. Peyton suffered with a disease of the stomach and bowels—a chronic disentary, which baffled the skill of his physicians. He consulted many of the eminent doctors of Virginia and Maryland in vain. The numerous remedies they prescribed were taken without good effect or gave only temporary relief. As a last resort he determined, on the advice of his family physician and his most intimate friends, to try the efficacy of the mineral waters of the Virginia Springs, and accordingly spent the summer of 1806-7 at that famous resort, the old Sweet Springs, in Monroe county. A use of the waters in a very brief period, gave him relief from his sufferings, and at the end of the season his health was re-established. He quickly decided, painful as was the severing of early ties, and the separation from friends, to leave the malarial regions of lower Virginia, and to make his home in the healthy and bracing climate, west of the Blue Ridge. Accordingly in 1808 established himself in Staunton.