What actually followed was that Dunmore and his family fled the Palace, never to return, and Pasteur became the next mayor of Williamsburg. It should be mentioned that he and John Minson Galt were already members of the Committee of Safety for the city when they formed their partnership. The sympathies of both were clearly on the patriot side.

The partners very shortly were able to advertise the importation of the usual wide assortment of drugs and medicines for sale in their shop on Duke of Gloucester Street. And a few surviving bills indicate that they did not lack for medical and surgical business. Dr. Pasteur, it would seem, did not share his younger colleague’s aversion to phlebotomy, as the following excerpt from a Pasteur & Galt bill to Henry Morse Esq. in 1775 shows:

April 14 To bleeding Vomit & Chamomile Flowers . . 7 . . 6
21 To Brimstone & Antimony . . 1 . . 3
22 To Purge Honey & Barley . . 4 . .
25 To Purge 2/6. 26 Sugar Candy 1/3 . . 3 . . 9
29 To bleeding & Pectoral Mixture . . 8 . . 6
30 To Visiting Mixture & Sago . . 9 . . 9
May 4 To Pectoral Mixture . . 6 . . 6
11 To 1 lb Balsam Honey . . 6 . . 3
19 To 1 lb Do. 6/3 25 Honey 1/0
31st Cons. Roses 2/ . . 9 . . 3
June 1 To 1 lb Balsam Honey . . 6 . . 3
6 To Lenitive Electary & Salope . . 3 . . 6
15 To Castor Oil & Honey . . 6 . .
16 To Febrifuge & Bitter Decoctions . .12 . .
22 To Attendce & Bleedg in the Night . .10 . .
23 To Honey & Oxymel Squills . . 2 . . 6
July 10 To Honey 1/ 10th Capillaire & Sago 5/6 . . 6 . . 6
August 20 To Vomit & Chamomile Flowers . . 2 . . 6
21 To Febrifuge Decoction repeated . .10 . .
L 5. 16 . 6

The partnership lasted only three years, for reasons not now discernable, and William Pasteur gave notice to the public that “I purpose commencing oyster merchant” at his landing on King’s Creek between Williamsburg and Yorktown. Galt, on the other hand, continued to practice medicine, serving as a senior surgeon to the Continental military hospital in Williamsburg, joining in partnership with Dr. Philip Barraud, and becoming visiting physician to the public hospital for the insane and a member of its board of directors. He held both offices until his death in 1808. Yet as late as 1794 he was identified in court records as “Apothecary, of the City of Williamsburg.”

THE APOTHECARY SHOP

The Pasteur-Galt apothecary shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg is a reconstruction. Its size and location are determined with certainty not only from an eighteenth-century town map, but also by eighteenth-century foundations excavated on the site. The land was owned by Dr. William Pasteur from 1760 until 1778, during which time he probably built the shop. When he and John Minson Galt dissolved their partnership, he sold the property to Galt, who transferred it to his son at the end of the century.

No record survives as to the exact appearance, outside or inside, of the Pasteur-Galt shop. Some apothecary shops apparently had as many as three rooms: the front shop, the doctor’s office and operating room, and possibly a sort of laboratory where the apprentice compounded medicines.

The Pasteur-Galt shop has been reconstructed with two, the preparative work being done in full view of the public.

As to the content of the shop, ample evidence comes from almost any advertisement of Galt, Pasteur, or for that matter of just about any apothecary in colonial America at any time during the eighteenth century. They all published for their prospective customers lengthy lists of items just imported, and the lists bear a marked resemblance from place to place and from time to time.