Dr. Lemuel Brattan, a member of one of the town’s founding families in the early 1800s, left a successful career as a store-keeper and businessman at age 28 to become a doctor. He enrolled in the Univ. of Maryland Medical School, graduated, and returned to open an office as one of the town’s two general practice doctors. In 1857 he left town for Texas, returned about 1870, and died shortly after. A renovated office once used by a railroad contractor from the early 1900s is approximately the size of the office he built for his practice.