Permission for “General Edward Hand: An
PERMISSION FOR “GENERAL EDWARD HAND: AN EXTRAORDINARY LANCASTER PATRIOT, MILITARY OFFICER, PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON”: This article was originally published in the Spring 2018 issue, Vol. 13, No. 1, of the Journal of Lancaster General Hospital. Used with permission. General edward Hand An Extraordinary Lancaster Patriot, Military Officer, Physician, and Surgeon Nikitas J. Zervanos, M.D. DIrector Emeritus, LGH Family Medicine Residency Program IRISH BEGINNINGS local traders. Some of these traders with Lancaster General Edward Hand was a physician and a connections later became business associates with military officer who became one of Lancaster’s most whom he also managed lucrative investments and illustrious citizens and political leaders. He was land deals.4 He purchased a total of 1,632 acres in born into a privileged Anglican family on December Westmoreland County, which was indentured on 31, 1744, in Clydruff, a small village just west of December 28, 1770.5 Dublin, Ireland. This meant he had certain social In 1770, George Washington, then an officer advantages, as he was neither an Irish Protestant of the British Virginia Militia, and known to the dissenter, nor a Roman Catholic like most of the Indians as Caunotarius (Towntaker), visited Fort population.1 Pitt. Hand was invited to dinner He attended Trinity College at Semple’s Tavern in the local vil- in Dublin where he studied lage, where Washington was the medicine. To meet the certifica- guest of honor. These two gentle- tion requirements of the medical men must have stood out among guild, he then had to serve either the others, as in that era they were a five-year apprenticeship under probably the only two six-footers.
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