George Lowry Smit
Information comes from Treasured Tidbits of Time Volume I by Jens Patrick Wilde
George Lowry Smit of Georgetown was perhaps the closest to the old fashioned naturopath. His folk medicines were much sought after and his knowledge of natural remedies were unsurpassed in the valley. Numerous accounts of his healing abilities are recorded. He claimed to have gained his knowledge from his grandfather who was a folk medicine man in the Tennessee hill country. Smit knew his plants and kept a sizeable supply on hand, many of which he had sent to him all the way from Tennessee.
An unusual thing about Smit was that he frequently never saw his patients. He received a description of their ills and prescribed accordingly. He seemed successful in controlling such common maladies in head colds, sinus, types of flu, internal disorders, dysentery and skin rashes. he never set bones but did prescribe types of poultices that dropped swellings so others could so so.
Once when an entire camp of railroad workers was stricken with a bad case of dysentery and stomach ailments, he was hired by the company to get the workers back on their feet. He did so, with a mixture of sagebrush tea, garlic and other ingredients that solved the stomach problems within 24 hours.
Among his strongest clientele were the Indians who strongly believed in his kind of medicine. Smit admitted that he learned much from them and was always willing to exchange knowledge with them. Smit claimed to have camped at the location of Georgetown in 1853 when he came over the Oregon Trail to California with the group of gold seekers. He returned to Georgetown to live in 1881 and worked in sawmills of the area and managed a farm northwest of Georgetown. He always raised a large garden much of which was the herbs he doctored with.