Sutherland Springs

SUTHERLAND, JOHN, JR. (17921867). John Sutherland, Jr., physician, was born on May 11, 1792, near Danville, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, the son of John and Agnes Sutherland. After the family moved to Tennessee he married Diana Kennedy in Knox County on December 31, 1816. By 1824 the couple had moved to Decatur, Alabama, where Sutherland opened a store and managed a bank that failed. He then formed a partnership with his older brother George Sutherland , who moved to the Austin colony in Texas to homestead for both of them in December 1829. Mrs. Sutherland died on February 17, 1827, leaving Sutherland alone to tend a daughter and his elderly father. He attended medical school, where he studied Samuel Thomson's method of treating disease with steam and herbs. Sutherland moved to San Antonio, Texas, in December 1835; there the Alamo garrison hired his medical services. He was injured in a fall from his horse and could not fight, so Col. William B. Travis sent him to bring help from Gonzales. Sutherland returned with a contingent of men only to see the funeral pyres; among the dead was George's son, William. Sutherland next served as an attaché to David G. Burnet , president of the Republic of Texas , and aided in the Runaway Scrape .