Excerpt from Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And he also brought along a deep and troubling cough.

To a little boy who had known only the bustling energy and modest homes of Richmond, Virginia, Sabine Hall was an intimidating place to try to call home.

Robert "King" Carter—the family's legendary eighteenth-century patriarch—had spared no expense in building the house for his son, Landon. The enormous brick and stone building featured four large white cypress columns that rose all the way to the second floor and were surrounded by six meticulously curated gardens extending over five opulent terraces, from the top of the hill down to the plantation's fields. Entering the house, visitors were greeted by an enormous front parlor flanked by a hand-carved staircase. The house was decorated with numerous oil paintings of the Carter family: King Carter, Landon Carter, portraits of each of Landon's three wives, and, of course, now, Colonel Carter himself.

Colonel Carter was just twenty years old when he took in seven-year-old Thomas, and while Carter was born into a comfortable life, he was not afraid of change. During Thomas's stay at Sabine Hall, he made many dramatic alterations to the building and its environment. He constructed a giant portico on the front of the house, a broad classical pediment was added to the roof on the river facade, and a sixty-foot veranda that stretched the entire length of the house was built facing the river, taking more than seventy days of relentless carpentry to finish. Carter then requested that the entire redbrick exterior be painted white, and even demanded that the roof and chimneys be lowered.

In an odd coincidence—which might explain Mütter's later attraction to the city—it was said that Carter's main catalyst for making these changes was a visit he made to Philadelphia. He was deeply impressed with the "gay and splendid city" and was especially taken with its architecture, later writing in his journal that he found its streets "as beautiful as any in the world." And indeed the new Sabine Hall did resemble some of Philadelphia's best-known architecture. Philadelphia's First Bank of the United States had a similar oversize portico and light-colored facade, and the city's new Masonic Temple (designed by William Strickland), which Carter would later call "one of the most elegant buildings in America," had a gate lodge of a style very similar to the Gothic one he had built for Sabine Hall.

However, the attention to detail and visionary execution that Carter had lavished on the reinvention of Sabine Hall did not extend to the small boy he had just accepted as his ward. From the beginning, Carter made it clear to Patrick Gibson that he would provide a roof over Thomas's head, food on his plate, and a bed for him to sleep in, but it would fall to others to guide the boy in his life.

"I felt for our friend Mr. Mutter the most sincere friendship, and would most willingly do anything I could to promote the welfare and to place a foundation for the respectability and happiness of his son," Carter wrote to Gibson shortly after receiving Thomas at Sabine Hall. "I should however wish clearly to understand the situation of the amount of the fund that Thomas must depend upon for his future subsistence and wishing at the same time to have as little to do with the fund of the Estate as possible."

And perhaps feeling a bit of remorse at taking on such a large responsibility—and the criticism that might come with it—the twenty-year-old Carter noted, "I certainly feel much delicacy and reluctance by assuming a character which requires me so much judgment, care and attention, and which procures for you in return little less than actual loss, or unremitted condemnation."

Money proved to be a constant source of frustration and concern for both Thomas and his guardian. Carter brought the boy in with the promise that his costs would be covered by his late father's estate, but it wasn't long before Carter himself would be forced to sell both Woodberry—the only home Thomas knew after the death of his mother—and its contents to pay off debts that no one knew John Mutter had.

Excerpted from Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. Copyright © 2014 by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. Excerpted by permission of Gotham Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.