1746 — Dysentery (“Fever & Flux”) Epidemics, esp. Harvard/37 and Westborough/25 MA->62

–Blanchard tally of locality breakouts below.

 

Harvard                     (37)

–37  Caulfield 1942, p. 51.[1]

 

Hopkinton                  (  ?)

–?  Caulfield notes a day of “Solemn Humiliation” on account of “great mortality.” (1942, p. 51)

 

Northborough           (  ?)

–?  Caulfield notes a day of “Solemn Humiliation” on account of “great mortality.” (1942, p. 51)

 

Westborough             (25)

–25  Rev. Ebenezer Parkman diary, cited in Caulfield 1942, p. 51.

 

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “The epidemic that began in Westborough about mid-August, 1746, was still worse than that of the year before. Parkman recorded that twenty-five children died within two months, among them four from the Barns family. Days of ‘Solemn Humiliation Fasting & Prayer on acct of ye great Mortality. were observed in Westborough (September 4), Hopkinton (September 18), and Northborough (September 22). Among the thirty-seven deaths in Harvard were five Willards, four Coles, four Sawyers, and three Warners.[2] At the same time there were multiple deaths in many other Massachusetts towns, but the disease has not been identified though I suspect it was ‘Fever & Flux’.”

 

Sources

 

Caulfield, Ernest. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. 35, April 1942, pp. 4-65. Accessed 1-17-2018 at: https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/865

 

Nourse, Henry Stedman. History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts: 1732-1893. Harvard, MA: Printed for Warren Hapgood, 1894. Google digital preview accessed 1-29-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=CpQvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[1] Cites Henry S. Nourse. History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts (Harvard, 1894, p. 116). Norse refers to “the fatal endemic dysentery of 1746…” (p. 481.)

[2] Henry S. Nourse. History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts (Harvard, 1894, p. 116). No cause is stated.