1776 — Dysentery Epidemics, NY (especially northern NY), MA and NJ — >76
— >76 Blanchard tally based on State breakouts below.
Connecticut ( ?)
–? Kulikoff. “soldiers spread smallpox and dysentery throughout coastal Connecticut in 1776.”[1]
Massachusetts (>15)
— >10 Chester, Aug 7-Oct 2. Vital Records of Chester. Cited in Caulfield 1942, p. 61, fn. 187.
— >2 Blackman family.
— >2 Ellis family.
— >2 French family.
— >2 Geers family.
— >2 Johnson family.
— ? Kingston. Very mortal. (Caulfield. “Some…Diseases of Colonial Children.” 1942, 60-62.)
— >5 Roxbury. Reverend Samuel Danforth notes “many” deaths; MMWR, CDC, 1776, p. 4.[2]
New Jersey (51)
–25 Morristown. Record of First Presbyterian Church. Cited in Caulfield 1942, p. 61, fn. 189.
–4 Prudden family members.
–5 Reeve family members.
–26 Pleasantdale,[3] July 23-Sep 24. Jemima Condict diary, in Rae. People’s War. P. 220-221.[4]
–1 July 23 Adonijah Harrison.
–1 Aug 6 Child of John Ogdens.
–1 Aug 16 Jered Freman.
–2 Date not noted. Isaac Freman children with “the Same Distemper.”
–1 Aug 17 John Freman child.
–1 Aug 25 Sam Smith’s child.
–2 Aug 30 Amos Burrel’s child, and Joseph Pierson’s child.
–1 Aug 30 Timothy Crane “with the Same Distemper.”
–1 Sep 2 Thomas Freman’s daughter.
–1 Sep 3 John Freman.
–2 Sep 4 Jonathan Smith’s child and Jonathan Condict’s daughter.
–2 Sep 8 Jabez William’s child and Abel Freman child.
–1 Sep 8 Widow of John Freman lost a child.
–1 Sep 8~ John Dod child.
–1 Sep 9 Another daughter of Jonathan Condict.
–3 No date. “Enock Beach has Lost three of his Children in About a fortnight.”
–1 Sep 10 Wife of Joseph Williams.
–1 Sep 15 Jabes Regs.
–1 Sep 22 “they Buried his [Jabes Regs] third Child…”
–1 Sep 24 Wife of Jabes Regs. [Blanchard: Google preview ends here.]
New York (10)
–>10 Blanchard “stand-in” minimum number.[5]
— ? Lake George. Continental Army decimated by camp distemper throughout the summer.[6]
— ? Long Island. New England army camp there “full of ‘Fluxes, Fevers, & Smallpox’.”[7]
— 1 New York. Caulfield cites Fithian [who died] description of hospitals as full of dysentery.[8]
— ? Upstate NY. Continental Army was in upstate NY, in 1776, and experienced dysentery.[9]
Narrative Information
Caulfield: “If there is any question about dysentery in the Army during 1775, at least there can be no doubt about it during 1776. In June, Captain John Lacey wrote in his journal that the New England camp on Long Island was full of “Fluxes, Fevers, & Smallpox.” In July “The General [was] pained to observe” the frightful condition of the latrines and ordered all filth in and about the camp to be buried daily. The Chief Surgeon of the Hessian forces said that after they arrived in July, hardly a man escaped without dysentery or fever. Young Philip Fithian, describing the American military hospitals in New York, said: “In every apartment are many with the Dysentery”—and this was just before he himself contracted the disease and died. Dr. Ebenezer Beardsley also said that dysentery was rife in the Army during July, August, and September.[10]
“James Tilton described the condition of the camp at King’s Bridge: ‘All manner of excrementitious matter was scattered indiscriminately throughout the camp . . . A putrid diarrhea was the consequence. The camp disease, as it was called, became proverbial. Many died, melting as it were, and running off at the bowels.’ On October 4 Washington’s order of the day called attention to the ‘shameful inattention in some camps, to decency and cleanliness.’ At that time it was estimated that one-third of his forces were unfit for duty because of sickness.
“Elsewhere, too, there was ample reason to fear ‘more loss of men from Camp sickness than from ye Gun & Bayonet.’[11] The Reverend Ammi Robbins, heartily distressed “midst sickness and death” while with the forces around Lake George, described the men, first terror-stricken by smallpox in April, then decimated by camp distemper throughout the summer.[12] At one time less than 50 out of a force of 240 men were able to carry on. At the peak of the epidemic five men were being buried daily. Webster was an eyewitness to the ‘terrible fatal’ dysentery among the troops at Ticonderoga. ‘I was at Mount Independence in October, and witness to the ravages of the disease. Of thirteen thousand troops, it was said that one half were unfit for duty.’
“ ‘The dysentery which prevailed in most parts of the United States in the year 1776’ was said to have been ‘very mortal’ in Kingston, Massachusetts, but neither in Kingston nor in other Massachusetts towns do my records reveal any terrible epidemics unless the one in Chester, in western Massachusetts, was caused by that disease.[13]
“In West Hartford, Connecticut, a two-year epidemic started with the deaths of about twenty soldiers ‘in ye Camp,’ but most of the multiple deaths among children occurred the following summer [1777].[14]
“There was another moderately severe epidemic in Middletown. In one parish in Morristown, New Jersey, there were twenty-five dysentery deaths including those of five members of the Reeve family and four Pruddens.[15] All in all, however, there was nothing comparable to 1775.”
(Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, pp. 60-62.)
CDC MMWR 1976: “Reverend Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, Massachusetts, in describing an outbreak of the bloody flux, wrote on July 20, 1776, ‘It was a very sickly time [with] many being visited with gripings, vomiting and flux, with a fever which proved fatal to many infants & little children esp’lly but also to some grown persons.’ (1) A colonist involved in the outbreak claimed hat his condition was ‘truly pitiable’ for he had ‘not had one day or one Nights Ease or rest these days past & do less than 15 times a night I am obliged to get up and that accompanied by the Most excruciating pains in my Bowels, my Back and my Loins!’….(1)
“Many of the involved took a variety of variety of cures. A colonist described the disease as ‘an obstinate Diarrhea, that will yield to no Medicine or Skill of the Physician.’ A physician beseeched his patient to take some ‘pilles…made of grated pepper made up with turpentine, and some pepper withhall.’ ‘Butter or oil with a Portion of Beer and Molasses’ was a popular cure advanced by the Boston Weekly News Letter. (1) Another physician urged affected patients to ‘Take an Egge and Boyle it very hard and then pull off the Shell and put it as hot as you can well endure, into the fundament of the patient grieved and when it is much abated of the heat put in another Egge in the same manner and it will cure.’ (1)
“The Outbreak ended but not before ‘many both elder and young Persons (were) taken down with Fever and Flux (and) died after less than a Weeks Illness.”[16]
Packard: “In 1776 dysentery was prevalent throughout North America, and particularly so in the various camps which covered the country. In Northern New York it was terribly fatal. Webster devotes much space to the attempt to prove that camp-life had nothing to do with the epidemic, but there is no doubt that in many instances the disease was propagated by the conditions in which the soldiery were placed. Dr. Ebenezer Beardsley wrote an interesting account of the outbreak of dysentery in the Twenty-third Regiment of the Continental army, which he attributed to overcrowding in barracks, which were likewise poorly ventilated. The regiment was quartered in New York at the time.”[17] (pp. 100-101.)
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
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The Bloody Flux — Massachusetts,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Bicentennial Issue). Vol. 25, July 1976, p. 4. Google preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Ci8gAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Kulikoff, Allan. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers. University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Google digital preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=zK8TBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Packard, Francis Randolph, M.D. The History of Medicine in the United States. Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1901. Google preview accessed 1-26-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dCxAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rae, Noel. The People’s War: Original Voices of the American Revolution. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2012. Google preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=2keLBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
[1] Kulikoff. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers. 2000, p. 255.)
[2] Five is our number based on statement that the bloody flux had “proven fatal to many infants & little children esp’ly but also to some grown persons.”
[3] We could not locate “Pleasantdale” in a Google search, but this is the name Noel Rae writes as the location of the diarist Jemima Condict.
[4] Memima Condict notes in her diary that the “Blody flux” began on July 23. We have left out the deaths of two elderly persons in that their deaths could have been due to some other cause, or possibly not. Indeed, some of the deaths noted herein may be due to some other cause, but it is clear from the way these diary entries started that the diarist was speaking of the bloody flux (dysentery). She also notes the deaths of several residents from “the Camp Disorder” [dysentery] while off with the Continental Army.
[5] Ten or more is our stand in number given our failure to locate specific numbers as opposed to descriptions of dismal conditions and mortality in several parts of the State.
[6] Caulfield 1942.
[7] Caulfield 1942, pp. 60-61.
[8] Caulfield 1942, pp. 60-61.
[9] Packard: “In Northern New York it was terribly fatal.” (p. 100)
[10] Cites, in fn. 184: Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, I. 542; Cases and Observations, 68.
[11] Cites, in footnote 185: Penn. Mag. Hist. & Biog., CXCIII (October, 1899), p. 394.
[12] Cites, in fn. 186: Theron W. Crissey, History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut (Everett, 1900), 105-116.
[13] Cites, in footnote 187: Vital Records of Chester.
[14] Cites, in footnote 188: West Harford Bill of Mortality (MS., Conn. State Library).
[15] Cites, in footnote 189: The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., I (July, 1880), 55.
[16] The number (1) in the text refers to the reference source: Duffy, J. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: State University Press, 1953.
[17] In footnote 34 notes: “Dr. Beardsley’s paper was published in the first volume of the Transactions of the New Haven County Medical Society. This was the first volume of transactions ever published by a medical society in this country.”