1793 — Dysentery, Coventry, CT, Caroline Co., MD, esp. Georgetown DC & vic.–Hundreds

lornajarrettblanchard January 1, 1793

Connecticut ( >10)

–>10 Coventry. Blanchard.[1]

— ? Coventry. “killed almost every person whom it seized.” (Webster 1799, p. 300.)

Georgetown, DC (Hundreds)

–Hundreds. Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Apr 1942, pp. 64-65.

Maryland ( >10)

–>10 Caroline County. Blanchard.[2]

— ? Caroline County. “considerable mortality.” Caulfield 1942, pp. 64-65.

Pennsylvania ( ?)

–?

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “In the closing years of the eighteenth century…there were some of the worst epidemics of all [dysentery section of paper]; at least, they were so described. In Georgetown, DC, and vicinity during 1793, the epidemic ‘swept away many hundreds.’

“In Caroline County, Maryland, there was ‘considerable mortality’;[3] and in several villages of Pennsylvania there was ‘a malignity and mortality, unknown before in any part of the state.’ It was also a ‘very sickly’ time in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The disease was ‘more obstinate’ than usual in Newport, Rhode Island; and in Coventry, Connecticut, it ‘killed almost every person whom it seized.’”[4] (Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” 1942, p. 64-65.)

Webster: “The summer of 1793 was excessively hot, after a dry spring…The autumn was very dry. A fatal dysentery prevailed in Georgetown, on the Potomak, and in the vicinity, which swept away many hundreds of the inhabitants. The same disease prevailed in Coventry, in Connecticut, and killed almost every person whom it seized….” (Webster. Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, V.1, p. 300.)

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

United States Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor. Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Connecticut. Washington: Government Printing Office 1908. Accessed 2-8-2018 at: https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html

United States Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor. Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Maryland. Washington: Government Printing Office 1907. Accessed 2-8-2018 at: https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790d-01.pdf

Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; with the Principal Phenomena of the Physical World (Vol. 1 of 2). “Section VIII. Historical view of pestilential epidemics, from the year 1788 to 1798 inclusive, comprehending the last epidemic period in American.” Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[1] Our attempt at a minimum number for the purposes of recognition and addition to the tally. I consulted the 1790 U.S. Census for Vermont (the 1^st U.S. Census), looked up Coventry in Tolland County, and see that in 1790, three years prior to this epidemic, the population was 2,130, only 336 of whom were the heads of households (male adults for the most part). The Census notes 515 “Free white males under 16 years.” Presumably the number of females (which is not noted), is comparable. In that the dysentery was disproportionately fatal to young children, compared to adults, we would expect a high mortality even if Webster was overboard in writing that it “killed almost every person whom it seized.” I would expect dozens of deaths, but cannot back this assumption with data.

[2] Our attempt at a minimum number for the purposes of recognition and addition to the tally. I consulted the 1790 U.S. Census for Maryland and see that the population for Caroline Co. was 9,566 in 1790, of which 1,355 were heads of families (White). Presumably the number of children were in the many thousands, and, as noted, dysentery was disproportionately fatal to young children, compared to adults (who did die as well).

[3] Blanchard note: I have been unsuccessful in locating mortality data on the Caroline County, MD outbreak.

[4] Cites, in footnote 198, Webster, Noah. Pestilential Diseases, I, p. 300; Rush, Benjamin. Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever, pp. 14, 108, and 127; Mrs. Charles P. Noyes. A Family History in Letters and Documents (St. Paul, 1919), I, pp. 202-203.