1794 — Scarlet Fever, Bolton, Lebanon, East Haven, etc., especially New Haven (52), CT-76

lornajarrettblanchard January 1, 1794

–76 Blanchard tally from locality breakouts below.

Bethlehem ( ?)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Bethlehem, CT (p. 34).

Bolton ( 7)

–7 New England Historical Genealogical Register, LVI, 162, 347. “Bolton Church Records.”[1]

Branford ( ?)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Branford (p. 34).

Cheshire ( ?)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Cheshire (p. 34.

East Haven ( 9)

— 9 Dodd. East Haven Register, 99 (in Caulfield 1942, p. 34, footnote 82).

Hamden ( ?)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Hamden (p. 34).

Hartford (Many)

— ? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Hartford (p. 34).

— “Many.” Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Revised Edition), 2001, p. 235.[2]

Lebanon ( 6)

–6 Lebanon First Society Records, MS., Conn. State Library (in Caulfield 1942, p. 34, fn 82).

Litchfield ( ?)

–? Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Revised Edition), 2001, p. 235.[3]

New Fairfield ( ?)

–? Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Revised Edition), 2001, p. 235.[4]

New Haven (52)

–52 Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, 1942, p. 34.[5]

–52 CT State Medical Society. Proceedings of…, “President’s Address” (citing Monson), p.80.

–52 Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Revised Edition), 2001, p. 235.[6]

–43 Arnebeck. Destroying Angel: Benjamin Rush…and the Birth of Modern Medicine.

— 1 Sibyl Trowbridge. Born 5-4-1782; died 4-16-1794 “of scarlet fever.”[7]

Preston (>2)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Preston (p. 34).

–2 Children of Samuel Bailey, “Scarlet Fever & putrid sore throat.”[8]

Woodbridge ( ?)

–? Caulfield notes that scarlet fever was epidemic in Woodbridge (p. 34).

Narrative Information

Arnebeck: “Summer weather was proving delightful and the world seemed to be returning to normal with deadly fevers in the far away tropics. Then doctors in New Haven, Connecticut, observed the sine qua non of yellow fever, a terrible quick death. On June 10 Isaac Gorham’s 27 year old wife Elizabeth complained of violent head, back and limb pains and nausea. On the 14th the pains stopped “and she was elated with the prospect of a speedy recovery.” That evening “she vomited matter resembling coffee-grounds.” She died the next day. A few days later a niece who had lived with her a week died with the same symptoms. On June 20, the merchant Elijah Austin and his clerk both died in New York City after having left New Haven a few days previous. “Sickness and death prevail in the town,” Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, wrote in his diary. Three doctors, asked by the city’s selectmen to investigate, found that a sloop from Martinique “infected with the contagion of the yellow fever” had been near the Gorham house. A chest of clothes that belonged to one of the seamen who died of yellow fever had been opened by Austin in the presence of his clerk and Mrs. Gorham.

“For New Haven official the imperative to conceal the existence of any epidemic disease outweighed any other consideration. The city of 3,400 was Connecticut’s largest port, specializing in the South Sea trade. Its chief glory each year was the mid-September commencement day at Yale College during which the population of the town might swell by several thousand. The investigating doctors’ report of July 8 tried to put the recent deaths in perspective. Seventy-seven people had died in New Haven since January, 43 of them, mostly children, from scarlet fever, 18 from consumption and 16 “with erratic diseases.” The committee thought reports “respecting the mortality of this disease” had been “very much exaggerated.”” (Arnebeck. Destroying Angel: Benjamin Rush…and the Birth of Modern Medicine.)

Caulfield: “It was said that during 1794 scarlet fever raged “all over the country,” but my material concerns only Connecticut,[9] here there were epidemics in Bethlehem, Branford, Bolton, Cheshire, East Haven, Hamden, Hartford, Lebanon, Preston, and Woodbridge. The epidemic in New Haven between January and July seems to have caused the most alarm. Ezra Stiles speaks of the fear that spread among the students at Yale when a freshman died after two days of “Angina Ulcerosa”; and in April the faculty finally yielded to the demands of the students and voted to close the college. By April 10 a committee of physicians, in a statement published to offset the exaggerated reports that had spread throughout the state, said that out of 290 cases “only eight have died. The malignancy of the disease has abated, and its symptoms appear comparatively mild.” By July, however, there was a different story because forty-three had died of “malignant Scarlet Fever.” After the epidemic was over, it was found that 52 died out of 750 cases—a case fatality rate of 6.9 percent. A broadside published in October described the disease as “very mortal.”

Sletcher: “The yellow fever and scarlet fever epidemics of 1794 — together with a smallpox scare that same year — accentuated the issue of health in the city, which resulted in the creation of the Health Committee of the City of New Haven (1795), New Haven’s first board of health.” (New Haven: From Puritanism to the Age of Terror, 2004, p. 47.)

Sources

Arnebeck, Bob. “Yellow Fever in New Haven, 1794.” Destroying Angel: Benjamin Rush, Yellow Fever and the Birth of Modern Medicine. Thousand Island Park, NY: On-line book, 1999. Accessed 1-26-2018 at: http://bobarnebeck.com/newhaven.html

Baptisms Extracted from The Bi-Centennial Celebration First Congregational Church of Preston, Connecticut, 1698-1898. Statistics of the Church Taken From The Church Records. “Deaths.” Accessed 1-27-2018 at: http://dunhamwilcox.net/ct/preston_ct_deaths.htm

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

Connecticut State Medical Society. Proceedings of the Connecticut State Medical Society 1920, 128^th Annual Convention (James Frederick Rogers, Editor). Published by the Society, Sep 1920. Google preview accessed 1-27-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=gHACAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Sletcher, Michael. New Haven: From Puritanism to the Age of Terror. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004. Google preview accessed 1-27-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dW0k9q6oZyoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Tuttle, George Frederick. The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle: Who Came from Old to New England in 1635, and Settled in New Haven in 1639. Rutland, VT: Tuttle & Co., 1883. Google preview accessed 1-27-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=TzNZAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Further Reading

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953.

Winslow, Charles-Edward Amory. The Conquest of Epidemic Disease: A Chapter in the History of Ideas. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. Google preview accessed 1-27-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=jcpWTYYM0ycC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] In Caulfield 1942, p. 34, footnote 82.

[2] “Hartford, Connecticut, suffered many human deaths from the epidemic, first in May 1793 and again in February 1794 when a second wave of scarlet fever claimed more lives than the first.”

[3] In “…Connecticut, where many persons succumbed to this contagious disease, notably in the towns of New Fairfield and Litchfield, in 1793 and 1794 (in the late winter and spring, when the illness most commonly strikes.”

[4] See Litchfield footnote from Kohn.

[5] “By July…forty-three had died of ‘malignant Scarlet Fever.’ After the epidemic was over, it was found that 52 died out of 750 cases — a case fatality rate of 6.9 percent. A broadside published in October described the disease as ‘very moral.’”

[6] Kohn writes these were the deaths of children.

[7] Tuttle, George Frederick. The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle: Who Came from Old to New England in 1635, and Settled in New Haven in 1639. Rutland, VT: Tuttle & Co., 1883. “Trowbridge, Brown,” p. 561.

[8] Baptisms Extracted from The Bi-Centennial Celebration First Congregational Church of Preston, Connecticut, 1698-1898. Statistics of the Church Taken From The Church Records. “Deaths, Pages 167.”

[9] Cites, in footnote 82, p. 34, Connecticut Courant, April 14, July 21, and September 1, 1794; Webster, Pestilential Diseases, I, pp. 298-310; The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, Franklin B. Dexter, Editor (New York, 1901), in. 514-520; Thaddeus Clark, A Treatise on the Scarlatina Anginosa (Norwich, 1795), 44.