113-129

lornajarrettblanchard January 1, 1796

—>113-129 Blanchard estimate of minimum death toll based on State breakouts below.[1]

Connecticut ( ?)

–? New Haven.[2]

Massachusetts (103-119)

Sheffield (44-~60)

–~60 Tarbox, citing History of County of Berkshire, 1829, pp. 179-180.[3]

— 44 Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions. 1942, p. 64-65.

— 44 Second Annual Report of The State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity of [MA], p. 49.

Worcester ( 59)

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

–59 July-Nov. Lincoln. History of Worcester, Massachusetts. 1837, p. 311.[4]

Vermont ( >10)

—>10 Blanchard.[5]

— ? State. Thompson. “Diseases of Vermont.” Section VIII in History of Vermont. 220.[6]

— ? Castleton. Dysentery had “never was so alarming” as it was in Castleton in 1796.[7]

— ? Rutland.[8]

— 8 Stockbridge. Diary of Rev. Thomas Robbins, D.D., at Williams College, pp. 8, 14-16.

–Apr 23. Child. Diary of Rev. Thomas Robbins, D.D., at Williams College, p. 8.

–Apr 27. Two children. Diary of Rev. Thomas Robbins, D.D., at Williams College, p. 8.

–July 12. Youngest daughter of Pref. McKay, Williams College. Robbins Diary, p. 14.

–July 19. Mr. French, sophomore student, “in four days from a state of health,” p. 14.

–July 19. Young woman close to college “in the prime of life, in about three days from health.”[9]

–July 29. Man “in the prime of life.” Robbins Diary, p. 14.

–Aug 7. Youngest daughter of College President, Rev. Samuel Davies. Robbins, p. 16.

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “The disease [dysentery section of paper] was ‘never so alarming’ as it was during 1796 in Castleton and Stockbridge, Vermont, and towns near-by. Forty-four persons died in Sheffield, Massachusetts, where the mortality was ‘perhaps unequalled in the annals of our country.’ Fifty-nine died in Worcester [MA].”[10]

Massachusetts

Massachusetts State Board of Health: “Berkshire County. Sheffield. — Dr. W. Buel wrote in 1796, that people living in the vicinity of the ‘marsh and drowned lands,’ along the Housatonic River and about the mill-ponds, had been subject to intermittent and remittent fevers since the first settlement, but that these gradually decreased until 1793. In that year intermittents were very prevalent, especially in the vicinity of the ‘North Pond.’ In 1794 bilious remittents prevailed, chiefly in the vicinity of the ‘South Pond,’ which was that year drawn down for repairs. In 1795 an irregular form of intermittent prevailed, chiefly near the North Pond.

“In 1796 an epidemic of bilious fever and dysentery occurred near the same North Pond. On the south-east side of this pond, one-half the inhabitants were attacked, and not ten families out of a hundred escaped. There were forty-four deaths.” (“Intermittent Fever in Massachusetts,” pp. 48-49 from pp. 47-54.)

Robbins — from 1796 Diary Entries:

April 24: “Attended the funeral of a child that died with the dysentery….” [p. 8]

April 28: “Two funerals in town. Children died with dysentery….” [p. 8]

July 12: “The Professor lost his youngest child…

July 13: “Attended the funeral of Mr. McKay’s child. Danger that the dysentery will prevail in this town….” [p. 14]

July 18: “The town and college [Williams] considerably alarmed about the dysentery….” [p. 14]

July 19: “A number of scholars getting leave to go home. Some unwell, and others afraid they shall be.” [p. 14]

July 20: “This morning we are met with the solemn tidings that French, an amiable and worthy member of the Sophomore class, last night slept in death, with the dysentery in four days from a state of health….Also a woman, close to college, in the prime of life, in about three days from health. Both funerals attended in the afternoon….” [p. 14]

July 21: “Finished my dialogue and carried it to the President. His youngest child very sick with dysentery. He denies scholars to go home….” [p. 15]

July 26: “I am quite unwell with an excessive cold. A number sick in town.” [p. 15]

July 27: “The dysentery in other places, particularly Sheffield….” [p. 15]

July 29: “A man dies with the dysentery in the prime of life….” [p. 15]

Aug 1: “The dysentery prevails considerably in the country….A wicked world must have judgments….” [p. 15]

Aug 8: “Last night, the President’s little child, sixteen months old, closed the scene of mortal life….” [p. 16]

Sep 10: “The sickness at Sheffield is dreadful, greater apparently, than at Philadelphia. Pond fever and dysentery….” [p. 19]

Vermont

Gallup on Vermont: “In the latter part of summer and in the autumn of this year [1796], dysentery was considerably frequent, and very fatal in some places. Small children were often destroyed by it, within twenty-four hours. The pulse would soon become exceedingly quick and small, and the patients sink and die, in some measure as in spotted fever. It was very fatal in Stockbridge [Windsor County, VT]. It was very severe in different towns in the state. Doctor Gridley of Castleton [Rutland Co., VT]; ‘The dysentery has often been prevalent in this town and county; I believe it never appeared with so alarming symptoms, as in the summer of 1796. It was also very distressing in Rutland.’” (Lincoln, William. History of Worcester, Massachusetts, from its Earliest Settlement to September 1836. 1837, p. 43.)

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

Copland, James, M.D., Edited, with Additions, by Charles A. Lee, M.D. A Dictionary of Practical Medicine: Comprising General Pathology…. Vol. II. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1845. Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=E8sRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Gallup, Joseph A., M.D. Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont; From its First Settlement to the year 1815, with a Consideration of their Causes, Phenomena, and Treatment. Boston: T. B. Wait & Sons, 1815. Accessed 2-7-2018 at: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-2555005R-bk

Lincoln, William. History of Worcester, Massachusetts, from its Earliest Settlement to September 1836. Worcester: Moses D. Phillips and Company, 1837. Google preview accessed 2-7-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dmU4JDLQ9tgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Massachusetts State Board of Health. Second Annual Report of The State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity of Massachusetts, 1880. Supplement Containing the Report and Papers on Public Health. Boston: Rand, Avery & Co., Printers to the Commonwealth, 1881. In Public Documents of Massachusetts: Being the Annual Reports of various Public Officers and Institutions for the year 1880 (Vol. IV. — Nos. 16 to 28). Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=wip2BdBGtNcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true

Tarbox, Increase N. (Editor and Annotated by). Diary of Thomas Robbins, D.D., 1796-1854. Printed for His Nephew. Owned by the Connecticut Historical Society. Vol. I of II, 1796-1825. Boston: Beacon Press, 1886. Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=61A4AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil, and Statistical, In Three Parts, With a new Map of the State, and 200 Engravings. Burlington, VT: Chauncey Goodrich, 1842. Google preview accessed 2-7-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=8BUzAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Our reading of accounts referenced here leads us to believe there was considerable mortality — much more than the tally represented here, which only reflects the sparse numbers we have been able to locate. I believe that if we had more information on such locations as New Haven CT, elsewhere in MA than Sheffield and Worcester, and elsewhere in VT than Stockbridge, then the death toll numbers would be much higher.

[2] “In the year 1796, the dysentery prevailed as an epidemic in New-Haven, Connecticut, and vicinity (Rush, Med. Inquiries).” (Copland, with additions by Lee. A Dictionary of Practical Medicine. Vol. II, 1845, 809.)

[3] Tarbox footnote 5, p. 17: “In the summer and autumn of 1796, the dysentery and bilious remitting fever, then called pond fever, from its supposed origin in the miasma of a mill pond (known at that time as Hubbard’s mill pond), near the center of the town, was very fatal in Sheffield. In the early part of the season the dam was raised a foot, or a foot and a half, and the banks of the pond and stream, then covered with vegetation, were overflowed. The season was uncommonly hot, and heavy rains fell at intervals of fifteen and twenty days, by which the water was successively raised, and then lowered by the letting off of the water at the mills. The sickness began in July and continued in October, during which about sixty persons die.”

[4] “In 1796, the dysentery prevailed, and between July and November, 44 children under five years, and 15 persons over that age, died here of that complaint. The number of deaths in that year, was 80: the average of five preceding years had been 24.”

[5] Our number. (1) We know there were 8 deaths in Stockbridge. (2) We know from Thompson that there was “considerable mortality” from dysentery in the state in 1796. (3) We know from Caulfield and from Gallup (citing Gridley) that in Castleton the dysentery “never was so alarming.” (4) We know it was very fatal in the neighborhood of Rutland.

[6] “In…1796…in the summer and autumn, fevers and dysentery produced considerable mortality. The latter disease was very fatal to young children, particularly in the neighborhood of Rutland.”

[7] The quote is from Caulfield 1942, pp. 64-65.

[8] Gallup, citing Doctor Gridley of Castleton correspondence, quotes him as writing “It [dysentery] was also very distressing in Rutland” (preceding sentence concerns Castleton). Thompson also notes that the disease “was very fatal to young children…in the neighborhood of Rutland.”

[9] Robbins Diary, p. 14.

[10] Caulfield, in footnote 201, cites: Gallup, Epidemic Diseases in Vermont, pp. 36, 43; William Buel, in Medical Repository, 1 (2d ed., NY, 1800), 439; William Lincoln, History of Worcester (Worcester, MA, 1862), p. 311.