–~163 Blanchard tally based on State and locality breakouts below.

Massachusetts (~139)

–~100 Nantucket Island (2000 cases). Webster. A Brief History of Epidemic… 1799, p. 327.

— 8 Sutton. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849. p. 430-31.

–1 Elenor Hicks, age 4, Oct 15. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 430.

–1 John Hicks, age 6, Oct 21. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 430.

–1 Mary Hicks, age 21, Oct 31. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 430.

–1 Polly Hicks, Sep. (buried in same grave as sister Sally, also dysentery death), p. 430.

–1 Sally Hicks, Sep. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 430.

–1 Sarah Hicks, age 25, Nov 1. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 430.

–1 Child of Samuel Hicks, age 2. Sep. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 431.

–1 Child of Samuel Hicks, age 4. Sep. Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts, p. 431.

— 30 Westport (of 79 cases). Webster. A Brief History of Epidemic…Diseases. 1799, p. 327.

— 1 Weymouth. Oct 18. Daughter of Laban Pratt. Vital Records of Weymouth, MA, II. p. 323.

New Hampshire ( 24)

–24 Hanover. Dollar/Witters. “That Bourne From Whence…” Dartmouth Med., Fall 2014, 36-41.

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “During 1797 Hanover, New Hampshire, had its first attack, and many Rhode Island towns were stricken.”[1]

Dollar: “At the turn of the 19^th century, Hanover, like much of the world, was vulnerable to devastating outbreaks of dysentery. Nathan Smith, the founder of the medical school, and others at Dartmouth were among those who tried to understand.” [p. 36]

“In the fall of 1796, not long after proposing the creation of a medical school at Dartmouth, Nathan Smith left the small town of Hanover, N.H., and set sail for the British Isles. In Edinburgh, a center of medical education at the time, Smith intended to increase his medical knowledge… Smith happened to be absent from Hanover in the summer of 1797, when an outbreak of dysentery swept through the town. ‘The dysentery prevailed in this parish & was fatal to 24 persons in 12 weeks,’ noted William Dewey in his records of deaths in Hanover that summer. ‘Twice within 3 weeks we carried into our Meetinghouse & from there to the Graveyard three deceased individuals at the same time…’ [p. 37]

“In the 18th- and 19th-century U.S., dysentery was common among civilian populations… including the outbreak in Hanover in the summer of 1797. Some of the leading families in Hanover were affected by the epidemic, with the greatest impact falling on their young children, many of whom are buried in the Dartmouth College cemetery. The infant son of Jedediah Baldwin, one of New England’s most prominent clockmakers and silversmiths, died on the same

day as a 21-year-old Dartmouth College student named John Merrill. These are two of the three alluded to in William Dewey’s account of multiple burials. The infant son of Benjamin Gilbert, a local attorney, died on September 1. Josiah Green, whose Main Street dry goods and grocery stores was patronized by many, including Nathan Smith, lost two children: Ira, age 11, and Josiah Jr., age 2. Abel Holden, a friend and fellow Masonic Lodge member of Eleazar Wheelock, lost two children on August 28. Eighteen-month-old Samuel Curtis, the son of town selectman Colonel David Curtis, died on September 11.

“No Hanover family was more affected than that of Isaac and Amelia Leavitt Bissell. Isaac was the son of Israel Bissell, a patriot post rider who, according to legend, may have ridden from Watertown, Mass., to Connecticut on April 19, 1775—the day of Paul Revere’s famous ride—to

bring news of the British attack. The Bissells had 13 children between 1777 and 1796. Four of them died within two weeks of each other in the 1797 epidemic, and all were buried in the Dartmouth cemetery…. [p. 38]

“We have been able to partially reconstruct a map of Hanover in 1797 and have found that the Bissell, Gilbert, and Baldwin families all lived within one block of each other on the current Main and Lebanon Streets. Jedidiah Baldwin’s silversmith store was next to the Gilbert residence. All of these were located close to the only water well in Hanover at the time, which was on the site of the present Reed Hall. Josiah Green’s grocery and dry goods store was also located on Main Street, though we could not determine its exact location. It seems reasonable to speculate that a common source of contamination of this well or perhaps of shared sanitary facilities might have been the source of this 1797 epidemic….” [pp. 38-39] (Dollar and Witters. “That Bourne From Whence No Traveller Returns.” Dartmouth Medicine, Fall 2014, pp. 36-41.)

Webster: “In this year [1797] also prevailed at Westport in the same state,[2] and on Nantucket island, a very malignant epidemic dysentery. At Westport died 30 patients of 79 who were seized. On Nantucket the disease was less mortal; about 100 died out of 2000 patients. On examination, it was found that under the house of the family first seized, there were some barrels of putrid filth, and other nauseous matter….” (Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases… 1799, p. 317.)

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

Dollar, Emily, and Lee A. Witters, MD. “That Bourne From Whence No Traveller Returns.” Dartmouth Medicine, Fall 2014, pp. 36-41. Accessed 2-9-2018 at: http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/fall14/pdf/dysentery.pdf

Vital Records of Sutton, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849. Worcester, MA: Franklin P. Rice, 1907. Google preview accessed 2-9-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=nX50wTdXBaEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Vital Records of Weymouth Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Vol. II — Marriages and Deaths. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Google preview accessed 2-9-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=0M-IErK57a4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; with the Principal Phenomena of the Physical World which Precede and Accompany Them, and Observations Deduced From the Facts Stated (Vol. 1 of 2). Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Google preview accessed 2-9-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=uen8dansteEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] In footnote 202, cites: Medical Repository, I, 241 Webster, Pestilential Diseases, I, 327.

[2] Had last mentioned Rhode Island, but Westport is, today at least, down the coast in Massachusetts.

1797 — Sum-fall, Dysentery, esp. Nantucket Isl. (100), Westport, MA (30); Hanover NH (24)–~163