1730 — Smallpox Epidemic, Massachusetts Bay Colony, especially Boston — >502
— >502 Massachusetts Bay Colony. Blanchard.[1]
Boston (500)
–~500 Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Smallpox Epidemics.”
— 500 Childs. A History of the United States… 1886, p. 23.
— 500 Henry. “Experience in Massachusetts…with Smallpox…” 1921, p. 221.
— 500 Purvis. Colonial America to 1763. 1999, p. 173.[2]
— 500 Simonds. “Disasters…Epidemics.” The American Date Book, 1902, p. 82.
Cambridge ( >1)
— >1 Paige. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877 (Volume 1). P. 128.[3]
Gloucester ( >1)
–1 Jacob Rowe. Died “1730 of smallpox during epidemic in Gloucester, Essex, MA.”[4]
Marblehead, MA ( ?)
–? New England Hist. Soc. “The 1730 and 1774 Marblehead Riots Against Smallpox Inoculation.”[5]
Narrative Information — Boston
Celebrate Boston: “In 1730, about 4000 cases of smallpox occurred, one tenth of whom were inoculated. At this time, it carried off about 500….
“An 1830s history of Boston states that the centennial celebration of 1730 was canceled due to a smallpox outbreak. About 780 people perished.” (Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Smallpox Epidemics.”)
Childs: “1730….The small-pox again ravaged Boston, and carried off about five hundred of the inhabitants.” (Childs 1886, p. 23.)
Henry: 4,000 cases(26.6% of population)[6] 500 Deaths (3.3% of population)
3,600 cases naturally (not inoculated); 488 deaths (13.5% death rate).
400 cases after inoculation; 12 deaths (3.0% death rate).
(Henry. Table I. — Smallpox in Boston, Mass., 1700-1800.[7] “Experience in Massachusetts and a Few Other Places with Smallpox and Vaccination.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 185, No. 8, pp. 221-228, 8-25-1921.)
New England Historical Society: “In 1730, the fishing village of Marblehead, Mass., did everything it could to ward off the dread and loathsome smallpox disease then raging in Boston – everything, that is, except smallpox inoculation. Instead, they rioted against the practice….
“A prominent Salem minister named Edward Holyoke was indirectly responsible for the first riot by proselytizing for smallpox inoculation….
“Smallpox was the most feared disease in the American colonies. ‘The Speckled Monster’ killed as many as 30 percent of its victims, and survivors could be left blinded and scarred….
“In May of 1730, word reached Marblehead that smallpox was raging in Boston. The towns-people were agitated almost to the point of frenzy. Citizens voted to build a fence with a locked gate across the road into town, and four men were stationed there with orders to restrain all strangers from Boston. The watch was kept on 24 hours a day for two months. African Americans, Indians and slaves had a nine o’clock curfew.
“In October, a young Marblehead woman named Hannah Waters came down with smallpox.
“Edward Holyoke advocated for inoculation, as did his influential parishioners: Richard Dana, Justice of the Peace Stephen Minot, merchant John Tasker and trader Joseph Blaney.
“The townspeople were skeptical. They believed God, not man, should decide who lived and died. They also knew there wasn’t enough money to inoculate everyone, only the wealthiest citizens. At Town Meeting on Oct. 12, 1720, they voted that the practice should be banned unless everyone in town could be inoculated.
“But the disease spread from house to house, afflicting nearly every family in town. Businesses closed, the ferry to Salem stopped running and people fled Marblehead. All loose dogs were killed. “The disease continued its fearful ravages till late in the summer of 1731, and gathered its victims with an unsparing hand,” wrote Samuel Roads in 1881. “Rich and poor, old and young, the learned and the unlettered were alike afflicted by this impartial agent of death.”” (New England Historical Society. “The 1730…Marblehead Riots Against Smallpox Inoculation.”)
Paige: “In 1730, the small-pox again prevailed in Cambridge with alarming violence. Nine town meetings were held between March 20 and April 3, to devise means for its extermination. A vote passed at the first of these meetings indicates that inoculation had been injudiciously or carelessly practiced….College studies were broken up for a time; but the students were recalled by an advertisement, dated May 2, 1730, and published in the Weekly Journal: ‘The small-pox having been lately in Cambridge, which occasioned the dispersion of the scholars to escape danger; but now, through the Divine goodness, that distemper having utterly ceased here; it is agreed and ordered by the President and Tutors, that the undergraduates forthwith repair to the College, to follow their studies…Benjamin Wadsworth, Pres.’
“The distemper returned again before the end of the year, as appears by a paragraph in the ‘News Letter,’ dated Oct. 8, 1730: ‘We hear from Cambridge, that Mr. William Patten, Representative for the town of Billerica, being taken sick of the small-pox, while the General Assembly was sitting there, is since dead, and was interred on Monday last, the 5th instant.’ On Saturday, Oct. 3, the Court was adjourned to meet at Roxbury on the next Wednesday.” (pp. 128-129.)
Webster on Boston and New York: “It appears from the bills of mortality in Boston and Philadelphia, that the years 1730 and 31 were sickly. What the malady was which swelled the mortality in Christ Church to double the usual number in 1731, I am not informed; but the greatest mortality happened in March and April. The small-pox was the disease which augmented the bill in Boston in 1730.
“In 1731 the small-pox spread in New-York, and occasioned an adjournment of the legislature in September.” (Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases…(in two volumes). 1799, p. 231.)
Simonds: “1730, Massachusetts, small pox in Boston, loss 500 lives.” (Simonds, W. E. (ed.). “Disasters….Epidemics.” The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, p. 82.)
Woodward: “In 1728 smallpox brought in by a vessel from Ireland was kept in a few families until March of the next year, when the ‘watches were removed’ and it had free course with the result that in 1729 the General Court convened again in Cambridge and, by 1730, when the epidemic ceased, there had been 4,000 cases and 500 deaths. Four hundred persons were inoculated at this time, of whom 12 died, 3%, while 13% of those taking the disease in the natural way lost their lives.” (Woodward, Samuel B., M.D. “The Story of Smallpox in Massachusetts — Annual Oration 1932.” Massachusetts Medical Society, 11-14-2016.)
Sources
Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Smallpox Epidemics.” Accessed 12-6-2008 at: http://www.celebrateboston.com/disasters/epidemics/smallpox.htm
Childs, Emery E. A History of the United States In Chronological Order From the Discovery of America in 1492 to the Year 1885. NY: Baker & Taylor, 1886. Google digitized. Accessed 9-4-2017: http://books.google.com/books?id=XLYbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Henry, Jonathan E., M.D. “Experience in Massachusetts and a Few Other Places with Smallpox and Vaccination.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 185, No. 8, pp. 221-228, 8-25-1921. Accessed 1-8-2018 at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM192108251850802
Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1st Edition, 1983, with new Introduction, 2002. Google preview accessed 1-9-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=z2zMKsc1Sn0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
New England Historical Society. “The 1730 and 1774 Marblehead Riots Against Smallpox Inoculation.” 2016. Accessed 1-9-2018 at: http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/1730-1774-marblehead-riots-smallpox-inoculation/
Paige, Lucius R. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1630-1877. With a Genealogical Register. Boston: H. O Houghton and Co., New York: Hurd and Houghton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1877. Google preview accessed 1-9-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=UfrVQjFQBbQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Purvis, Thomas L. Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999. Google preview accessed 1-9-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BZRJSx3uMYEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rootsweb, an Ancestry.com community. “Descendents of Thomas Skillings: Third Generation.” Archived page of 10-28-2017 accessed 1-9-2018 at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3jHPmbVIcuEJ:freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arlene/Skillings/d0/i0048559.htm+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC
Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases…(in two volumes). Hartford, DT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799, p. 203. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:11?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Woodward, Samuel B., M.D. “The Story of Smallpox in Massachusetts — Annual Oration 1932.” Massachusetts Medical Society, 11-14-2016. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: http://www.massmed.org/About/MMS-Leadership/History/The-Story-of-Smallpox-in-Massachusetts/#.WlJ10zdG2nI
[1] We certainly believe more than 502 people died than the 500 in Boston and each noted for Cambridge (where it prevailed “with alarming violence) and Gloucester. We also know people fled from Marblehead due to introduction of smallpox. We suspect that there were a number of places where people from Boston or who had been in Boston, spread the affliction. But we have not yet located numbers or more names.
[2] Table 6.6 “Effectiveness of Smallpox Inoculation in Boston, Mass., 1721-1752.” (p. 173.)
[3] “In 1730, the small-pox again prevailed in Cambridge with alarming violence.” Does not note a death toll, but does note the name of one of the fatalities — Mr. William Patten, Representative for the town of Billerica.
[4] Rootsweb, an Ancestry.com community. Archived page of 10-28-2017 accessed 1-9-2018.
[5] “…The disease spread from house to house, afflicting nearly every family in town. Businesses closed, the ferry to Salem stopped running and people fled Marblehead.”
[6] Purvis notes population of 13,500. Also notes the 500 deaths number applies to “Boston residents only.” (p. 173.)
[7] Cites American Medical Association, Vol. L, II, 1849, based on Shattuck’s “Vital Statistics of Boston” p. 15.