17th Century

— 390-551  Blanchard tally based on State (colonial) breakouts below.

Pennsylvania              (      220)

–220  Philadelphia.    Finger. “Yellow Fever.” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.

–220          “                Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 76.

–220          “                Keating 1879, p. 77.

–220          “                Kelly 1906, 83.

–220          “                NYT  “Yellow Fever,” 1888;

–220          “                Marine-Hospital Service. Annual Report…Fiscal Year 1895. 1896, 428.[1]

–220          “                Sternberg 1908, 19.[2]

South Carolina          (170-311)        (Especially late August to early Fall)

–170-311  Blanchard tally.[3] of 160-180 in Charleston proper and another 10-11 in countryside.

—     >300  Charleston. Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 76.

–160-180  Charleston. Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 61.

—       160  Charleston. SC Dept. Health & Environ.

—    10-11  Charleston countryside. Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 61.

Narrative Information

Augustin: “…yellow fever is an American product, was unknown to Europeans previous to the discovery of America by Columbus, and that Mexico, Central America and the West Indies may be considered as the original cradle of the awesome scourge.” (Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, p. 357)

Charleston, SC

Grob: “The first epidemic in the colonies occurred in Boston in 1693 following the arrival of British vessels from Barbados. Six years later [1699] yellow fever appeared in Charleston and Philadelphia. In Charleston as many as 300 persons perished, and with one exception all were white. One correspondent found it difficult to describe ‘the terrible Tempest of Mortality’ in the city. The ‘high and low, old and young’ perished. The dead were piled into carts, business activity came to a virtual standstill, and little was done except to carry medicines and dig graves.” (Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 76.)

Kohn: “First positively identified yellow fever epidemic that ravaged the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The outbreak began in late August 1699 and killed between 160 and 180 city dwellers and another 10 or 11 people who resided in the country. According to a private correspondent, 125 English, 37 French, 16 Indians, and one black died of yellow fever in Charleston (first called Charles Towne) during the late summer and early fall of 1699. Since accurate population statistics of Charleston are unavailable for this time period, it is impossible to determine the exact percentage of fatalities; however, estimates range from 3 to 7 percent.

“….Government and business activity came to a near standstill until November, when the epidemic finally ended….

“Before yellow fever was identified as such in 1699, it was known as ‘Barbados Fever’ or ‘black vomit.’ In Charleston in 1699, physicians recognized the symptoms, which were yellow-tinted skin accompanied by severe vomiting, usually black, resulting from internal hemorrhages, but they did not understand the causes of yellow fever. Doctors did understand that the disease occurred from July to November, with the most serious outbreaks during August and September…

“Further reading: Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America; Fraser, Charleston! Charleston!; Ramsay, Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.” (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 61.”

Ramsay: “In the year 1699 or 1700, in addition to the calamities resulting from a desolating fire and  fatal epidemic of small pox, a distemper broke out in Charlestown which carried off an incredible number of people, among whom were Chief-Justice Bohun, Samuel Marshal, the Episcopal clergyman, John Ely, the Receiver-General, Edward Rawlins, the Provost-Marshal, and almost one-half of the members of Assembly. Never had the colonies been visited with such general distress and mortality. Some whole families were carried off, and few escaped a share of the public calamities….Many of the survivors seriously thought of abandoning a country on which the judgments of heaven seemed to fall so heavy. Dr. Hewatt, from whom the preceding account is taken, designates this malady by the general appellation of ‘an infectious distemper.’ It was generally called the plague by the inhabitants. From tradition, and other circumstances, particularly the cotemporaneous existence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, there is reason to believe that this malady was the yellow fever; and if so, was the first appearance of that disorder in Charlestown, and took place in the nineteenth or twentieth year after it began to be built.” (Ramsay’s History of South Carolina, From its First Settlement in 1670 to the Year 1808. 1858, p. 46.)

SC Dept. of Health & Environment: “A most infectious pestilential and mortal distemper…which from Barbados or Providence was brought in among us in Charles Town about the 28th or 29th of Aug. last past….This Distemper from the time of its beginning aforesaid to the first day of November killed in Charles Town at least 160 persons.” Among the victims were the “chief justice, receiver-general, provost marshal, and almost half of the assembly.”” (SCDHEC)[4]

Philadelphia, PA

Grob: “In Philadelphia 220 died out of a population of about 4,400.” (Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 76.)

Sources

Augustin, George. History of Yellow Fever. New Orleans: Published for the Author by Search & Pfaff Ltd., 1909; General Books reprint, Memphis, TN, 2010. 1909 copy digitized at: http://archive.org/stream/historyofyellowf00auguuoft#page/n4/mode/1up

Finger, Simon. “Yellow Fever.” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Accessed 9-11-2016 at: http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/yellow-fever/

Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows of Harvard College, Harvard University Press, 2002. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=U1H5rq3IQUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Keating, J. M. A History of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis, TN: Howard Association, 1879. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=WEIJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kelly, Howard A. (Professor of Gynecological Surgery, Johns Hopkins University). Walter Reed and Yellow Fever. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1906, 299 pages. Google digitalized at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=qUgJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). “Charleston Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1699,” p. 61 in Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.

Marine Hospital Service of the United States. Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1895. Washington: GPO, 1896. Google preview accessed 1-10-2018 at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=aTnxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

New York Times. “Yellow Fever Retrospect.” 10-7-1888. Accessed at:  http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D03EFD81F38E033A25754C0A9669D94699FD7CF&oref=slogin

Ramsay, David (M.D.). Ramsay’s History of South Carolina, From its First Settlement in 1670 to the Year 1808. Published by W. J. Duffie, Newberry, SC, printed in Charleston by Walker, Evans & Co., 1858. Digitized by archive.org and accessed 9-11-2016 at: https://archive.org/stream/ramsayshistorys00ramsgoog#page/n4/mode/2up

South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Public Health History (website). “A Chronology of the History of Public Health in South Carolina.” Accessed October 9, 2008 at: http://www.scdhec.net/administration/history/timeline.htm

Sternberg, George M. (US Public Health Service, US Marine Hospital Service). “Yellow Fever:  History and Geographic Distribution.” Pages 715-722 in Stedman, Thomas L., M.D. (Ed.) Appendix to the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences. NY: William Wood & Co., 1908.  Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=3ezqX415M5wC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

United States Marine-Hospital Service, Treasury Department. Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1895 (Document No. 1811). Washington, DC: GPO, 1896. Digitized by Google at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=aTnxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] “220 out of 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants died of yellow fever, called at the time the Barbados fever, because it was brought by a ship from that island. (Bally, after Lytler, American Registers, Vol. I; R. La Roche, Ch. M.J. and Rev., 1852, p. 58, Toner.).”

[2] Sternberg notes that this is out of a population estimated to have been “…less than four thousand inhabitants.”

[3] For low-end of  range we add 160 deaths in Charleston and 10 deaths in surrounding countryside (170). For high-end we use Grob’s number of “as many as 300” deaths in Charleston and 11 for surrounding countryside ( 311).

[4] Cites: Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America, 1953, p. 143.

–70  (Out of <1000 pop, 3 months.) Webster. Brief History of Epidemic Diseases. 1799, p. 210.

–70  Duffy, citing Webster (in Duffy’s Influenza section), p. 188.

Narrative Information

Schenck: “The winter of 1697-8 had been one of unusual length and severity….A distressing fever prevailed, preceded by an influenza, which proved very fatal. Those in health found it difficult to obtain fuel, to care for the sick, and to bury their dead.[1] Fairfield suffered severely from this epidemic….” (p. 297.)

Webster: “In a diary kept by Daniel Fairfield, of Braintree, in Massachusetts, an unlettered man of good understanding, I have a particular description of an influenza that prevailed in America in the severe winter of 1697-8. This catarrh[2] began in November and prevailed till February. Its violence was in January, when whole families were sick at once, and whole towns were seized nearly at the same time. It appears to have been an epidemic of the severe kind; and the epidemics which followed it in America were of correspondent severity.

“In the same winter a mortal disease raged in the town of Fairfield in Connecticut, which was so general, that well persons could scarcely be found to tend the sick and bury the dead. Seventy persons were buried in three months, altho it may be doubted whether the town then contained 1000 inhabitants.

“M.S. letter from Dr. Trumbull.

“In the same winter raged a deadly fever in the town of Dover, in New-Hampshire.” (Webster. Brief History of Epidemic Diseases. 1799, p. 210.)

Sources

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

Schenck, Elizabeth Hubbell. The History of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, From the Settlement of the Town in 1639 to 1818 (Vol. 1). New York: author, 1889. Google preview accessed 4-7-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=8tULAAAAYAAJ&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 (in two volumes). Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:11?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[1] Cites: MS. of Gov. Roger Wolcott, Connecticut Historical Society — Colonial Records of Connecticut, IV, 242.

[2] Excessive discharge or buildup of mucus in the nose or throat, associated with inflammation of the mucous membrane.

— ~40  Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America. In Drake 1836, p. 172.[1]

—   39  Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana. 1702 and 1893, p. 634.[2]

Narrative Information

Drake:  “1697. March 15. – Haverhill Mass. is surprised and about 40 people killed.—Hannah Duston is among the captives, who soon after, while her Indian keepers are asleep, with the aid of another woman and a boy, kills 10 of them and makes good her escape.” (Drake. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. 1836, p. 172.)

Marcelais:   “Sergeant John Keyzar d. 1696/97, killed during the same Indian raiding party that captured Hannah Dustin. After her newborn daughter was brutally murdered while they were taking the prisoners to back to the Indian camp, she and 2 others obtained hatchets and killed their captors. Hannah herself killed 9 out of the 10.” (Marcelais. A Very Grave Matter (website). “Burying Grounds, Cemeteries, Gravestones & History of Haverhill, Massachusetts.” 2002.)

Mather:  “On March 15, 1697, the savages made a descent upon the skirts of Haverhill, murdering and captivating about thirty-nine persons, and burning about half a dozen houses.  In this broil, one Hannah Dustan, having lain in about a week, attended with her nurse, Mary Neff, a body of terrible Indians drew near unto the house where she lay, with designs to carry on their bloody devastations.  Her husband hastened from his employments abroad unto the relief of his distressed family; and first bidding seven of his eight children (which were from two to seventeen years of age) to get away as fast as they could unto some garrison[3] in the town, he went in to inform his wife of the horrible distress come upon them.  Ere she could get up, the fierce Indians were got so near, that, utterly despairing to do her any service, he ran out after his children; resolving that on the horse which he had with him, he would ride away with that which he should in this extremity find his affections to pitch most upon, and leave the rest unto the care of the Divine Providence.  He overtook his children, about forth rod from his door; but then such was the agony of his parental affections, that he found it impossible for him to distinguish any one of them from the rest; wherefore he took up a courageous resolution to live and die with them all.  A party of Indians came up with him; and now, though they fired at him, and he fired at them, yet he manfully kept at the rear of his little army of unarmed children, while they marched off with the pace of a child of five years old; until, by the singular providence of God, he arrived safe with them all unto a place of safety about a mile or two from his house.  But his house must in the mean time have more dismal tragedies acted at it.  The nurse, trying to escape with the new-born infant, fell into the hands of the formidable savages; and those furious tawnies coming into the house, bid poor Dustan to rise immediately.  Full of astonishment, she did so; and sitting down in the chimney with an heart full of most fearful expectation, she saw the raging dragons rifle all that they could carry away, and set the house on fire.  About nineteen or twenty Indians now led these away, with about half a score other English captives; but ere they had gone many steps, they dash’d out the brains of the infant against a tree; and several of the other captives, as they began to tire in the sad journey, were soon sent unto their long home; the savages would presently bury their hatchets in their brains, and leave their carcasses on the ground for birds and beasts to feed upon.  However, Dustan (with her nurse) notwithstanding her present condition, travelled that night about a dozen miles, and then kept up with their new masters in a long travel of an hundred and fifty miles, more or less, within a few days ensuing, without any sensible damage in their health, from the hardships of their travel, their lodging, their diet, and their many other difficulties.

“These two poor women were now in the hands of those whose ‘tender mercies are cruelties;’ but the good God, who hath all ‘hearts in his own hands,’ heard the sighs of these prisoners, and gave them to find unexpected favour from the master who hath laid claim unto them.  That Indian family consisted of twelve persons; two stout men, three women, and seven children; and for the shame of many an English family, that has the character of prayerless upon it, I must now publish what these poor women assure me.  ‘Tis this: in obedience to the instructions which the French have given them, they would have prayers in their family no less than thrice every day; in the morning, at noon, and in the evening; nor would they ordinarily le their children eat or sleep, without first saying their prayers.  Indeed, these idolaters were, like the rest of their whiter brethren, persecutors, and would not endure that these poor women should retire to their English prayers, if they could hinder them.  Nevertheless, the poor women had nothing but fervent prayers to make their lives comfortable or tolerable; and by being daily sent out upon business, they had opportunities, together and asunder, to do like another Hannah, in ‘pouring out their souls before the Lord.’  Nor did their praying friends among our selves forbear to ‘pour out’ supplications for them.  Now, they could not observe it without some wonder, that their Indian master sometimes when he saw them dejected, would say unto them, ‘What need you trouble your self?  If your God will have you delivered, you shall be so!’  And it seems out God would have it so to be.  This Indian family was now travelling with these two captive women (and an English youth taken from Worcester, a year and a half before), unto a rendezvous of savages, which they call a town, some where beyond Penacook; and they still told these poor women that when they came to this town, they must be stript, and scourg’d, and run the gantlet through the whole army of Indians.  They said this was the fashion when the captives first came to a town; and they derided some of the faint-hearted English, which, they said, fainted and swoon’d away under the torments of this discipline.  But on April 30, while they were yet, it may be, about an hundred and fifty miles from the Indian town, a little before break of day, when the whole crew was in a dead sleep…one of these women took up a resolution to imitate the action of Jael upon Siseria; and being where she had not her own life secured by any law unto her, she thought she was not forbidden by any law to take away the life of the murderers by whom her child had been butchered.  She heartened the nurse and the youth to assist her in this enterprize; and all furnishing themselves with hatchets for the purpose, they struck such home blows upon the heads of their sleeping oppressors, that ere they could any of them struggle into any effectual resistance, ‘at the feet of these poor prisoners, they bow’d, they fell, they lay down; at their feet they bow’d, they fell; where they bow’d there the fell down dead.’  Only one squaw escaped, sorely wounded, from them in the dark; and one boy, whom they reserved asleep, intending to bring him away with them, suddenly waked, and scuttled away from this desolation.  But cutting off the scalps of the ten wretches, they came off, and received fifty pounds from the General Assembly of the province, as a recompence of their action; besides which, they received many ‘presents of congratulation’ from their more private friends: but none gave ‘em a greater taste of bounty than Colonel Nicholson, the Governor of Maryland, who, hearing of their action, sent ‘em a very generous token of his favour.”  (Mather, Cotton. “Article XXV,” Magnalia Christi Americana (Vol. II). 1702. 1893, pp. 634-636.)

Rix:  “Thomas Wood…was killed by Indians, March 15, 1697.”  (Rix, Guy Scoby. History and Genealogy of the Eastman Family of America. Concord, NH, 1901, p. 10.)

Ruth:  “Henry Kimball, born about 1656; removed to Haverhill, Mass., about 1675….He md. [married] Dec. 14, 1677, Hannah Marsh, of Haverhill, Mass.  She was killed by the Indians, March 15, 1698 [1697].  Children were: —

….

(f) Abigail Kimball, born April 7, 1689; captured March 15, 1697, by the Indians.

(g) John Kimball, born Sept. 27, 1691; killed March 15, 1698 [1697], by the Indians….”

(Ruth and Cooke. The Driver Family: A Genealogical Memoir of the Descendants of Robert and Phebe Driver of Lynn, Mass….1592-1887. 1889, p. 376.)

Wheeler:  “Thomas Wood and child, Susanna, were killed by the Indians March 15, 1697. They live in Haverhill, Mass.,….”  (Wheeler, Richard Anson. History of the Town of Stonington, County of New London, Connecticut. 1900, p. 610.)

Named Fatalities

Dustan infant and several other captives

Keyzar, Sergeant John

Kimball, John

Wood, Thomas

Wood, Susanna (child of Thomas)

Sources

Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836. In: Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Marcelais, Jenn. A Very Grave Matter (website). “Burying Grounds, Cemeteries, Gravestones & History of Haverhill, Massachusetts.” Gravematter.com. 2002. Accessed 2-17-2013 at: http://www.gravematter.com/cem-ma-haverhill.php

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana; or The Ecclesiastical History of New-England From Its First Planting, in the Year 1620, unto the Year of Our Lord 1698. In Seven Books (Vol. II). Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son, 1893. Digitized by the University of Michigan at: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.afk3754.0002.001;seq=1;view=1up

Rix, Guy Scoby. History and Genealogy of the Eastman Family of America. Concord, NH, 1901. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=mNwRhOz28XgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Ruth, Harriet, and Waters Cooke. The Driver Family: A Genealogical Memoir of the Descendants of Robert and Phebe Driver of Lynn, Mass….1592-1887. NY: John Wilson and Son, University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1889.  Google digitized. Accessed 2-17-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Y28tAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wheeler, Richard Anson. History of the Town of Stonington, County of New London, Connecticut. New London, CT: 1900, p. 610. Reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 1977. Google digitized. Accessed 2-15-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=3O5ohqsqfckC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] We believe that this is incorrect and must be a reference to those killed and captured. Writing over one hundred years earlier, Cotton Mather had it as 39 killed and captured.

[2] Killed and captured. Mather notes deaths of “several” who retarded the withdrawal, and Hannah Dustan’s baby.

[3] A fortified house.

Blanchard note: We draw attention to Jones, below, citing correspondence from SC stating, after noting “200 or 300” deaths in Charleston, that “a great number of Indians had fell victims to the disease.” This wording gives impression that a large, though unspecified, number of Native Americans lost their lives to smallpox in addition to the numbers noted for Charleston.[2]

—  200-300  Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 74.

—  200-300  Lawson citing Governor and Lord’s Proprietors, in Jones. …Diseases… 1883, 197-98.

—  200-300  McCandless. “Epidemics.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 5-17-2016 and 8-1-2017.

—  200-300  Steinberg. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in American.

—       <300  Hirsh, Arthur H. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina. 2009, p. 254.

—       >200  Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, 1999, p. 173.

–Hundreds. McCandless. “Smallpox.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 8-1-2016 and 10-24-2016.

Narrative Information

Grob: “Although sporadic epidemics were common, smallpox was less significant in the Chesapeake and the South.  A more dispersed population, n agricultural rather than a commercial economy, and the absence of port towns inhibited the introduction and spread of epidemics.  South Carolina was an exception, since Charleston was an important seaport and commercial center with trade links to areas where smallpox was endemic. Like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, it served as a port of entry for infectious diseases. The first outbreak of smallpox occurred in 1697 and took an estimated 200 to 300 lives. The town was hit by additional epidemics in 1711, 1718, 1732, 1738, and 1760.”  (Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2002, p. 74.)

Hirsh: “In the smallpox epidemic of 1697-1698 nearly three hundred people died in Charles Town.”[3] (Hirsh, Arthur H. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina. 2009, p. 254.)

Jones: “In another portion of his New Voyage to Carolina, John Lawson says…A letter from the Governor and Lord’s Proprietors, dated March 12, 1697-8, states:

We have had the small-pox amongst us nine or ten months, which have been very infectious and mortal; we have lost by the distemper 200 or 300 persons. And on the twenty-fourth of February last, a fire broke out in the night in Charlestown, which have burnt the swellings, stores and out-houses of at least fifty families…

“In a subsequent letter, dated April 23, 1698, they state that the small-pox still continued, but was not so fatal as in the cold weather, and that a great number of Indians had fell victims to the disease.”[4] (Jones, Joseph, M.D., President of the Board of Health of the State of Louisiana. “Small-Pox, and the Introduction of Vaccination into South Carolina.” Contagious and Infectious Diseases. Measures for Their Prevention and Arrest. 1883, pp. 197-198.)

McCandless: “The first major outbreak of smallpox, in 1697–1698, killed between two hundred and three hundred settlers out of a total population of no more than five thousand….

“Smallpox was particularly devastating to South Carolina’s Native American populations. It was largely responsible for the decline of South Carolina’s Indian population from about ten thousand in 1685 to about three hundred east of the mountains by 1790. In 1697 and 1698 smallpox destroyed the Pemlicos and killed untold numbers of Indian people hundreds of miles inland….” (McCandless, Peter. “Epidemics.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 5-17-2016; updated 8-1-2017.)

McCandless: “Smallpox was endemic (always present) in some large European cities by the eighteenth century, but it was an occasional epidemic import into South Carolina. It arrived via ships from the Old World or the Caribbean, or by sea or land from other parts of eastern North America. Many epidemics of smallpox struck South Carolina between 1697 and 1897. Those of 1697–1698, 1711, 1738, and 1759–1760 were particularly deadly. Each killed hundreds of Europeans and Africans and devastated local Native American populations.” (McCandless, Peter. “Smallpox.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 8-1-2016; updated 10-24-2016.)

O’Donnell: Notes that the number of Cherokee in 1685 was about 30,000 people living in about 60 settlements. “By 1715, however, the impact of foreign diseases had reduced that population to fewer than 11,000 in 53 towns.”[5] (O’Donnell. “Cherokee.” In Gallay, Alan (editor). Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763: An Encyclopedia. 1996. p. 117.)[6]

Purvis:  “1697-98.  Smallpox.  South Carolina (More than 200 deaths).” (“Table 6.7  Outbreaks of Epidemic Disease in Colonial America,” pp. 173-174 in Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999.)

Steinberg: “Smallpox erupted in 1697, killing ‘200 or 300 persons.’” (Steinberg, Ted. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in American. 2000.)

Sources

Anderson, William L. and Ruth Y. Wetmore, with the research assistance of John L. Bell. “Cherokee.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina, William S. Powell, editor. University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Accessed 1-10-2018 at: https://www.ncpedia.org/cherokee/disease

O’Donnell, James H. “Cherokee.” Pp. 116-121 in Gallay, Alan (editor). Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763: An Encyclopedia. First published in 1996 by Garland Publishing Inc. Routledge Revivals edition (NY) published in 2015. Google preview accessed 1-10-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=jmnbCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows of Harvard College, Harvard University Press, 2002. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=U1H5rq3IQUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hirsh, Arthur H. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina. Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009,

Jones, Joseph, M.D., President of the Board of Health of the State of Louisiana. “Small-Pox, and the Introduction of Vaccination into South Carolina.” Contagious and Infectious Diseases. Measures for Their Prevention and Arrest. Baton Rouge: Leon Jastremski, State Printer, 1883. Google preview accessed 1-10-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=3VTboPycbBgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

McCandless, Peter. “Epidemics.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 5-17-2016; updated 8-1-2017. Accessed 1-10-2018 at: http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/epidemics/

McCandless, Peter. “Smallpox.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 8-1-2016; updated 10-24-2016. Accessed 1-10-2018 at: http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/smallpox/

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

Steinberg, Ted. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in American. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000. Google preview accessed 1-10-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=-NYuaJ-CgFcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] We derive “hundreds” from accounts below by Jones, McCandless and O’Donnell. They indicate a substantial mortality, but do not note an estimated mortality range. Thus we speculate that it appears that hundreds, if not many hundreds, died from smallpox in South Carolina as well as in North Carolina.

[2] See, for example Anderson and Wetmore article on the Cherokee in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina, which notes that “Probably their first exposure was in 1698, when a smallpox epidemic decreased their population measurably.” Since the Cherokee were located as well in what is today South Carolina, it is reasonable to assume a connection — and mortality.

[3] Cites: MS letter to Lords Proprietors, March 12, 1697-8, in MS Sec’y. Rcds., 1685-1712, 130.

[4] Footnote text: “An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina from the first settlement of the Province to the War of the Revolution, etc.; by Frederick Dalcho, M.D., Assistant Minister of St. Michael’s Church; Charleston, p. 32.

[5] This is for all diseases. We know from other sources cited herein that smallpox had a large detrimental impact.

[6] O’Donnell cites as references: David Corkran, The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740-1762 (1962); Verner W. Crane, The Southern Frontier 1670-1732 (1929); Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (1976); John Philip Reid, A Law of Blood: Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation (1970); Robert Weir, Colonial South Carolina: A History (1983); Samuel C. Williams, ed., Lieut. Henry Timberlake’s Memoirs (1972).

—  <10?  Blanchard guestimate.[2]

–3,100  British sailors and soldiers in fleet. Sternberg, George M. “Yellow Fever,” 1894, p. 42.

Narrative Information

Blake: “On June 11, 1693, the English fleet under Sir Francis Wheeler, sent out to cooperate with the colonial forces in action against Canada, arrived unexpectedly in Boston from Martinique. By this time Wheeler had already lost over half his command from yellow fever. To keep the infection from spreading among the inhabitants, Governor William Phips immediately ordered accommodations for the forces on Long Island and the next day forbade all communication with the fleet without his permission. Not everyone obeyed and the order proved insufficient to keep the disease from the town. On June 25 Timothy Wadsworth’s man died ‘of the Fever of the Fleet, as is supposed, he having been on board and in the Hold of some ship. Town is much startled at it.’ During July several deaths occurred ‘with very direful Symptoms, of turning Yellow, vomiting and bleeding every way and so Dying.’ Giving up the attack on Canada, Wheeler sailed for England, and in the fall the epidemic disappeared.” (Blake. Public Health in the Town of Boston 1630-1822. 1959, p. 31.)

Kotar and Gessler: “In 1690 a French warship departed Bangkok and put in at Recife, South Africa, where it appears yellow fever contagion was brought aboard. Arriving at Martinique, the fever spread ashore where it was called the mal de Siam. For the next decade yellow fever spread extensively through the Caribbean, ‘with the epidemiological characteristics of a newly introduced disease among a previously unexposed population,’ indicating significant incidence of yellow fever had been absent from the Antilles for some period.

“Hostilities reached North America in 1690. Within several months, Schenectady, New York, was burned by the French and the Indians; British colonial forces subsequently attacked Port Royal, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Yellow fever became a precipitating factor in 1693 when an English fleet under Sir Francis Wheeler sailed for the Caribbean for the purpose of working with the colonists in Barbados and Antigua in an attack on Martinique. When his crew fell ill and Wheeler encountered stiff French resistance, he altered plans, sailing for Boston to aid the British colonists in an attack on French forces in Canada. Sickness continued to plague the fleet and by the time the ships reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony over half the contingent had died, many from fellow fever. Warned of the situation, the colonial governor attempted to quarantine the troops but without success; by July, disease had spread to the city, killing several. Wheeler’s subsequent departure for England and the return of cold weather in the fall ended the threat. A yellow fever outbreak was recorded in Boston in 1693 but was the last to occur during this conflict…” (Kotar, S. L. and J. E. Gessler. Yellow Fever: A Worldwide History. 2017, p. 12.)

Sternberg:  “Massachusetts. – In 1693 an English expedition sailed from Boston for the purpose of taking from the French the island of Martinique. The expedition failed in its object and returned to Boston on June 17^th, with yellow fever on board the vessels of the fleet. Hutchinson, in his ‘History of Massachusetts Bay,’ says the mortality among the sailors had been 1,300, out of a total strength of 2,100, and that out of the same number of soldiers the loss was 1,800. He states that the disease spread from the fleet to the town, and that many families left town and resided in the country until the infection had ceased. This is the first authentic account of the occurrence of yellow fever within the present limits of the United States.”  (Sternberg)

Sources

Blake. Public Health in the Town of Boston 1630-1822. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Google preview accessed 5-22-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Zk2j4jrSf2EC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Glover, M. W. (Assistant Surgeon, Marine Hospital Service). Yellow Fever–Why Did Not New Orleans Have Invasions of the Disease in Early Times, While Boston Did” (Bulletin No. 2, Section A.–History and Statistics). Washington, DC: Yellow Fever Institute, U.S. Marine-Hospital Service, Treasury Department, March 1902. Accessed 5-22-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Roa_MxQjtscC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=1693&f=false

Kotar, S. L. and J. E. Gessler. Yellow Fever: A Worldwide History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2017. Google preview accessed 5-22-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=odYBDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Sternberg, George M. (US Public Health Service, US Marine Hospital Service). “Yellow Fever,” pp. 39-72 in A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (Vol. 8), Albert Henry Buck, (Ed.). NY: William Wood & Co., 1894. Google digitized at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Jr00AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Approximately 3,100 British sailors and soldiers died on way to Boston and while stationed there in June and July. It was only reported that “several” colonists succumbed.

[2] Kotar and Gessler note that “several” people died when the disease spread from the ships to Boston. Sternberg  simply notes that the disease spread to town. Yellow fever is quite deadly and was feared for good reason. While we do not know how to translate “several” into a number with so little information, we note “>” or “ten or less” in order to mark and take note of the outbreak herein.

— ~80  Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America. In Drake 1836, p. 170.[1]

— ~34  Abbott, John S. C. The History of Maine. 1875, p. 226.[2]

—   30  Drake, Samuel Gardner. The Book of the Indians of North America. 1833, p. 109.

—   30  Kingsford, William. The History of Canada (Vol. 2, 1679-1725). London: 1888,  p. 336.

— ~30  Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana. 1893. Digitized by Univ. of MI, 596.

—   30  Winsor. The Memorial History of Boston…(Vol. II, The Provincial Period). 1880, 149.

Narrative Information

Abbott:  “Berwick had revived, and contained about twenty-seven houses.  Early in the spring of 1690, a party of French and Indians, having laid waste the settlement at Salmon Falls, made an attack upon Berwick. The assailants consisted of fifty-two men, twenty-five being Indians, the remainder Frenchmen. As usual, the attack was commenced by surprise, in the earliest dawn of the morning. The Indians were led by a renowned chief, called Hopehood. The French commander was a Canadian officer of distinction, by the name of Artel, or Hartel as it is sometimes spelled.

“The English fought with the energies of despair. When almost every man (thirty-four in number) had been shot down, the women and children were compelled to surrender.  The victors wantonly shot the cattle, laid all the buildings in ashes, and with fifty-four captives, and all the plunder they could carry, retreated.” (Abbott, John S. C.  The History of Maine, from the Earliest Discovery of the Region by the Northmen Unitil the Present Time.  1875, p. 226.)

Drake (Chronicles):  “1690….March 18. – Salmon Falls in New Hampshire is burned by the Indians and French, who kill about 80 people, and make prisoners of 32 others.”  (Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836, p. 170.)

Drake (The Book):  “On the 18^th of March, 1690, happened a horrid massacre at Salmon Falls. Hopewood had joined 22 Frenchmen, under Hertel, with 25 of his warriors.  They attacked the place, as soon as it was day, in three places.  The people defended themselves as well as they were able, in their consternation, until about 30 of their best men were slain, when they gave themselves up to the mercy of the besiegers; 64 men were carried away captive, and much plunder.  They burned all the houses, and the barns with the cattle in them.  The number of buildings thus destroyed is unknown, but was perhaps about 30, and perhaps 200 head of cattle.” (Drake, Samuel Gardner. The Book of the Indians of North America: Comprising Details in the Lives of About Five Hundred Chiefs and Others. 1833, p. 109. Digitally scanned and published by DSI Digital Reproductions, Scituate, MA, 2001.)

Kingsford:  “…early in 1690 three expeditions were organized by him [Frontenac].  One from Montreal to Schenectady… I have to relate those which left Three Rivers and Quebec.  The destination of both was Acadia.  The party which left three Rivers was not numerically large.  It consisted of fifty-two men, half of whom were French; the remainder with the exception of five Algonquins were Abenakis, and were under the command of François de Hertel; three of his sons served under him.  The party was two months on the march before reaching the spot attacked.  The leaders started with no particular destination in view; their mission was to destroy, and they were to trust to some favourable opportunity which should offer.  In the territory which they were approaching, every Abenaki Indian they met was a friend, and a foe to those against whom they were advancing.  The Abenakis had been confirmed in this sentiment by Father Thury and the two Bigots; consequently, the French expedition was certain of receiving intelligence of any movement unfaourable to it, in time to guard against, or avoid its evil influence.

“Surprise must be felt at the conduct of Massachusetts in this emergency….the opinion prevailed that mere courage, or, in some cases, the affirmation of its possession, was sufficient to constitute a soldier.  Disaster upon disaster happened to New England, owing to this unfortunate belief; and it was on these occasions that the best and bravest of her sons were sent forward to be slaughtered.

“After long wandering about in search of a locality where an attack could be safely made, de Hertel heard that Salmon Falls was open to attack.  The place is now known as Berwick, in New Hampshire, seven miles from the present town of Portsmouth, then called Piscataqua from the river of that name, at the mouth of which it is situate, and even then a place of importance.  De Hertel, after his descent of the Kennebec, had long prowled about before he found his prey, for he only arrived at Salmon Falls on the 27^th of March.

“The settlers were grouped about the river.  The place contained two picket forts, constructed for protection against Indian attack.  One of he houses was also large and capable of being fortified; no watch was kept, and it may be said that surprise was invited.  De Hertel divided his party into three small squads, and in the first grey of the morning when every one was sleeping, the attack was made.  There was no time to collect the slightest force for defence; what resistance was made was of no avail.  It was simply to defer the victim’s death for a few seconds, for he was overpowered by numbers.  All found in the houses were killed, shot, or cut down by the tomahawk.  They numbered thirty persons, men and women, old and young. The party of de Hertel spread itself through the small settlement, laying waste its whole extent.  All the houses and barns were burned: Salmon Falls ceased to exist.  Twenty-seven houses and two thousand head of cattle are said to have been destroyed; fifty-seven persons, old and young men, women and children, were carried away as prisoners.

“The Canadians rapidly retreated, and had not proceeded far on their route, when as usual, the Indians brought them news of what was being done.  The destruction of Salmon Falls had been reported at Portsmouth; in consequence, a force had been rapidly organized and was advancing to attack them.  De Hertel placed himself on the bank of what is now the Wooster river.  In front of him was a stream only to be crossed by a long narrow bridge, in itself establishing that no ford was to be found in the vicinity.  The party in pursuit, consisting of one hundred and forty men, attempted to pass from the opposite side of the stream; they were received by a continual fire.  Two of the Portsmouth party were killed, eight wounded.  The skirmish continued until dark, when de Hertel retreated safely, to reach an Abenaki village.  A Frenchman and an Indian on his side were killed; the eldest son of de Hertel was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh.  Three days later, the scouts he sent out reported that they had met three men from New England on their trail, and killed them.  There is no English account of this loss.”  (Kingsford, William. The History of Canada (Vol. 2, 1679-1725).  London: Trübner & Co., 1888,  pp. 335-337.)

Mather:  “The year 1690 must begin very inauspiciously….the French with Indians made a descent from Canada….On March 18, the French with Indians – being half one, half t’other – half Indianized French, and half Frenchified Indians – commanded by Monsieur Artel and Hope-Hood, fell suddenly upon Salmon Falls, destroying the best part of the town with fire and sword. Near thirty persons were slain, and more than fifty were led into what the reader will by and by call ‘the worst captivity in the world.’  It would be a long story to tell, what a particular share in this calamity fell to the family of one Clement Short: This honest man, with his pious wife, and three children, were killed: and six or seven of their children were made prisoners….[Mather relates on p. 597 the torture and death of one of the prisoners, Robert Rogers.]

(Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana; or The Ecclesiastical History of New-England From Its First Planting, in the Year 1620, unto the Year of Our Lord 1698. In Seven Books (Vol. II). Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son, 1893. Digitized by the University of Michigan, pp. 595-597.)

Thompson: “Section III. French and English Colonies — Transactions in the vicinity of Vermont from 1638 to 1705.

“Although both the French and English colonies had long been in the habit of furnishing the Indians with arms, ammunition, provisions and clothing, when going to war either among themselves, or with an opposite colony; yet previously to the year 1689, no expedition had ever been fitted out in one colony for the express purpose of aiding the Indians in their depredations upon another. They year it was resolved by the French to attempt, by the aid of the Canada Indians, the conquest of the province of New York, which had now been for some time in possession of the English. They looked upon this course as the only effectual method of subduing their most inveterate and troublesome enemy, the Iroquois.

“It was proposed that a large body of Canadians and Indians should march by the way of lake Champlain, and fall upon Albany and the other northern settlements; and that the city of New York should be at the same time attacked by a fleet, ordered for that purpose from France. But while preparations were making and before the arrival of the fleet, the Iroquois made a descent upon Canada, plundered and burnt Montreal and broke up most of the frontier settlements. Frontenac, the French general, was so much disheartened by these calamities, that he relinquished the hope he had entertained of conquering New York, but he considered some attempt against the English settlements indispensable, in order to revive the drooping spirits of the Canadians and Indians.

“Two parties were therefore sent out. One of these, under the command of M. Hertel, on the 18^th of March, 1690, succeeded in destroying the fort at Salmon falls in New Hampshire, where they slew 30 of the English and took 54 prisoners, whom they carried to Canada….” (Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil and Statistical, in Three Parts. 1842, p. 4 of Part II.)

Winsor:  “On March 18, 1690, a party of French and Indians under Sieur Hertel, and an Indian named Hopegood, ‘once a servant of a Christian master in Boston,’ made an attack on Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, a settlement on the Cocheco River, which separates New Hampshire from Maine.  Berwick was a village on the opposite back of the river.  The villages were burned, thirty persons were killed, and fifty-four taken into captivity.  Mr. Mather (in Magnalia, ii, 595-600) gives an account of the massacre, and the shocking details of the suffering of the prisoners on their march to Quebec.” (Winsor, Justin (Ed.). The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630-1880 (Vol. II, The Provincial Period). Boston: Tecknor and Co., 1880, p. 149.)

Sources

Abbott, John S. C.  The History of Maine, from the Earliest Discovery of the Region by the Northmen Unitil the Present Time.  Boston: B. B. Russell, 1875.

Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google preview accessed 2-22-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Drake, Samuel Gardner. The Book of the Indians of North America: Comprising Details in the Lives of About Five Hundred Chiefs and Others. 1833, p. 109. Digitally scanned and published by DSI Digital Reproductions, Scituate, MA, 2001. Accessed 1-30-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=GTk9F6RB0FMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kingsford, William. The History of Canada: Canada Under French Rule (Vol. III. 1726-1756). Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, 1889. Google digitized. Google preview accessed 2-8-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=1pQ-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana; or The Ecclesiastical History of New-England From Its First Planting, in the Year 1620, unto the Year of Our Lord 1698. In Seven Books (Vol. II). Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son, 1893. Digitized by the University of Michigan and accessed 2-23-2018 at: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.afk3754.0002.001;seq=1;view=1up

Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil and Statistical, in Three Parts. Burlington, VT: Chauncey Goodrich, 1842. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=8BUzAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Winsor, Justin (Ed.). The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630-1880 (Vol. II, The Provincial Period). Boston: Tecknor and Co., 1880. Google preview accessed 2-23-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=vuC3DaZJ-ZMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Highlighted n yellow to denote that this number is not used for the fatality estimate. In his Book of the Indians Drake notes “about 30” fatalities.  Either this is a typo or meant to reflect killed and injured or killed and captured.  In any event, no other source notes eighty fatalities.

[2] “When almost every man (thirty-four in number) had been shot down…”Ambiguously written, though it appears that Abbott is stating that there were 34 men and that most were killed.

—  60  Childs. A History of the U.S. In Chronological Order…1492…to…1885.  1886, p. 17.

—  60  Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America. In Drake 1836, p. 170.

—  60  Flexner and Flexner. A Pessimist’s Guide to History. 2008, p. 85.

—  60  Reynolds.  Albany Chronicles: A History of the City… 1906, p. 121.

—>60  Thompson. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil…in Three Parts. 1842, Part II, p. 4.

—  60  Withrow, William Henry. A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada… 1878, p. 157.

Narrative Information

Childs:  “The French in Canada organized three expeditions, composed of French and Indians, to devastate the English colonies. One party entered the village of Schenectady on the night of the eighth of February, surprised the inhabitants when asleep, and set the town on fire. Sixty men, women, and children were massacred, and twenty-seven carried away prisoners; the rest fled, nearly naked, towards Albany.” (Childs, Emery E.  A History of the United States In Chronological Order From…1492 to the Year 1885. 1886, pp. 17-18.)

Drake:  “1690. Feb 2.[1] – Schenectady in New York is taken and destroyed by the French and Indians, who kill 60 people and capture 27.”  (Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836, p. 170.)

Reynolds:  “The French reach the trail leading to Corlaer (Schenectady) under Sieur Le Moyne de Sainte Helene and Lieut. Daillebout de Mantet, and decide to attack that place first, rather than Al­bany, with about 100 men and as many Indians. At 11 o’clock, it being decided because of the severity of the winter night to wait no longer, detachments approach the various city gates, which through laxity were found unprotected. The village was stockadoed with pine logs ten feet high, with gates at the north and south ends of Church street. It is stated that there were within the wall about eighty houses shielding nearly four hundred souls. A stockade fort at the north end of Church street, where it meets Front street, held a garrison detachment of 24 men of Capt. Jonathan Bull’s Connecticut company, under Lieut. Talmadge, sufficient to make repulse. The signal of attack was given Indian fashion, when detachments were at each gate, and the torch was applied, everyone being killed by the sword as in midnight fear they rushed from their abodes. Only two houses were standing at the end of two hours,— that of Sander Glen, across the Mohawk, because of previous kind­ness shown to the French, and of the widow Bratt, whither the wounded M. de Montigny was carried. Pieter Schuyler (in his letter of the 15th, to Gov. Bradstreet of Massachusetts) states : ” The whole village was instantly in a Blaze. Women with child (were) ripped open, and their Infants cast into the Flames, or dashed against Posts of the Doors. Sixty Persons perished in the Massacre, and twenty-seven were carried into Captivity. The rest fled naked towards Albany thro’ a deep Snow which fell that very Night in a terrible Storm ; and twenty-five of these Fugitives lost their Limbs in the Flight, thro’ the Severity of the Frost.” It is said the invaders lost but one Frenchman and one Indian during the massacre, but twenty-one were lost on the road, Feb. 8.”  (Reynolds.  Albany Chronicles. 1906, p. 121.)

Withrow:  “In midwinter, Frontenac organized three expeditions to ravage, with fire and sword, the British colonies. Early in February, two hundred men, half French and half Indians, under the command of Lieutenants Mantel and Sainte Helene, left Montreal. For two-and-twenty days, they traversed the wintry, snow-encumbered woods…till they reached the vicinity of Albany.  Deterred from attacking that place in their exhausted condition, they turned aside to the neighbouring village of Corlaer, now Schenectady, containing some eighty wooden houses….in two hours, sixty men, women, and children were wantonly butchered, their blood crimsoning the snowy ground.  Twenty-eight were taken prisoners, and every house was reduced to ashes.  It was not war; it was midnight murder.  A few half-naked wretches escaped through the blinding snow-storm, to Albany.” (Withrow, W. H.. A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada from the Discovery of America to the Present Time. Boston, MA: B. B. Russell, 1878, p. 157.)

Sources

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

Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Flexner, Doris and Stuart Berg Flexner. A Pessimist’s Guide to History: An Irresistible Compendium of Catastrophes, Barbarities, Massacres, and Mayhem – From 14 Billion Years Ago to 2007. New York: Harper Collins, 2008.

Reynolds, Cuyler. Albany Chronicles: A History of the City Arranged Chronologically. Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Company, Printers, 1906. Digitized by Google. Accessed 10-22-2017 at:   http://books.google.com/books?id=XNU0AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil and Statistical, in Three Parts. Burlington, VT: Chauncey Goodrich, 1842. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=8BUzAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Withrow, William Henry. A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada from the Discovery of America to the Present Time. Boston, MA: B. B. Russell, 1878. Google digitized. Accessed 1-30-2013: http://books.google.com/books?id=VBMwAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Sources cited as well as others not cited are consistent on dating the event Feb 8.

—           500  Brandão. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. 1997 & 2000, p. 150, Appendix B.

—           100  Warriors with English army.

— 400  In villages.

—           500  Havard. Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, p. 65.

–400 Iroquois

–100 Mahicans

—         ~300  Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953 and 1979, p. 72.

—         >300  Frontenac, New France Governor General, letter to Minister, 11-12-1690, p. 461.

—         ~300  Hopkins. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. 1983 and 2002, p. 240.

–Devastated. Richter. The Ordeal of the Longhouse. P. 173.

Narrative Information

Brandão: “in the spring of 1690 smallpox was reported among the Mohawks gathering to attack New France. It had yet to spread to the rest of the tribes (with the army or in Iroquoia?) because they were out hunting. By the fall of that year the French reported that one hundred Iroquois with the army had died of smallpox, and four hundred others had died in their villages.” (Brandao. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. P. 150, Appendix B.)

Duffy: “Smallpox prevailed generally throughout North America from 1688-1691….In 1690, according to Frontenac,[1] the English, allied with the Mohegans and Iroquois, planned an assault on Quebec but when Mohegan emissaries, still bearing the marks of smallpox were sent to the Iroquois, they were accused of bringing the plague. Subsequently the Iroquois became contaminated and about three hundred died. The rest then refused to join the expedition.”[2]

Frontenac to the Minister, 11-12-1690: Describes on p. 459 an attack by the English with “nearly 2,000 men and some guns [cannon]” on Quebec in mid-October, during which “they assuredly lost in killed and wounded more than five hundred men.” [p. 460]

“I omitted to inform you, My Lord, that one of the circumstances which disappointed them the most was, that the arrangement they had made with the Iroquois did not succeed as they expected. For I learn from all the advices I have received, that when the fleet was to appear before Quebec, those of Manathe and Orange were to made a descent to the number of 3000, English, Mohegans (Loups) and Iroquois, for the purpose of investing us; repair before said town by the upper part of the river whilst the others cooperated from below. The affair would be very embarrassing, had not God interposed. The same advices state that the English and Mohegans (Loups) having been attacked by the Small pox, sent to the rendezvous some persons who were still red with the marks of it; which greatly incensed the Iroquois who told [end p. 460] them they were bringing the plague among them. That disorder did in fact break out in their midst, and destroyed more than three hundred of them, and finally, discontent having increased, the Iroquois had retired to their villages, after they had pillaged some English people….” [p. 461] (O’Callaghan, E. B. (ed.). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York…, 1855, pp. 460-461.)

Havard: “In 1690 smallpox was said to have ‘killed four hundred Iroquois and one hundred Mahingans {Mahicans},’….” (Havard. Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. 1992 and 2001, p. 65.)

Hopkins: “King William’s War, which pitted the British and French and their Indian allies against each other, helped spread smallpox throughout New England and Canada in 1690, and many who survived the fighting died of the disease. During the war, the English planned a two-pronged attack on Quebec, capital of New France. Unfortunately for them, the British and Mohegan emissaries who were sent to arrange part of the joint assault with the Iroquois bore scars of recent smallpox, and the Iroquois accused them of bringing the infection with them. The Iroquois did become, or already were, infected, and after about three hundred died, the others refused to join the expedition. The English thus had to abandon this part of their campaign, which had called for two thousand troops and one thousand, five hundred Indians to march on Quebec from the south (Duffy 1951; Heagerty 1928).” (Hopkins. The Greatest Killer, 1983 and 2002, p. 240.)

Richter: “…the four western League nations were devastated by the summer 1690 smallpox epidemic that prevented their warriors from participating in that year’s Anglo-Iroquois assault on Canada.” (Richter. The Ordeal of the Longhouse. P. 173.)

Sources

Brandão, José António. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More: Iroquois Policy toward New France and Its Native Allies to 1701. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, First Bison Books printing, 2000. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=qi5hMqyPXLYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

Havard, Gilles (translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott). Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century. Montreal & Kingston, London, Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, printed in French in 1992 and English, 2001. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at:  https://books.google.com/books?id=o18BBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1983 and 2002. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=z2zMKsc1Sn0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

O’Callaghan, E. B. (ed.). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England and France, by John Romeyn Brodhead, Esq., Agent, Under and by Virtue of an Act of the Legislature (Vol. IX). Albany: Weed, Parson and Company, Printers, 1855. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=786B9kHkLZQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Richter, Daniel K. The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=fEbqCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, Governor General of New France at the time. (Wikipedia. “Louis de Buade de Frontenac.” 3-27-2018 edit.

[2] In footnote 5 cites: Count de Frontenac to the Minister, December [actually November] 12, 1690, in O’Callaghan (ed.), Documents Relative to Colonial History, IX (1855), 459-61.

— >820->1,500  Blanchard tally based on accounts noted below of settler and native mortality.

Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony:

— 320  Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. Boston, Thursday Sept. 25, 1690, p.1

New England settlers:

— 1,000  Mather, Cotton; quoted in Novick and Morrow. “Defining Public Health.” 2008, 7.[1]

New England and New York settlers:

—  >320  Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999, p. 173.[2]

New England (Mohegan) and New York (Iroquois) natives:[3]

—   500  Cook, Sherburne. The Indian Population of New England in the 17^th Century. 1976, 77.

Narrative Information

Cook:  “In the Narrative of the Most Remarkable Occurrences in Canada, 1689, 1690…written by M. de Monseignat…(p. 490)…for 1689-1690.  He says that some Abnaki, arriving from Acadia, reported on the great smallpox epidemic which had killed 400 Iroquois[4] and 100 ‘Mohegans’[5]: ‘and that in the great Mohegan town where they had been, only sixteen men had been spared by the disease.’”  (Cook, Sherburne F. The Indian Population of New England in the 17^th Century (University of California Publications in Anthropology Volume 12). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976, p. 77.)

Duffy: “A major epidemic [smallpox] broke out in 1689-90 and soon became widespread in Canada and New England, and as far south as New York.  It appeared in Massachusetts in October, 1689, following the arrival from the West Indies of a group of infected Negroes and slowly spread through Boston and the surrounding towns.  The first public fast [in Boston] because of smallpox was decreed on March 6, and, as the epidemic increased in intensity during the summer months, the General Court proclaimed another one on July 10.  Public Occurrences, America’s first newspaper,[6] declared that he epidemic was more widespread, bu not so fatal, as the previous one of twelve years earlier.  The editor estimated the death toll to be about 320 and added that the infection which raged most in June, July, and August, attacked ‘all sorts of people,’ even ‘children in the bellies of Mothers.”[7]

“Salem was among the towns affected by the disease, and the town records of 1690 indicate that the selectmen were active in providing for the provisioning and care of the sick.  Deaths from smallpox were reported in Hampton, New Hampshire, and other New England towns.” (Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Louisiana State University Press, 1953, p. 48.)

Hopkins:  “Boston suffered major epidemics of smallpox in 1636, 1659, 1666, 1677-78, 1689-90[8] and 1697-98….” (Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1^st Edition, 1983, p. 238.)

Lovejoy:  “…a smallpox epidemic broke out in February 1690 and lasted into June.  It forced the temporary government out of Boston to Charleston to carry on its business.” (Lovejoy, David S. The Glorious Revolution in America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1972, p. 351.)

Mather (in Novick): “Reverend Cotton Mather…provided an account of the smallpox epidemic of 1689-1690 in New England: ‘In about a twelvemonth, one thousand of our neighbors have been carried to their long home.’”[9]  (Novick, Lloyd F. and Cynthia B. Morrow. “Defining Public Health: Historical and Contemporary Developments,” Chapter 1, p. 7, in:  Novick, Lloyd F., Cynthia B. Morrow and Glen P. Mays. Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-Based Management (Second Edition). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2008.)

Publick Occurrences: “The Small-pox which has been raging in Boston, after a manner very Extraordinary, is now very much abated.  It is thought that far more have been sick of it then were visited with it, when it raged so much twelve years ago, nevertheless it has not been so Mortal,  The number of them that have dyed in Boston by this last Visitation is about three hundred and twenty, which is not perhaps half so many as fell by the former.  The Time of its being most General, was in the Months June, July, and August, then ‘twas that sometimes in some one Congregation on a Lords-day there would be Bills desiring prayers for above an hundred Sick.  It seized upon all sorts of people that came in the way of it, it infected even Children in the bellies of Mothers that had themselves undergone the Disease many years ago; for some such were now born full of the Distemper.  ‘Tis not easy to relate the Trouble and Sorrow that poor Boston has felt by this Epidemical Contagion.  But we hope it will be pretty nigh Extinguished, by that time twelve month when it first began to Spread.  It now unhappily spreads in several other places, among which our Garrisons in the East are to be reckoned some of the greatest Sufferers.” (Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. Boston, Thursday Sept. 25^th, 1690, 1.)

Purvis:  “1689-90.  Smallpox.  New England and New York (at least 320 deaths).” (“Table 6.7  Outbreaks of Epidemic Disease in Colonial America,” pp. 173-174 in Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999.)

Steele: “The first extensive epidemic of smallpox among English colonists in North America occurred in 1689 and 1690.  The outbreak of 1689 seems to have begun when a ship came into Boston from Barbados carrying Negro slaves who had smallpox.  Although the ship was quarantined on arrival in October, the disease escaped into Boston and adjoining towns that winter and increased in intensity the following summer.  New York City had been relatively free from epidemical diseases in the seventeenth century although an outbreak of smallpox had occurred in 1679 and 1680.  Whether there were separate new infections in New York and in Canada in 1690 or whether the troop movements associated with the Wood Creek expedition disseminated the smallpox, a general epidemic developed that included New England, New York, the Iroquois tribes, Canada, and Acadia.  Apparently, the Iroquois were infected by emissaries who came to solicit their participation in the expedition northward by land.  This very extensive epidemic reveals the connections between New France and New York through their Indian allies, links that would make this a regular corridor for smallpox in the eighteenth century.”  (Steele, Ian K. The English Atlantic, 1675-1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community. Oxford, NY, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 254-255.)

Sources

Cook, Sherburne. F. The Indian Population of New England in the 17^th Century (University of California Publications in Anthropology Volume 12). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976. Partially Google digitized. Accessed 2-18-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=aHGjsHiyUZEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Mohegan people.” 5-14-2019 update. Accessed 5-20-2019 at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mohegan

Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1^st Edition, 1983, p. 238. Partially digitized by Google at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=z2zMKsc1Sn0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Lovejoy, David S. The Glorious Revolution in America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1972, p. 351. Partially Google digitized. Accessed 2-18-2013 at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Da4QrWDnRXUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana; or The Ecclesiastical History of New-England From Its First Planting, in the Year 1620, unto the Year of Our Lord 1698. In Seven Books (Vol. II). Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son, 1893. Digitized by the University of Michigan and accessed 2-23-2018 at: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.afk3754.0002.001;seq=1;view=1up

Novick, Lloyd F. and Cynthia B. Morrow. “Defining Public Health: Historical and Contemporary Developments,” Chapter 1, p. 7, in:  Novick, Lloyd F., Cynthia B. Morrow and Glen P. Mays. Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-Based Management (Second Edition). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2008. Partially Google digitized:  http://books.google.com/books?id=E9EQoIxqR6wC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. Boston, Thursday Sept. 25^th, 1690. Accessed 2-18-2013 at: http://raglinen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/publicoccur2.gif

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

Shaw, Steven J. “Colonial Newspaper Advertising: A Step toward Freedom of the Press.” The Business History Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, Autumn, 1959, pp. 409-420. First page accessed 5-20-2019 at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3111955?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Steele, Ian K. The English Atlantic, 1675-1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community. Oxford, NY, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 254-255. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=LFFMBM_0uAwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false  )

Wikipedia. “Mohegan people,” 1-20-2013 modification.

Wikipedia. Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. 5-2-2019 edit. Accessed 5-20-2019 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publick_Occurrences_Both_Forreign_and_Domestick

[1] Refers to New England settlers.

[2] The figure 320 undoubtedly comes from the Publick Occurrences report which is about Boston fatalities.

[3] In our opinion even though this report is based on the reports of natives coming back into Canada which might have been exaggerated, it appears to be very credible, and the numbers reported are based only on limited contact.  Even if the reported fatalities from limited contact were exaggerated, surely native deaths throughout the New England and New York region were much larger.

[4] Upper New York State (today).

[5] “…Algonquian-speaking tribe living in the eastern upper Thames River valley of south-central Connecticut.” Wikipedia. “Mohegan people,” 1-20-2013 modification. Cites: “Mohegan” history, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.

[6] Only edition published in Boston Sep 25, 1690 by Richard Pierce and edited by Benjamin Harris.  On Sep 29, 1690 the British colonial authorities ordered the paper shut down. (Wikipedia. “Public Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick.” 11-8-2012 modification; citing as the reference:  Steven J. Shaw. “Colonial Newspaper Advertising: A Step Toward Freedom of the Press.” The Business History Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, Autumn, 1959, pp. 409-42.

[7] Duffy footnote 10:  “Isaac Newton Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 (New York, 1922), IV, 357.  Heagerty, Four Centuries of Medical History, I, 67, claims that New England troops developed smallpox while attacking Quebec in 1690 and later carried the disease to New England.  See also Packard, History of Medicine, I, 75; Victor Hugo Palsits, ‘New Light on ‘Publick Occurrences,’ America’s First Newspaper,’ in American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, LIX (1950), 80-81.”

[8] Notes that it “was imported from Barbados with infected slaves.”

[9] Cites: Smille, W. Public Health: Its Promise for the Future. NY: Macmillan Co; 1955, p. 22.

–23  National Park Service/S. McCulley. Historic Jamestowne. “Bacon’s Rebellion.” June 1987.

–23  Rice, James Douglas. “Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-1677),” Encyclopedia Virginia. 1-29-2013

–23  Wikipedia. “Bacon’s Rebellion.” 1-22-2013 modification.[1]

–22  Jones, Frederick Thomas (Ed.). A History of the United States. 1888, p. 40.

Narrative Information

Jones:  “1677. William Drummond and 21 others are hanged; 3 others die of cruelty in prison; the assembly is convened (Feb.) and votes an address ‘that the governor would spill no more blood.’….Berkeley returns to England, and is censured by public opinion. Lord Culpepper, the governor, is proclaimed, but does not go to Virginia till 1680.”  (Jones, Frederick Thomas (Ed.). A History of the United States in Chronological Order from A.D. 432 to the Present Time.  St. Paul: The Pioneer Press, 1888, p. 47-48.)

Sources:

Jones, Frederick Thomas (Ed.). A History of the United States in Chronological Order from A.D. 432 to the Present Time.  St. Paul: The Pioneer Press, 1888, p. 47-48.

National Park Service/Susan McCulley (Revised by Jen Loux, November 1995). Historic Jamestowne. “Bacon’s Rebellion.” June 1987. Accessed 5-16-2019 at: https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/bacons-rebellion.htm

Rice, James Douglas. “Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-1677),” Encyclopedia Virginia. First published 8-25-2011; last modified 1-29-2013. Accessed 12-4-2013 at: http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/bacon_s_rebellion_1676-1677#start_entry

Wikipedia. “Bacon’s Rebellion.” 1-22-2013 modification. Accessed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion

[1] Cites: Mary K. Geiter and William Arthur Speck. Colonial America: From Jamestown to Yorktown. Macmillan, 2002, p. 63.