18th Century

— >10  Blanchard based on sources below noting prevalence in Burlington and Perth Amboy

Narrative Information

Duffy: “The return of the disease [smallpox chapter] after a long absence usually meant a severe attack, and the outbreak that struck the middle and southern colonies in 1715 was no exception. Starting in New York and New Jersey, smallpox ran its course through all the English colonies during the next seven years. One Ellis, a schoolmaster at Burlington, New Jersey, made the first mention of it when he wrote to the S.P.G.[1] in 1715 that his school had been ‘very much dis-order’d, by reason of that Contagious Distemper, the Small pox with wch. God hath been pleased to Visit us all this last Sumer in and about our inhabitants and is now very brief among us here in Town.’ In September, an S.P.G. missionary wrote from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, that he had just recovered from a severe attack….”[2] (Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953, 1979, p. 76.)

Gerlach: “In eighteenth century New Jersey alone, untold lives were claimed by at least four major  [smallpox] epidemics, including a seven-year outbreak which began at Burlington in 1715.[3] Medical statistics for the colonial period are notorious for their unreliability. Yet by any measurement, smallpox looms as a deadly disease. The precious few extant sources indicate a smallpox mortality rate ranging anywhere from fifteen to fifty percent.” (Gerlach. “Smallpox Inoculation in Colonial New Jersey: A Contemporary Account.” Journal of the Rutgers University Library, p. 22.)

Sources

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

Gerlach. “Smallpox Inoculation in Colonial New Jersey: A Contemporary Account.” Journal of the Rutgers University Library, Vol. 31, No 1, 1967, pp. 21-28. Accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://jrul.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jrul/article/view/1479

[1] Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

[2] Cites, in footnote 12, Rowland Ellis to Secretary, New Jersey, c. 1715, in S.P.G. MSS., A12, fp. 165; Edward Vaughan to Secretary, Perth Amboy, N.J., September 2, 1715, ibid., A11, fp. 124.

[3] Cites, in footnote 5, David L. Cowen, Medicine and Health in New Jersey: A History (Princeton, 1964), p. 2.

–49  Blanchard tally from Caulfield (New London, CT) and Webster (Plymouth, MA).

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “Though most of the accounts are dated 1714 there are reports of the epidemic here and there throughout 1715 and 1716. Joshua Hempstead made records during an epidemic in New London [CT] during the winter of 1714-15. In this town of about 2000 inhabitants Calkins lists nine deaths within four months. Jonathan Hill lost three children in February and John Chapell lost two in April, 1715 [Jan-April is a 4-month period].[1] Multiple deaths from measles were infrequent, however….” (p. 537)

Webster: “In 1715…Plymouth in Massachusetts lost 40 of its inhabitants by a malignant disease, but no particulars are known.” (A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases…(in two volumes), 1799, p. 224.)

Source

Caulfield, Ernest. “Early Measles Epidemics in America.” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, Vol. 15, No. 4, March 1943, pp. 531-556. Accessed 4-5-2018 at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2601425/pdf/yjbm00506-0001.pdf

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). “Section VII. Historical view of pestilential epidemics from the year 1701 to 1788.” Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Accessed 4-5-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:12?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[1] Cites, in footnote 20, p. 537: F. M. Calkins: Necrology of New London, 1652-1867. Photostat copy in Conn. State Library; Diary of Joshua Hempstead, Coll. New Lond. Hist. Soc., 1901, i; C.B. Graves: Trans. Conn. Med. Soc., 1920, 67.

–70  Rappaport/Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994. 1995. p. 23.[1]

–70  Rubillo. Hurricane Destruction in South Carolina: Hell and High Water. 2006, p. 39.

Narrative Information

Rappaport and Partagas: [No.] “164. South Carolina  16-17 Sep 1713  70 [deaths]”

Rubillo: “The storm of 1713. Seventy people died on September 5-6, 1713,[2] along the Carolina coast. During those two days a savage wind ‘raged so furiously that it drove the sea into Charles-town, damaging much of the fortifications whose resistance it is thought preserved the town. Some low situated houses not far from the sea were undermined and carried away with the inhabitants; ships were drove from their anchors far within land, particularly a sloop…was drove three miles over marshes into the woods.’[3]

“From available accounts, it appears that the eye of the storm made landfall around Charleston or a little north of the colonial town. Port Royal to the southwest of Charleston barely felt its effects.

“The few surviving eyewitness accounts of the storm are vivid. Thomas Lamboll wrote that

On September 5^th came on a great hurricane, which was attended by such an inundation from the sea, and to such an unknown height that a great many lives were lost; all the vessels in Charleston harbor except one were driven ashore. The new lookout on Sullivan’s Island, of wood, build eight square and eighty feet high, blown down; all the front wall and mud parapet before Charleston undermined and washed away with the platform and gun carriages, and other desolations sustained as never before happened in this town. To the northward of Charleston the hurricane was more violent.[4]

“Dr. Francis Le Jau thought that it was ‘miraculous how any of us came to escape from the great Hurricane.’ He reported that the storm lasted twelve hours and that the Ashley and Cooper rivers ‘joined for some time.’ Seventy people drowned in Charleston and houses, barns and plantations were destroyed according to him. ‘God in his Goodness has preserved us,’ he wrote.”[5] [p. 39]

Sources

Rappaport, Edward N. and Jose Fernandez-Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994 (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47). Coral Gables, FL: National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, January 1995, 42 pages. Accessed 8-14-2017 at:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-NHC-1995-47.pdf

Rubillo, Tom. Hurricane Destruction in South Carolina: Hell and High Water. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006.

[1] Appendix I. Cites: Ludlum, D. M., Early American Hurricanes, 1492-1870. Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1963, 198 pages; and, Miami Metropolis and The Tampa Morning Tribune (12 and 14 October 1909).

[2] FN: “The date is from the Julian calendar. On the Gregorian calendar, it would be September 16 and 17, 1713.”

[3] Rubillo cites: Mark Catesby. Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. London, 1731, ii (in Ludlum, Early American Hurricanes, p. 43.)

[4] Cites Ramsey, History of South Carolina, 175-176n; and Ludlum, Early American Hurricanes, p. 43.

[5] Rubillo footnote: “Letter from Le Jau to the Secretary of St. James Parish dated January 22, 1713, as reprinted in The Carolina Chronicle of Dr. Francis Le Jau, F. J. Klingberg, ed. (University of California Press, 1956), 136.

–>109  Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions…, Apr 1942, 8.

New London, CT      (   >9)

–>9  Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions…, Apr 1942, 8.

Boston, MA                (>100)

–>100  Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions…, Apr 1942, 8.

–>100  Christianson.  “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt. Sickness and Health…, 1997, 54

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “During the late summer of 1713 the disease [measles] appeared in some town near Newport, Rhode Island, and from there it was apparently carried to Cambridge by some Harvard student, for an epidemic broke out at the college during September before it spread throughout the town. The Boston epidemic began during October and continued until the following spring. By January the disease had reached New York and a few towns in New Jersey, and by March it had appeared in numerous towns from Piscataqua to Philadelphia.[1] The epidemic passed by some towns at first only to return to them some months later. It was present on Long Island during May, 1714, on Cape Cod during June, in Danvers during November, and in New London during the winter and spring of 1714-1715.

“This was the most alarming measles epidemic of colonial times. It was particularly severe in Boston, for ‘The Hand of the Lord was heavy there.’ Out of a population of about 9,000, ‘Many Hundreds, perhaps Thousands,’ had the disease.[2] Compared with the same months of the following year, there were 180 excess deaths;[3] so it is safe to attribute at least 100 to the epidemic….This epidemic was also so severe in other towns. During March it was ‘very mortal’ in Salem, West-Jersey; and on May 27 it was reported from Philadelphia: ‘We have here an extreme sickly Town, and many Dies, five lies Dead now, and several were Buried Yesterday.’[4] In New London there were nin measles deaths in a population of 2,000. A minister in Westchester fearing that he would get the ‘very mortal distemper,’ refused to baptize a dying child.

“Cotton Mather repeatedly said that in Europe measles was usually considered a mild disease, but that in America it was ‘a very heavy Calamity; a Malady Grievous to most, Mortal to many, and leaving pernicious Relicks behind it in all.’ He had good reason ‘to Remember the Wormwood and the Gall,’ for every member of his household except himself got this ‘venomous’ disease, and five of them—his wife, maid, newly born twins, and two-year-old daughter—died within two weeks. Another daughter, Katherine, never regained her health after her attack, dying three years later at the age of twenty-seven from a residual ‘consumption.’”[5]

(pp. 7-8.)

Christianson: “The most destructive measles epidemic of colonial times, the New England epidemic of 1713, claimed over 100 deaths.”  (Christianson.  “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt. Sickness and Health…, 1997, 54.)

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

Christianson, Eric H.  “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt, Judith Walzer and Ronald L. Numbers. Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health (3^rd Ed., Revised). Madison, WI:  University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Google preview accessed 1-17-2018 at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=6eOlhNkjXaAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Cites Boston News-Letter, February 8 and March 15, 1714.

[2] Cotton Mather, Hezekiah (Boston, 1713), 21; A Perfect Recovery (Boston, 1714), 47.

[3] “Burials within the Town of Boston,” Boston News-Letter, March 15, 1714.

[4]  Boston News Letter, June 7, 1714.

[5] Cotton Mather, Victorina (Boston, 1717, 71-72.

–20-30  Trumbull in Vaughan. Epidemiology and Public Health. 1922, Pp. 87-88.

—      21  Caulfield. “The Pursuit of a Pestilence.” Proceedings…American Antiquarian Soc., Apr 1950, 34.

—   >20  Pritchard. The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, Vol. 1, p. 285. (Names 18.)

–1  Oct 1712, John Richardson, north side of West Main street.

–1  17 days later, Nathaniel Richardson (soldier and brother of John).

–1  11 days later, Thomas Richardson, Grand proprietor, in same house as Nathaniel.

–1  Week later, Mary Richardson, wife and mother, same house as Nathaniel.

–1  Dec 18, 1712, Israel Richardson (same Richardson family).

–2  Short time later, wife and daughter of Israel Richardson.

–1  Next house eastward, Mary Bronson, widow of Grand proprietor John Bronson.

1713

–1  March, Hannah Judd, 16, daughter of John Judd.

–1  Same day, Hannah Judd, 14, daughter of Deacon Judd.

–5  Hikcox family members.

–Samuel Hikcox, first settler of Naugatuck.

–Samuel, son of Samuel the elder.

–3  sons of William Hikcox.

–2  Wife and son (Ebenezer, 20), of Benjamin Barnes.

–1  Daniel Warner, at Judd’s Meadows.

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “A ‘Second Breaking out of the Malignant Distemper that proved so Mortal…the last winter;[1] especially in Hartford, Weathersfield, and Glassenbury,’ appears to have reached its peak during September or October, 1712. The two outbreaks caused two hundred deaths in these three towns alone; and forty more were said to have died in Windsor between August and November. The Reverend John Southmayd, apparently writing from memory in 1729, sent to Thomas Prince when the latter was gathering material for his Chronological History a letter describing the sickness in Waterbury during which twenty-one persons died between October 1712, and the following September. ‘The sickness was so great that there were hardly enough well to tend the sick.’ There are some indications in the vital records that Southmayd included deaths from all causes during this interval and that this ‘Great Sickness’ which Noah Webster guessed was ‘a species of putrid pleurisy’ may have been caused by two distinct diseases, one prevailing in the autumn and the other the following spring. At all events the sickness in Waterbury has gone down in history while the other Connecticut epidemics have mostly been forgotten simply because Noah Webster happened to overlook them.

“These epidemics in Connecticut and Springfield [MA] have been included in this article on influenza because many of them had epidemiological characteristics of that disease. It is probably only a question of time before confirmatory evidence becomes available, but until it does the diagnosis must remain in doubt.” (pp. 34-35.)

Pritchard: “…illness and death…befell it [Waterbury] from October 1712, to September 1713, in which time more than twenty persons died. Mr. Southmayd gives us no hint of the origin of this ‘great sickness,’ but it perhaps was the same ‘camp distemper’ that caused the troops to turn back so frequently. It began in Waterbury, in so far as we may tell, by the illness and death of John Richardson in October of 1712, in the third house (east from Willow) on the north side of West Main street — to be followed in seventeen days by the death of his soldier brother, Nathaniel, in the house next eastward; and that death in eleven days more, by theat of Thomas Richardson, the Grand proprietor, in the same house; while but a week later, from the same home was borne forth the weary-hearted wife and mother, Mary Richardson — she, who, when living in a cellar, became the mother of the first-born child of Mattatuck. In less than a month, on the 18^th of December, Israel Richardson, another son of the same family, was taken — to be followed in a brief while by his wife and their daughter. In the next house eastward, died Mary, the widow of the Grand proprietor, John Bronson — while in the following March a most unusual event took place in the Burying yard on Grand street — it was the burial of two young girls who died on the same day, and who bore the same name — Hannah Judd — the one was the sixteen-year old daughter of John Judd; the other the fourteen-year old daughter of Deacon Judd. Of the Hikcox family, five members died. Samuel, the first settle of Naugatuck, and his son Samuel, and three young sons of William Hikcox, who occupied his father’s homestead — now crossed by Prospect street. In the next house, on the corner of North Main street, before the year closed there died the wife, and son Ebenezer, aged twenty, of Benjamin Barnes. Every death that occurred I the village, of which we have record, took place in the row of houses on the north side of West Main street, between Willow and North Main streets, supplemented by the two houses, close by, of Samuel Standly and Stephen Welton on the east side of the Green, and that of Deacon Judd at the west end. To these must be added the death of Daniel Warner, at Judd’s Meadows. We have no means of estimating the number of those who were ill, but Dr. Porter’s ability must have been tested to the utmost, and the need of another practitioner was felt, for we find the proprietors urging Dr. Ephraim Warner to ‘live among them’ and coaxing him with the use of all the school lands for three years, and ten acres in the sequester, and other alluring morsels of meadow, or ‘swamp that would make meadow.’ Dr. Warner was coaxed and came, and proved professional enough, on occasion, to assist Dr. Porter in his ‘protesting cases.” (pp. 285-286.)

Vaughan (citing Trumbull): “With reference to the same epidemic [which Webster noted], Trumbull, in his History of Connecticut,[2] says:

In 1712, on the 15^th of October, began a great sickness in the town (Waterbury) which continued until 12^th of September, 1713, and was so general that there were scarcely a sufficient number well to attend the sick, and bury the dead. Between 20 and 30 persons died of the sickness.[3]

“We learn from the same authority that Waterbury was vested with town privileges in 1686 and that the number of freeholders at that time was about 28”[4] (Vaughn, pp. 87-88.)

Webster: “In October 1712 commenced a mortal sickness in the town of Waterbury, in Connecticut, which raged for eleven months. It was so general that nurses could scarcely be found to tend the sick. What the disease was, I am not informed; but not improbably it that species of putrid pleurisy, which has so often made dreadful havoc in America.” (p. 223.)

Sources

Caulfield, Ernest. “The Pursuit of a Pestilence.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1950, pp. 21-52. Accessed 1-17-2018 at: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807204.pdf

Prichard, Sarah J. The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, From the Aboriginal Period to the Year Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Five, Volume 1 (edited by Joseph Anderson). New Haven, CT: Price & Lee Co., 1896. Google preview accessed 4-8-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=U_QLAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Trumbull, Benjamin. A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical (Vol. 1). New-Haven, CT: Maltby, Goldsmith and Co. and Samuel Wadsworth, 1818. Republished by Applewood Books (Carlisle, MA). Google preview accessed 4-8-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=NGDxIRllxdcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Vaughan, Victor C., MD assisted by Henry F. Vaughan and George T. Palmer. Epidemiology and Public Health: A Text and Reference Book for Physicians, Medical Students and Health Workers Vol. I, Respiratory Infections. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Co., 1922. Google preview accessed 4-8-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=duUxAQAAMAAJ&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] See our 1711-12 Malignant Distemper (Influenza?), CT listing.

[2] P. 367 in Benjamin Trumbull. A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical (Vol. 1). New-Haven, CT: Maltby, Goldsmith and Co. and Samuel Wadsworth, 1818. Republished by Applewood Books (Carlisle, MA).

[3] Trumbull cites: Manuscripts of Mr. Southmayd.

[4] Thus, even twenty-six years later, Waterbury was probably still a sparsely populated place.

— >10  Blanchard minimum figure based on Duffy narrative below noting a very fatal season.[1]

Narrative Information

Duffy: “Charleston, South Carolina, suffered greatly from sickness during the winter of 1711-12. Commissary Giddier Johnston, the S.P.G. representative in South Carolina, wrote on November 16, 1711 that ‘Never was there a more sickly or fatall season than this for the small Pox, Pestilential feavers, Pleurisies,[2] and flux’s[3] have destroyed great numbers here of all sorts, both Whites Blacks and Indians, and these distempers still rage to an uncommon degree’; but he did not state which disease took the greatest toll. The following March the Boston News-Letter reported many deaths from ‘Small-Pox & Pestilential Feavers’ at Charleston, adding that the epidemic was about over.”[4] (Duffy, Chapter II, “Smallpox”. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953 and 1979, p. 75.)

Source

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

[1] Since we have searched elsewhere in vain for a number or estimate, we create our own, in order to recognize this event and to contribute to our compilation of large-loss-of-life events. From Duffy’s account it appears to us that between Whites, Blacks and Natives, at least dozens died.

[2] Generally meant what we would now refer to as a respiratory infection.

[3] Generally meant what we would now refer to as dysentery.

[4] Cites, in footnote 11” L.B. Wright and Marion Tinling (eds.), The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712 (Richmond, 1941, 361, 366, 370; Commissary Gideon Johnston to Secretary, South Carolina, November 16, 1711, in S.P.G. MSS., A7, fpp. 383-84; Boston News-Letter, No. 412, February 25-March 3, 1712.

–250  Caulfield (influenza section), citing Boston News-Letter, March 31, 1712.

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “When the news reached Boston late in January, 1712, that 700 persons in Connecticut, including twenty-four members of the General Assembly, had died of a ‘Malignant Distemper’ within two months, Cotton Mather naturally interpreted this as a heaven-sent occasion to preach a fitting sermon. Seasonable Thoughts Upon Mortality was off the press and liberally distributed in Connecticut before it was learned that the first reports were false and that ‘through God’s Goodness…{there were} not above 250’ deaths.[1] Thus must have been a pretty severe disease since the terror caused by the numerous sudden deaths was still vividly remembered a quarter of a century later; but the nature of it seems to have been as obscure then as it is now.” (p. 33.) ….

“Joshua Hempstead of New London recorded the deaths of three adult members of the Lester family within one month, as well as the deaths of a few more who died after short illnesses during the winter of 1711-1712, but he said nothing definite about an epidemic. Nearby in Groton, and in Milford, there are a few gravestones suggesting the prevalence of a contagious disease among adults that winter and spring.” (p. 34.)

Source

Caulfield, Ernest. “The Pursuit of a Pestilence.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1950, pp. 21-52. Accessed 1-17-2018 at: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807204.pdf

[1] Boston News-Letter, March 31, 1712.

— >2,000  Thornton, Russell.  American Indian Holocaust and Survival.  1990, p. 80.

Narrative Information

Thornton: “A severe 1709-10 smallpox epidemic broke out among the Indians of lower California, ‘sweeping away most of the children and many of the adults in all the missions….This was followed by another epidemic in 1729-32, bringing with it horror and affliction” (Stearn and Stearn, 1945:37[1]). The first epidemic alone reportedly killed at least 2,000 of 8,000 California Indians (Stearn and Stearn, 1945:37[2]).” (Thornton, R. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Univ. of OK Press, 1990, p. 80.)

Source

Thornton, Russell.  American Indian Holocaust and Survival:  A Population History Since 1492.  University of Oklahoma Press, 1990, p. 80.  Partially Google digitized at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=9iQYSQ9y60MC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Stearn, E. Wagner and Allen E. Stearn. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian. Boston: Bruce Humphries, Inc., 1945. See also, Stearn and Stearn. “Smallpox Immunization of the Amerindian.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 13, pp. 601-163, 1943.

[2] Stearn, E. Wagner and Allen E. Stearn.  The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian.  Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1945.

—                ~65.  Blanchard estimate.[1]

— A great many. Boston News-Letter. No. 130, 10-14-1706, p. 401.[2]

—                <65.  Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 61-62.

— Vast number.  Ramsay’s History of South Carolina… 1858, p. 46.

Narrative Information

Kohn: “Charleston Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1706 — Pestilence of yellow fever that swept through Charleston, South Carolina, in 1706….The French and Spanish armies stationed in St. Augustine, Florida, heard that the yellow fever was ravaging Charleston, and they saw the epidemic as an opportune time to attack….

“The French and Spanish sent five vessels to Charleston, and on August 28, 1706, they asked the English colonial governor Nathaniel Johnson to surrender. He refused and sent the Charleston militiamen after the invading troops. Johnson had stationed the militiamen a half-mile outside the city; thus they were not infected with the yellow fever. The French and Spanish had grossly underestimated the fortifications surrounding Charleston, as well as the strength of the army and the desire of the militiamen to defend their city. In all, the French and Spanish killed only one person from Charleston, while the yellow fever killed nearly 5 percent of the city’s then population of about 1,300.

“Like the earlier yellow fever epidemic of 1699, the Charleston pestilence of 1706 killed many prominent townspeople. The fever rated during August and through September and October, but when the winter cold killed mosquitoes that carried the disease, Charleston again was again free of yellow fever.”[3] (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 61-62.)

Ramsay: Cites a Dr. Hewatt to the effect “that in 1703[4] an epidemical distemper raged at Charlestown, which swept off a vast number of inhabitants;  and as the town was threatened by the French and Spaniards, the Governor, who called the inhabitants to its assistance, held his head-quarters about half a mile distant from the town, on account of the contagious distemper which then raged therein; not wishing to expose his men to the dangerous infection, unless from necessity.’ Ramsay writes: “These circumstances make it probable that this was also the yellow fever. If so, this was its second visit, and only three or four years subsequent to the first[5].”

Sources

Boston News-Letter. Contains “An account of the attack upon Charleston, South Carolina, by French and Spanish ships of war, in the preceding August.” No. 130, 10-14-1706. Page 401 in: Lyman Horace Weeks and Edwin Monroe Bacon (Compilers and Editors). An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press, Massachusetts Series, Volume One, 1704-1707. Boston. The Society for Americana, Inc., MDCCCCXI [1911]. Digitized by Google from copy at Harvard College Library. Accessed 9-11-2016 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=o2SHATVa5hgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.

Mustard, Harry S. Defense of Charles Town against the French and Spaniards in 1706. Unpublished edited typescript account held at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

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

[1] We use approximately 65 in that Kohn is only source accessed that provides an estimate. We are unable to determine how to translate “a great many” or a “vast number” into a number, even if we knew the population base.

[2] Writes: “The Enemy were the more encouraged to Invade us (as the Prisoners informed us) because they heard that the Sickness raged in Charlstown [sic], and had swept away a great many of our Men…”

[3] Notes as further reading: Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America; Fraser, Charleston! Charleston!; Ramsay, Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.

[4] Search of several sources indicates that the attack of the French and Spanish was during Queen Anne’s War and was in 1706.

[5] Which he writes was “In the year 1699 or 1700.” (same page)

–132  Hester. “Here’s a Scary Tale of a New Jersey Christmas-time Blizzard…” Dec 27, 2010.

–132  Nash. “Major Marine Disasters.” Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 676.

–132  Weeks and Bacon. An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press (Vol. 1). 1911, p. 282.

Narrative Information

Ludlum: “A Winter Tragedy in New York Bay. The Boston News-Letter

“New-York, December 24, [The rest of the entry is the same as in Weeks and Bacon below.]

Nash: “1704. Castle del Rey. 132 [deaths]. The 18-gun, 300-ton privateer smashed into the shoals off Sandy Hook on a voyage from Manhattan.” (Nash. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 676.)

Weeks and Bacon: “On the 19th. instant, The Private Ship of War call’d the Castle Del Key [sic. Rey]of 130 Tons, 18 Guns, Capt. Otto Van Tyle Commander, Sailed from Jackques Bay (about 10 Miles from hence) and in going down towards Sandyhook with an easy Gale of Wind, She struck upon the East bank and stuck there; They sent some of their men on Shoar in their Canoo for boats to assist them, but that night a hard Gale of Wind Sprung up between W. & N. W. and Froze very hard, the Ship began to fill with Water: A Sloop and large Boat was sent down, but it Friezing and blowing so hard, they would not venture to relieve them, for fear of running the same fate of being a ground, and so Froze or Drowned: The next Morning the Gale continued hard all day, and the men were all alive upon the Deck and in the Shrowds [shrouds] the Sea beating over them: And on Fryday Morning the Wind abating, a Boat went on board and found but 4 of the men alive; The Captain and all the rest being Froze and Drowned, there was 145 men, on board when She Sailed, who all perished but 13, & 132 died in this deplorable manner. Here are Widows Lamenting the loss of their Husbands, and Parents their Children: Tis said about 80 or 90 of the men were English, Scotch and Irish, and the rest of Dutch Parentage, most born in this Country.”  (Weeks and Bacon, quoting from The Boston News-Letter, Jan 7, 1705.[1])

Sources

Hester, Tom, Sr. “Here’s a Scary Tale of a New Jersey Christmas-time Blizzard and Privateers.” NewsroomJersey. Dec 27, 2010.  Accessed 7-25-2011 at:  http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/style/heres-a-scary-tale-of-a-new-jersey-christmas-time-blizzard-and-privateers

Ludlum, David M. Early American Winters 1604-1820. Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1966.

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

Weeks, Lyman Horace and Edwin M. Bacon (Eds.). An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press, Massachusetts Series Volume One 1704-1707.  Boston: The Society for Americana, Inc. 1911. Digitized by Google at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=3pQLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Note Ludlum reproduces the same article but presents his source as: The Boston News-Letter, Dec. 31 to Jan. 7, 1705/06, 6, No. 90.