18th Century

—>153  Blanchard tally based on State breakouts below.[1]

–>125  Snow. Tales of Terror and Tragedy. 1979, p. 191.

—  >50  Wilson. “Weather History: Dec 26…,” Wilmington Weather Examiner, Dec 25, 2009.

­­­­

Maine             (            1)

–1  Kittery. Hypothermia outdoors; Reverend Chase. (Ludlum, p. 111.)

 

Massachusetts (100-102)

—  1  Boston Neck. Driver of team of oxen and horse found frozen standing upright. Ludlum 111.

–20  Nantucket. Crew from sloop General Stark, after grounding onshore. (Ludlum, p. 111.)

–81  Dec 26, Privateer brig General Arnold grounds, White Flats, Plymouth Bay, MA.[2]

–79  Dec 26, Privateer brig General Arnold grounds, White Flats, Plymouth Bay, MA.[3]

–66  Plymouth Bay shore. Crew of armed brig Arnold, after grounding. (Ludlum, p. 111.)[4]

 

Rhode Island (         >50)

—>50  Newport and vicinity. Ludlum, p. 111.[5]

—    3  Newport, Dec 26. (We translate “several men lost their lives” to “3”.) Ludlum, 110

—    3  Newport, Dec 26. Soldiers from Bunau’s Regiment. (Ludlum p. 110.)

—    1  Newport, Dec 26. Artillery soldier. (Ludlum p. 110.)

—    1  Newport, Dec 26. Soldier from Brown’s Regiment. (Ludlum p. 110.)

—    9  Newport. German (Hessian) mercenaries; hypothermia. (Wilson and Ludlum.)

—    3  Newport, no date. Mother and her two children.

 

Narrative Information

 

Ludlum: “The storm reached its greatest development in the vicinity of coastal Rhode Island. The center probably passed close to Block Island any may have hesitated in that area for six to 10 hours as often happens in a blocking situation…..

 

“Lt. Frederick Mackenzie of the Royal Engineers was stationed with the British at Newport at the entrance to Narragansett Bay… He described the onset of the developing storm and its destructive effects most vividly:

 

….Dec 27….Most of the Inhabitants were obliged to cut passages thro the Snow this Morning, in order to get out of their houses. Several men lost their lives yesterday, and may were frost bitten….[6]

 

“….The great storm struck all coastal New England a heavy blow. At Newport, appropriately, it was long called ‘The Hessian Storm’ Colonel Popp, a German mercenary from Hesse-Cassel, has related in his diary that nine men in one regiment alone were frozen to death at their posts during the storm period, and that a woman resident of Newport and her two children suffered a similar fate.[7] One historian of Revolutionary Newport estimated that at least 50 persons in the vicinity, military and civilian, died of freezing or the results of frostbite.[8]

 

“Around Massachusetts Bay the event ever since has been called ‘The Magee Storm’ in memory of the brave captain of the armed brig Arnold.[9] His ship had sailed from Boston into the teeth of the storm and was subsequently cast on the shore of Plymouth Bay after a desperate struggle with the mighty northeast gales which created an overwhelming wave surge. Of a crew of over 100 men, only 34 survived the rigors of the elements that wintry night though many had gained the shore, but were unable to find adequate shelter on the bare, sandy beaches.[10] Out at Nantucket the sloop General Stark, ran ashore with the loss of 20 hands. Many reports of wrecks came from points on the southern New England shore, Long Island, and New Jersey.[11]

 

“At Kittery in southern Maine a prominent pastor, Rev. Chase, fell victim to the numbing cold and was later discovered frozen to death in a field.[12] In another instance at Boston Neck, a driver with his team of four oxen and a horse were found after the winds subsided, solidly congealed and still standing rigidly upright.[13] Rev. Cutler at Ipswich, a weather observer of experience, could truthfully say: ‘Such a storm has not been known in the memory of men.’[14]” (Ludlum “The Hessian Storm of December 1778,” Early American Winters, pp. 109-110.)

 

Snow: “The blizzard of 1778, concentrating on Rhode Island, was the first recorded blizzard. It killed 125 people; probably many more were not even reported.”

 

Snow (Tales of Terror and Tragedy): “One of the most melancholy disasters in the entire history of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was the shipwreck of the armed brigantine General Arnold in 1778.  More people perished in this marine tragedy than died in that first terrible winter which the Pilgrims en­dured back in 1620.” (Snow. Tales of Terror and Tragedy. 1979, p. 191.)

 

 

“The General Arnold sailed from Nantasket Road, Boston Harbor, on Thursday, December 24, 1778, in com­pany with the privateer Revenge. Bound for the West Indies, the two vessels were still inside Cape Cod when a snow storm began. The superior sailing qualities of the Revenge enabled her captain, Barrows by name, to beat around the Race at Cape Cod and escape the worst of the storm so that she does not figure again in our chronicle.

 

“Captain James Magee of the Arnold, unable to follow the other craft, sailed for Plymouth but arrived off the Cornet, the outer arm of Plymouth Harbor, after night bad fallen. Although less than a mile from the friendly gleam of Gurnet Light, he anchored his vessel rather than risk the treacherous waters of the inner harbor without a pilot. By midnight the storm had intensified to a gale, and the General Arnold, off a lee shore, was now in great danger.

 

“The master prepared his brigantine against the in­creasing fury of the sea. Sixteen of the vessel’s twenty guns were lowered below decks, the topmasts were struck, and the sails snugly furled.  Long scopes were given to the cable holding the anchor, and every other possible precaution was taken. The waves rose higher and higher.  As the great breakers crashed against her, the vessel quivered and shook until finally the General Arnold began to drag anchor.  Slowly but surely she drifted toward the shoals of Plymouth Bay, and Captain Magee realized there was little hope of saving his craft.

 

“Uncertain of their fate, the men stood ready for the moment when the brigantine would scrape bottom.  Sud­denly, with a tremor that jarred the ship from stem to stern, the General Arnold grounded on the sands of White Flats.  The captain ordered the masts cut away, and the crew disappeared below for axes. An unfortunate inci­dent now occurred.

 

“After what seemed an unnecessarily long interval, Captain Magee heard a loud clamor coming up through the hatchway, and went down to investigate. There he dis­covered that several members of the crew, instead of com­ing up on deck with their axes, had smashed into the liquor stores and were drinking heavily.  It was truly a desperate situation, with his vessel ashore on a lee beach, the waves getting higher every hour, the ship slowly sinking into the sands, and now his crew drunk below deck.

 

“Captain Magee, however, did not falter. Pleading with some, bullying others, and physically assisting those who needed it, he managed to get his men back on deck, and finally the masts were cut away. All hands were allowed to go below into the cabin where they settled them­selves for the night, but few were able to fall asleep. Hour by hour the storm increased in fury, until it reached an intensity seldom equaled in the annals of Plymouth history. For years afterwards other storms of unusual severity were compared with the…Gale of 1778.

 

“Rolling and thumping, grinding its way lower and lower into the White Flat sands, the General Arnold was enduring a terrific battering from the sea. The seams be­gan to open. Water first trickled, then poured into the crowded cabin where within an hour it had reached a depth of three feet.  Since there was nothing else to do but to return to the wave-swept deck of the brigantine, the 105 men and boys started for the companion hatchway and soon reached the comparative safety of the quarter deck.

 

“It was apparent, however, that there was not room for all of them without extreme discomfort as they had to lie on top of each other three and four deep….To give some protection from the elements, a sail was stretched from the topsail boom on the port side to the starboard quarter rail, and under this tentlike covering the men huddled together. Meanwhile the ship was gradually working itself lower and lower into the sand.

 

“With the coming of dawn, Saturday, there was no letup in the severity of the tempest. The snowfall was so heavy that some of the men, unable to move, were suf­focated where they lay. Instead of getting lighter as the day wore on, the sky actually grew darker and darker, while the flakes were so thick that objects a few feet away became invisible.  The sea mounted in fury, until each wave which hit the ship drenched the shivering men with icy spray, and the men could do nothing except lie still and endure their suffering.

 

“As the afternoon wore on, the officers gradually abandoned any thoughts of disciplining the sailors and prepared themselves for death. Captain Magee portioned out the remainder of the rum, advising the sailors to pour it down their boots as the alcohol had a lower freezing point than the water which was soaking them. The use of the rum in this manner is said to have saved the lives of several of the men.

 

“But the strain of the unequal struggle with the sea was starting to tell on the men. Captain John Russell, a tall, powerful officer, was the first to die. Capable of tre­mendous endurance, he had been calling on his followers for patience and fortitude when he suddenly fell heavily on the deck and rose no more.

 

“By now the water on the main deck was ankle deep, and the men prayed for the tide to turn.  If the sea rose a foot or two higher, the brigantine would break up.  Just as daylight faded, however, the tide began to go out, and the survivors were heartened considerably.  Many said later that the receding waters gave them the courage to fight for their existence during the night.

 

“At dead low water the wreck was half exposed on White Flats.  Although the spray did not hit the men on the quarter deck now, another danger threatened. When the wind veered to the northwest around midnight, the weather grew much colder, and the clothes of the men stiffened on them. Many froze to death before morning, and together with those who had fallen overboard or had been suffocated by the snow, more than thirty had now perished.

 

“But the blackness of the night finally ended, and the men looked out on calmer seas. The brigantine’s yawl under the port gangboard was put over, and three volun­teers offered to row for help. They started away from the vessel with the cries and prayers of the others in their ears, but the three never returned.  Those left on the Gen­eral Arnold watched the men row over to the edge of the solid ice, climb out of the yawl, and walk toward a schooner a half mile away. Disappearing aboard the schooner, they evidently abandoned their comrades to their fate, for they were not seen afterwards.

 

“Bitterly disappointed with the turn of events, the freezing survivors decided to try to attract the attention of the residents of Plymouth and raised a great cry for help. Captain Magee tied a handkerchief to a stick and waved it frantically in an effort to be seen. The people in Plymouth had seen them hours before, however. Small dories which had set out had been trapped in the heavy ice floes, and the attempts at rescue by boat had to be aban­doned. A causeway was begun out over the floe to the . brigantine but was still a long way from the vessel when darkness fell. Now began the coldest night of all.

 

“When the last glimmer of daylight bad gone and there was still no help from shore, the more discouraged of the sailors collapsed on deck and quickly perished. In a few hours only half the 105 who bad sailed from Boston were still alive. That night below zero weather together with a biting, icy wind swept the Massachusetts coast, and the survivors aboard the wreck of the General Arnold had to take unusual measures to resist the cold.

 

“Working desperately, the men piled up the bodies of their dead comrades in a protective heap around them to keep out the wind, and then sat down in a circle, their legs crossed over one another. By constantly moving their legs back and forth they kept alive the circulation in their bodies. When one of them fell asleep, he would receive a violent shove from his nearest companion, and thus would be brought back to life.  In this way the survivors passed the night.

 

“The first gray streaks of dawn appeared, and Mon­day’s sun rose in a cloudless sky. The General Arnold’s quarter deck that morning was covered with the dead and the dying.  Many of the bodies lay just as the men had perished, with their arms and legs bent in grotesque posi­tions. Some were erect, others sitting, sonic half crouch­ing with their hands on their knees, and still others frozen to death with their hands straight out from their bodies.

 

“The men from Plymouth renewed the building of the causeway at dawn and were making rapid progress out over the ice floe. Two hours before noon they were within hailing distance of the death ship.  Soon the sleds and boards were pushed close to the brigantine, and contact was at last established.

 

“It is said that the Plymouth men who stepped aboard the General Arnold. that bitter morning never forgot the sight which greeted them. The victims were all huddled together in various positions on the quarter deck, and it was impossible to distinguish between the dead and those still alive.

 

“One of the survivors, Barnabas Downs of Barnstable, was lying helpless on the deck as the rescuers walked around him. This Cape Cod lad was so numbed by the cold that he was unable to indicate in any way that be was still alive. He heard himself referred to as one of the dead and feared that he would be left behind until too late. As one of the Plymouth men walked toward him, Downs made a supreme effort and succeeded in rolling his eyes at the man, who noticed the movement. The Barnstable Sailor was then taken down over the side and placed on a sled, which was pulled over the causeway to the shore.

 

“Barnabas Downs was taken into one of the Plymouth homes, where a large tank of cold water was waiting. After three hours’ immersion in the cold water, he revived enough  to suffer excruciating pains as the blood began to circulate through his thawing limbs.  He later said that the pain was much worse while he was regaining his circulation than when he was freezing out on the brigantine.  All the other survivors were brought ashore and given the same treat­ment.

 

“When Captain James Magee was brought ashore, be attributed his survival to the fact that he poured the rum down his boots instead of down his throat, as some of the others had done.  Those who drank the rum to excess died within a few hours.

 

“Seventy of the dead men were brought to Plymouth, where over a score were placed in the town brook to thaw out their bodies.  It was arranged to have a mass funeral at the Plymouth Court House. The strain was so great during the services that the preacher, Reverend Mr. Dob­bins, fainted.  A large grave to hold the seventy men was prepared in the town cemetery, but not until 1862 was a monument erected to these Revolutionary War heroes.

 

“Many of the men aboard the General Arnold came from Cape Cod, but the deep snow prevented word of the disaster leaving Plymouth for several days. The terrible tid­ings finally arrived at Barnstable, where twelve of the men lived.  Barnabas Downs, Senior, Mr. Oris Bacon, and others, started out by horseback to Plymouth, but when they reached the scene of the wreck only the young Downs boy was still alive.  All the other eleven men had perished.

 

“Downs expressed a desire to be taken back home, but the roads were still impassable for a carriage. John Timelier constructed an improvised ambulance which be slung between two horses. After a feather bed was placed on the sling, young Barnabas was tenderly lowered upon it.  The lengthy and painful journey to Barnstable now began, but the boy was in great agony long before the lights of Barnstable were seen that evening.  Although given the best of medical attention and care, Barnabas Downs never fully recovered as he lost the use of his feet altogether and had to walk on his knees for the rest of his life.

 

“Of the 105 men who sailed from Boston Harbor, only thirty-three were brought ashore alive, and nine of them died shortly afterwards. Fifteen men recovered com­pletely from their experience, while eight others were crippled for life….

 

“Some eighty years after the tragedy a benevolent gentleman of Plymouth noticed the unmarked graves in the Plymouth cemetery, and paid for a monument erected in 1862 to the memory of those who perished in die gale. But for those who had gone aboard the shipwreck that December day in 1778 to rescue the survivors, no monu­ment was needed to remember the occasion, for they never forgot the terrible scenes they witnessed aboard the brigan­tine General Arnold, and their descendants still tell today the story of the “Captain Magee Storm of 1778”.” (Snow.  Storms and Shipwrecks of New England 1943, 64-72)

 

Wilson: “1778. The Hessian Storm dumped 18 inches of snow from parts of Pennsylvania to New England.  Snow drifts were reported as high as 16 feet in Rhode Island. More than 50 people froze to death in the subzero weather that followed the snow. The storm was named for 9 German mercenaries who froze to death at their posts in Newport, RI.  Many ships were wrecked in the terrible gales that accompanied the storm, including the General Arnold, an American ship that sunk off Plymouth, MA. The storm was named for troops occupying Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War.” (Wilson. “Weather History: December 26: Record Warm/Heat, Cold, Snowstorm / Blizzard and Ice,” Wilmington Weather Examiner, December 25, 2009.)

 

Sources

 

Browne, Patrick. “The Grim Fate of the Privateer ‘General Arnold’.” Historical Digression blog. Accessed 10-24-2017 at: https://historicaldigression.com/2011/10/25/the-grim-fate-of-the-privateer-general-arnold/

 

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

 

Snow, Edward Rowe. Storms and Shipwrecks of New England. Boston: Yankee Pub. Co., 1943.

 

Snow, Edward Rowe. Tales of Terror and Tragedy. NY: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1979.

 

Wilson, Charlie.  “Weather History: December 26: Record Warm/Heat, Cold, Snowstorm / Blizzard and Ice,” Wilmington Weather Examiner, December 25, 2009. Accessed at: http://www.examiner.com/x-4645-Wilmington-Weather-Examiner~y2009m12d25-Weather-History-December-26-Record-WarmHeat-Cold-SnowstormBlizzard-and-Ice

 

 

[1] Our tally of State breakouts below totals 151-153. However, descriptions of the storm clearly indicate there were other maritime losses than the two noted here. In addition, given the broad geographical coverage of the storm/blizzard, From upper northeast Pennsylvania through NY and NJ and New England, and the extreme cold that accompanied the storm, there surely were additional fatalities than those captured here.

[2] Snow, Edward Rowe.  Storms and Shipwrecks of New England.  1943, p. 72.

[3] “….70 men perished on board the General Arnold. 33 were brought ashore alive, of whom nine later died….The victims were buried in an unmarked mass grave on Burial Hill in Plymouth.” (Patrick Browne. “The Grim Fate of the Privateer ‘General Arnold’.” Historical Digression blog. Accessed 10-24-2017.)

[4] Not used in that Ludlum noted that there were over 100 men onboard, with but 34 surviving, and in that the Browne narrative is much more detailed.

[5] “One historian of Revolutionary Newport estimated that at least 50 persons in the vicinity, military and civilian, died of freezing or the results of frostbite.” (Cites: Samuel G. Arnold. History of the State of Rhode Island…)

[6] F. Mackenzie. Diary, 2, p. 437.

[7] Cites: A Hessian soldier in the American Revolution; the diary of Stephen Poll. Reinhart J. Pope, trans. Racine, Wis. (?), private print, 1953.

[8] Cites: Samuel G. Arnold. History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1860, 2, 434.

[9] Cites: Edward R. Snow, Great storms and famous shipwrecks of the New England coast. Boston, The Yankee Publishing Co., 1943, 65-72.

[10] Cites: Mass. Gaz., 7 Jan, in N. J. Gaz., 20 Jan 1779.

[11] Cites: Mass. Gaz., 11 Jan, in N. J. Gaz. 27 Jan 1779.

[12] Cites: T. Smith. Journal, 239.

[13] Idem.

[14] M. Cutler, Life, 1, 73.

–111  Blanchard tally of Massachusetts breakouts below.[1]

 

Connecticut.               (   ?)

–?  Mystic. “There is not a child three years old left in Mystic.”[2]

–1  Lisbon, Sep 4. Simon Perkins, from dysentery contracted while in the army.[3]

–?  Plainfield. One branch of the Mordock family was “destroyed.” Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64.

 

Massachusetts            (111)

—   1  Arlington, Aug 21, Gregory Hill, 54. History of the Town of Arlington Mass., p. 258

—   ?  Carlisle. “less severe” outbreak. Caulfield 1942, pp. 62-63.

— >9  Chelmsford. Waters. History of Chelmsford, 721 and Vital Records of Chelmsford.[4]

–2  Burge family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, p. 370 (in Caulfield 1942, fn 194.)

–2  Chamberlain family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, p. 376 (in Caulfield 1942, fn 194.)

–5  Fletcher family.    Vital Records of Chelmsford, p.389-393, in Caulfield 1942, fn 194.

—>16  Dunstable.                    Vital Records of Dunstable, cited in Caulfield 1942, footnote 194.[5]

–2  Jonathan Fletcher family. Vital Records of Dunstable, pp. 215-216.

–2  Robert Fletcher family.    Vital Records of Dunstable, pp. 215-216.

–2  Kendall family.                 Vital Records of Dunstable, pp. 220-221.

–2  Read family.                     Vital Records of Dunstable, p. 227.

–5  Woodward family.           Vital Records of Dunstable, pp. 237-238.

–3  Wright family.                  Vital Records of Dunstable, p. 238.

—    5  East Bridgewater, Aug 3-28.  Vital Records of East Bridgewater, Massachusetts to…1850.             –James Harris, Aug 3, age 18. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, p. 355.

–Child of Amos Whitman, Aug 8, age 4. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, p. 402.

–Child of Amos Whitman, Aug 19, 16-months. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, p402.

–Child of Benjamin Whitman, Aug 23, age 3. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, p. 402.

–Wife of Robert Woodward, Aug 28, age 63. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, p. 369.

—    ?  Harvard.                                    Caulfield cites Nourse. History of Harvard, pp. 530-531.[6]

—    6  Ipswich.                                    Vital Records of Ipswich; Caulfield 1942, pp. 62-63.[7]

–David Haskell, Aug 25, about 18.                Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 580.

–Naomi Haskell, Aug 25, 22-months.           Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 581.

–Hepsey Dodge Patch, Oct 2, 15 months.     Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 641.

–Susan Patch, Sep 20, about 49.                    Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 642.

–Bethiah Poland, Sep 4, 34.                           Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 650.

–Thomas Zaccheus Jr., Sep 8, about 14-months old. Vital Records of Ipswich, p. 509.

—    4  Lancaster. Larkin family.         Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64.

—>12  Lexington. Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths; in Caulfield fn 194.[8]

–3  Bridge family. Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, p. 167.

–6  Childs family. Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, p. 170.

–Abigail Childs, Aug 29, age 7. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–Abijah Childs, Sep 6, age 11. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–Benjamin Childs, Aug 24, age 4. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–Eunice Childs, Aug 23, age 12. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–Moses Childs, Aug 19, age 2. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–Sarah Childs, Aug 28, age 13. Hopkins. Vast Public Indifference. 7-10-2008.

–3  Smith family. Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, p. 200-202

—    ?  Lynn.                                        Caulfield 1942, pp. 62-63.[9]

—  18  Medford. Brooks. History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.[10]

—    4  Methuen. Merrill family.         Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64.

—    4  Milford. Newton family.          Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64.

—    ?  Sherborn.                                  Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64. (less severe epidemic)

—>10  Spencer. Draper. History of Spencer, Massachusetts… to the Year 1860 (2^nd Ed.), p.128.[11]             –2  Aug 24 and 27. Children of Capt. John Draper. Draper. History of Spencer, MA, 128.

–2  Sep 14-15. Children of James Draper. Draper. History of Spencer, MA, 128.

—  17  Tewksbury.

–Wife of David Bailey, Sep 27. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 191.

–Marcy Brown, Sep 12, daughter of Samuel. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 195.

–Betty French, Oct 16, daughter of Aaron and Sarah. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 206.

–David French, Oct 1, 2^nd son of Solomon. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 206.

–Samuel French, Oct 26, age 29. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 208.

–Hannah Hardy, Oct 5, daughter of Peter and Dorcas. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p.213.

–Zacheriah Hardy, Oct 17, son of James Jr. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 214.

–Betty Kittredge, Oct 18, daughter of John and Abigail. Vital Records of Tewksbury, 220.

–Molly Kittredge, Sep 10, daughter of Nathan. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 224.

–Rebecca Kittredge, Sep 24, wife of William Jr. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 222.

–Susanna Kittredge, Aug 22, daughter of Francis. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 224.

–Thomas Marshall, Sep 8, age 73. Find A Grave. “Thomas Marshall;”[12] Vital Records.

–Margaret Nicholas, Sep 22 (daughter of Robert). Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 232.

–Robert Nicholas, Oct 9, 37. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 232.

–Isaac Phelps, Sep 22, son of Joseph and Ruth. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 234.

–Wife of Jacob Saunders, Sep 24. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 237.

–Benjamin Stickney, Sep 5, age 7. Vital Records of Tewksbury, p. 240.

—    5  Wakefield,

–Dorothy Brown, Aug 21, 5 yrs 9 months. Baldwin. Vital Records of Wakefield, p. 264.

–Hannah Brown, Aug 2, 22 months. Baldwin. Vital Records of Wakefield, p. 265.

–Susanna Brown, Sep 7, age 76. Baldwin. Vital Records of Wakefield, p. 266.

–Mehetabel Smith, Sep 2, 73. Baldwin. Vital Records of Wakefield, p. 320.

–Anna Winslow, Nov 28, age 31. Baldwin. Vital Records of Wakefield, p. 320.

—    ?  Woburn.                                    Caulfield 1942, pp. 63-64. (less severe epidemic)

 

Pennsylvania              (   ?)

–?  Valley Forge, Winter-Spring.  Washington’s Continental Army.[13]

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “The summer and autumn of 1778 was another trying period for the children of eastern Massachusetts. Smallpox and “slow fever” (typhoid?) were rife, but the East Bridgewater, Ipswich, Lynn, Medford, Spencer, and Tewksbury records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage. Not yet identified beyond doubt, but having all the characteristics of dysentery, were the fairly severe epidemics in Chelmsford, Dunstable, Harvard, and Lexington, and the less severe ones in Carlisle, Sherborn, and Woburn. Multiple deaths between August and November can be found in the vital records of at least twenty other towns. During this period six members of the Childs family in Lexington and five of the Fletcher family in Chelmsford died. The Larkins of Lancaster, the Merrills of Methuen, and the Newtons of Milford lost four apiece.

 

“In Plainfield, Connecticut, one branch of the Mordock family was destroyed. The story can be briefly summarized by a few words from the diary of the Reverend Thomas Smith of Falmouth, who wrote on September 30, 1778: “There is a terrible dysentery that prevails and rages at the westward. There is not a child three years old left in Mystic.” (Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions…Colonial Society…Mass., V.35, Apr 1942, 62-64)

 

Sources

 

Baldwin, Thomas W. (compiler). Vital Records of Harvard, Massachusetts, to the year 1850. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1912. Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at:  https://books.google.com/books?id=Ejx-pKM5AGYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Baldwin, Thomas W. (compiler). Vital Records of Wakefield, Massachusetts, to the year 1850. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1912. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=qwsO0VE8diAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Brooks, Charles. History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, From its First Settlement in 1630 to 1855 (Revised, Enlarged, and Brought Down to 1885, by James M. Usher.) Boston: Rand, Avery & Company, The Franklin Press, 1886. Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ASwWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

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

 

Cutter, Benjamin and William R. History of the Town of Arlington, Massachusetts. Formerly the Second Precinct in Cambridge or District of Menotomy, afterward the Town of West Cambridge, 1635-1879, with a Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants of the Precinct. Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1880. Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPePzTEEhsYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Draper, James. History of Spencer, Massachusetts, From Its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1860; Including a Brief Sketch of Leicester, To the Year 1753 (2^nd Edition). Worcester, MA: Henry J. Howland, 1864. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=vRcXAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Find A Grave. “Thomas Marshall” (Memorial no. 30162026). Created by Denise, 9-29-2008, citing Old Center Burying Grounds, Tewksbury, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30162026

 

Hopkins, Caitlin G. D. Vast Public Indifference: History, grad school, and gravestones! 7-10-2008. Accessed 2-5-2018 at: http://www.vastpublicindifference.com/2008/07/childs-children.html

 

New England Historic Genealogical Society. Vital Records of East Bridgewater, Massachusetts to the Year 1850. Boston, MA: The Society, 1917. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=7NP3bnSaio8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Plumer, Richard P. Charlotte [NC] and the American Revolution. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=SxF3CQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Vital Records of Ipswich, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849 (Vol. II, Marriages and Deaths). Salem, MA, The Essex Institute, 1910. Google preview accessed 2-6-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=2X8lAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Vital Records of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1849. Salem MA: The Essex Institute, 1912. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=0c8UAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Williams, William W. (Editor). Magazine of Western History, Illustrated (Vol. II, May-Oct 1885). Cleveland, OH: 1885. Google preview accessed 2-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=at46AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=dysentery&f=false

[1] Too little to go on for numbers in CT or Valley Forge, PA winter-spring encampment, NY, or other areas where British or American troops had dysentery as well as those civilian locations they carried it.

[2] Caulfield (1942, pp. 63-64), cites the Rev. Thomas Smith of Falmouth, who wrote on Sep 30, 1778, that “There is a terrible dysentery that prevails and rages at the westward. There is not a child three years old left in Mystic.”

[3] Williams, William W. (Editor). Magazine of Western History, Illustrated (Vol. II, May-Oct 1885). 1885, p. 637.

[4] Both sources are cited in Caulfield 1942, footnote 194.

[5] We note “at least” 16 in that Caulfield only notes deaths in families with multiple deaths.

[6] Caulfield notes fairly severe epidemic of some sort, while noting dysentery was occurring elsewhere in the State. A look through the Vital Records does not show dysentery as the cause for any of the deaths there that year. There are several which could be, such as the loss of four Sawyers (three children) April 6 and 22, Aug 24 and Oct 3.

[7] “the…Ipswich…records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage.”

[8] Caulfield is only noting cases wherein there are multiple deaths within families, probably all children. Notes these deaths occurred between August and November.

[9] “the…Lynn…records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage.”

[10] “Out of the thirty-seven deaths of 1778, eighteen were by dysentery, and twenty were children.” Also, Caulfield (1942, 62-63) notes “the…Medford…records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage.”

[11] Our number based upon Draper statement: “In 1778, the dysentery spread throughout a large part of the town. Many families lost more or less of their young children, frequently two or more within a few days of each other. A few instances only can be given, which will be sufficient to show the ravages made…” Also, Caulfield (1942, pp. 62-63) notes that “the…Spencer…records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage.” Thus if it was of epidemic proportions and Draper notes the loss of four Draper children, while noting that “many families” lost children, then, in order to derive a number for our tally, we translate “many” into ten or more.

[12] Also, Caulfield (1942, pp. 62-63, notes that “the…Tewksbury…records show definitely that dysentery had again reached the epidemic stage.”

[13] “About 2,500 men died at Valley Forge from typhoid, jaundice, dysentery and pneumonia. In the spring of 1778, the North Carolina regiments were so depleted that Washington ordered that the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Regiments be absorbed by the First, Second and Third Regiments.” (Plumer. Charlotte and the American Revolution. 2014.)

— >416  Blanchard tally of “State” breakouts below.[1]

 

Summary of State Breakouts Below

 

Connecticut                 ~  59

Massachusetts             >255

New Jersey                        ?  “dysentery prevailed during the summer”

New York                   >100

Pennsylvania                   >2

Vermont                            ?  “universally present”

 

Connecticut    (~59)

–~59  Blanchard.[2]

—    3  Fairfield. Jacobus (ed). Revolutionary War Records of Fairfield, Connecticut, V3, 1932, 365.

—    ?  New Milford. “in 1777…dysentery prevailed, said…brought from the army…”[3]

—>56  Norfolk. History of Litchfield County, Connecticut, Part 1, p. 471.[4]

 

Massachusetts(>255)

— >8  Athol.  Vital Records of Athol, cited in Caulfield 1942, footnote 191.[5]

—>2  Drury family.

—>2  Haven family.

—>2  Hill family.

—>2  Hudson family

—  73  Conway. Dr. Williams. “Communications of the Massachusetts Medical Society,” p. 336.[6]

—>28  Vital Records of Conway, cited in Caulfield 1942, footnote 191.[7]

—>2  Isaac Amsden family.

—>2  Elisha Amsden family.

—>2  Bancroft family.

—>2  Billings family.

—>2  Catlin family

—>2  Collings family.

—>2  Daniels family.

—>2  Dickinson family.

—>2  Farnsworth family.

—>2  French family.

—>2  Maynard family.

—>2  Rice family.

—>2  Tobey family.

—>2  Wells family.

—>34  Granville. Vital Records of Granville Massachusetts, to the Year 1850.

–1  Moses Allen (child), 1777, camp distemper, p. 176.

–1  Gemima Bancroft, 1777, 68, camp distemper, p. 178.

–1  Malenda Bancroft, Sep 19, 1-year-old, p. 178.

–1  Sarah Bancroft, Sep 12, 5-years old, camp distemper, p. 179.

–1  Thomas Bancroft, 1777, 65, camp distemper, p. 179.

–1  Chena Barlow, 1777, 11-years-old, camp distemper, p. 180.

–1  John Barlow (son of Lt. Edmund Barlow), 1777, 2-years-old, camp distemper, p. 180

–1  Mary Barlow, daughter of Lt. Edmund Barlow, 1777, 1 year-old, p. 181.

–1  Molly Barlow, daughter of Lt. Edmund Barlow, 1777, 5-years, camp distemper, 181.

–1  Abigail Cooley, 1-year old, camp distemper, 1777, p. 190.

–1  Alexander Cooley, Sep 15, 3-years old, camp distemper, p. 190.

–1  Polly Cooley, Sep 11, 2-years-old, camp distemper, p. 192.

–1  Hannah Forbs, 1777, 1-year-old, camp distemper, p. 196.

–1  Stephen Forster, Oct 6, 2-years-old, camp distemper, p. 196.

–1  Polly Fullington, 1777, 2-years old, camp distemper, p. 197.

–1  Demaris Howe (daughter of Ephraim and Damarass), Sep 11, camp distemper, p.205.

–1  Ephraim Howe (son of Ephraim), Sep 7, 7-years old, camp distemper, p. 205.

–1  Tryphena Howe (daughter of Ephraim), Sep 8, age 2, camp distemper, p. 205.

–1  Clarissa Monson, 1777, infant, camp distemper, p. 209.

–1  Eleazer Peters, Aug 31, one-year-old, camp distemper, p. 213.

–1  Rosilla Peters, 1777, 7-years-old, camp distemper, p. 213.

–1  Hiram Pratt, Oct 30, 2 years, 6 months old, camp distemper, p. 214.

–1  Worthy Pratt, 1777, 2-years-old, camp distemper, p. 215.

–1  Sarah Pratt, Oct 1, 60, camp distemper, p. 215.

–1  Amos Root, 1777, 4-years-old, camp distemper, p. 217.

–1  Mary Root, 1777, 2-years-old, camp distemper, p. 218.

–1  Cloe Rowley, 1777, 16-years-old, camp distemper, p. 221.

–1  David Seward, Sep 11, 2 years old, camp distemper, p. 221.

–1  Alexander Strickland, 1777, 3-years-old, camp distemper, p. 227.

–1  Jonathan Strickland, 1777, 7-years-old, camp distemper, p. 228.

–1  Ezekiel Sweatman, Feb 16, camp distemper, p. 229.

–1  Mary Sweatman, March 16, camp distemper, p. 229.

–1  Nathan Wealthy, 1777, camp distemper, p. 220.

–1  Thomas Williams (child), 1777, camp distemper, p. 234.

—  50  Greenfield. Stephen Williams. “Communications…Massachusetts Medical Society,” 336.

—>14  Greenfield. Vital Records of Greenfield, cited in Caulfield 1942, footnote 191.[8]

—>2  Arms family.

—>2  Graves family.

—>2  Grenell family.

—>2  Lemuel Hastings family.

—>2  Medad Hastings family.

—>2  McHeard family.

—>2  Smead family.

—>10  Royalston. Vital Records of Royalston, and Caswell, History of Royalston, 459.[9]

—>2  Bragg family.

—>2  Metcalf family.

—>2  Richardson family.

—>2  Tytes family.

—>2  Woodbury family.

—  80  Shelburne. Stephen Williams. “Communications…Massachusetts Medical Society,” 336.

 

New Jersey     (    ?)

–?  Rush. Medical Inquiries and Observations (Vol. I, 2^nd Edition). 1805, pp. 273-274.[10]

–?  Wickes. History of Medicine in New Jersey, and of its Medical Men. 1879, p. 68.[11]

 

New York       (>100)

—>100  Blanchard.[12]

—      ?  Lake Champlain. “American soldiers…suffered severely from dysentery during 1777.”[13]

–100s. NYC. Petriello. Bacteria and Bayonets…Impact of Disease…American Military…, 101.[14]

—     1  Staten Island, Oct 7, Richard Charlton. Society for…Propagation…Gospel. 1898, 855.

 

Pennsylvania  (  >2)

–1  Philadelphia area, July 31. Dysentery.[15]

–1  Philadelphia, Aug 15. Catharine Hofmann, 15. Records of the American Catholic… p. 395.

 

Vermont         (?)

–?  “In the summer of 1776 and…of 1777, the dysentery was universally prevalent.”[16]

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “The American soldiers at Lake Champlain suffered severely from dysentery during 1777. Burgoyne also had plenty of sickness among his troops. Baroness Riedesel, who was with the British forces, described what she saw on the night before the crucial battle of that campaign: “The whole entry was filled with the sick, who were suffering with the camp sickness, a kind of dysentery.

 

“In the new settlements of Vermont dysentery raged with “great severity” during 1777.[17]

 

“In Athol and surrounding towns in Massachusetts there were numerous deaths from some epidemic disease, with a clue to the diagnosis furnished by the Royalston records, which show at least forty deaths from dysentery in a population of about six hundred.[18] In Granville, too, the camp distemper was very bad.[19] Similar but smaller epidemics occurred in some small towns in the Berkshires.

 

“In western Connecticut, particularly in Norfolk, Litchfield, and Fairfield, there were some dreadful epidemics. That in Norfolk was said to have destroyed ten percent of the population.

(pp. 61-62.)

 

Moyer: “Sickness was always a cause for concern in early America, and during the Revolutionary War dangerous diseases stalked the land. Army camps provided the perfect breeding grounds for pathogens, and armies on the move spread illness in the wake. Abner Brownell noted one such episode in the summer of 1777, when New England suffered from a ‘great Pestilence of the Bloody Flux [dysentery].’ Brownell’s reaction to the epidemic is significant. He wrote that the outbreak ‘greatly awakened me; Seeing So much Mortality as Expecting that Soon it would be my Turn.” It was this sense of his own mortality combined with the desire to secure salvation that sparked his religious seeking.” (Moyer. The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America. 2015, p. 40-41.)

 

Sources

 

American Catholic Historical Society. Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, Vol. III, 1888-91. The Society, 1891. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=MaVJAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

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

 

Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (Vol. 1, Part 1). New Haven, CT: Oliver Steele and Co., 1810. Accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=YGBJAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Daniels, Olive Bell. The Green, Sabin, Elliot, and Jerome Ancestry of Sarah Greer Slater; Rev. Jerome Greer, Vesta Greer Peeke, Mary Elliot Greer Bell, John Kingsley Greer, Frank Sabin Greer, and Their Descendents. Madison: University of Wisconsin, College Print. & Typing Co, 1969, digital version 11-7-2007. Google snippet accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=cjtPAAAAMAAJ&q=1777+dysentery+connecticut&dq=1777+dysentery+connecticut&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSlLfl4IrZAhWHm1kKHe3SBns4ChDoAQgmMAA

 

Forry, Samuel, M.D.: “Account of a Malignant Fever which prevailed at Rondout, Ulster County, New York, in the months of August and September 1843…” The New York Journal of Medicine, Nov 1843. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=YicgAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=forry&f=false

 

History of Litchfield County, Connecticut, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers. Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1881. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=DyBEAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Jacobus, Donald Lines (Editor), abstracted by Kate S. Curry. Revolutionary War Records of Fairfield, Connecticut (Volume 3). Originally published in 1932 as Volume III of History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. Reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, Baltimore, MD, 2004. Google digital preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=nY8cJB47MzEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Moyer, Paul Benjamin. The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America. Cornell University Press, 2015. Google preview accessed 2-4-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ce5IDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

New England Historic Genealogical Society. Vital Records of Granville Massachusetts to the Year 1850. Boston, MA: NEHG Society, 1914. Google digital preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=MyIlAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Petriello, David R. Bacteria and Bayonets: The Impact of Disease in American Military History. Havertown PA and Oxford: Casemate Publishers, 2015. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=yF-qCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Rush, Benjamin. Medical Inquiries and Observations (Vol. 1 of 4, 2^nd Edition). Philadelphia, J. Conrad & Co., 1805. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=y3EFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1892 (Sixth Edition). London: The Society, 1898. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Uh4RAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#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

 

Wickes, Stephen, M.D. History of Medicine in New Jersey, and of its Medical Men. Newark, NJ: Martin R. Dennis & Co., 1879. Google preview accessed 2-3-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=4X5IAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

[1] From descriptions we have read and from sources noted herein, we have the impression of probably hundreds more deaths than the ones we show here. But, this will have to do until we locate additional data.

[2] We have it that 56 deaths took place in Norfolk, but that probably something like 6-9 were from other causes. We know there were 3 deaths in Fairfield. We know that dysentery “prevailed” in New Milford, but have no numbers or details, and thus cannot presume to know what “prevailed” entailed. We presume that there were other deaths in CT in the ranks of the army and civilian population, but have not seen data. As a stand-in number until more data come to our attention, we will assume approximately 59, though, again, we believe the actual number is higher.

[3] CT Academy of Arts and Sciences. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 1, Part 1, 133.

[4] “A heavier loss…was occasioned in 1777-78, when the camp fever, now called dysentery, became prevalent and carried many to the grave. The number of burials in town…for 1977, is 56.” Notes that for 1775 it was 9, for 1779 it was 6 and for 1780 it was 9. A footnote to this text is: “Dr. Roys, in his history, states that 56 were swept off by the camp distemper in 1777, and 38 by the same disorder in 1778. As these figures correspond almost exactly with the whole number whom Mr. Robbins buried in those years, Dr. Roys would appear to have fallen into error, for it is next to impossible that every death in town for two years should have been caused by dysentery.”

[5] Caulfield notes “multiple” deaths in named family. Not knowing how many deaths this is per family we use “>2.”

[6] “In 1777, both small-pox and dysentery were rife [in New England]; and of the latter disease, which prevailed extensively also in the towns of Greenfield, Shelburne, and Conway [all in Franklin County, MA], there died in the first, fifty — in the second, eighty — and in the third, seventy-three. The population of these places were, in the order of their occurrence, 900, 700, and 1000.” Paper of the “venerable Dr. Stephen Williams” is drawn from in: Dr. Samuel Forry paper: “Account of a Malignant Fever which prevailed at Rondout, Ulster County, New York, in the months of August and September 1843…” The New York Journal of Medicine, Nov 1843.

[7] Our number based on Caulfield’s notation of “multiple” deaths in 14 named families. In that we only know that “multiple” must mean at least two, this is the number we used to multiply against 14 to derive at least 28 deaths.

[8] Our number based on Caulfield’s notation of “multiple” deaths in 7 named families. In that we only know that “multiple” must mean at least two, this is the number we used to multiply against 7 to derive at least 14 deaths.

[9] Caulfield 1942, footnote 191.

[10] “The dysentery prevailed, in the summer of 1777, in the military hospitals of New-Jersey, but with very few instances of mortality.”

[11] “The dysentery prevailed in the summer of 1777 in the military hospitals of New Jersey, but without mortality.”

[12] Our number. We know dysentery was prevalent in northern NY within the Continental Army, but we do not have mortality numbers. We also know dysentery was prevalent in the NYC area. As we note, Petriello writes that “hundreds” died in NYC as smallpox, dysentery, and typhoid spread into the civilian population from the prevalence of those diseases amongst American prisoners on prison ships in the harbor, where, incidentally, large numbers died.  The CDC in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report “Bicentennial Issue” notes that in the Albany NY hospital more patients had been seen by Aug 20, 1777 (81) for dysentery than for any other disease. The next highest was intermittent fever, which came in at 79 patients, and the third, diarrhea, at 61 patients. The 4^th leading cause was rheumatism at 22 patients seen. Not noted is number of deaths. (Cites: Potts Papers II, p. 283, “A Return of the Present State of the General Hospital at Albany, 20 August 1777.) Again, though, we have not seen estimates of mortality. We speculate that “100 or more” is a very conservative number.

[13] Caulfield 1942, pp. 61-62.

[14] “The pestilences that began in the prisons and aboard the moored hulks quickly spread to the inhabitants of New York City. smallpox, dysentery, and typhoid erupted by the winter of 1777. Hundreds of more victims were thus added to the already growing death toll of the prisons.”

[15] Daniels, Olive Bell. The Green, Sabin, Elliot, and Jerome Ancestry of Sarah Greer Slater; Rev. Jerome Greer, Vesta Greer Peeke, Mary Elliot Greer Bell, John Kingsley Greer, Frank Sabin Greer, and Their Descendents. Madison: University of Wisconsin, College Print. & Typing Co, 1969, digital version 11-7-2007.

[16] Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil and Statistical, in Three Parts. 1842, p. 220.

[17] Cites, in footnote 190: Gallup, Epidemic Diseases in Vermont, p. 33.

[18] Cites, in footnote 191: Vital Records of Athol, Vital Records of Conway, Vital Records of Greenfield, Vital Records of Royalston, and Caswell, History of Royalston, p. 459.

[19] Cites, in footnote 192: Vital Records of Granville.

— >76  Blanchard tally based on State breakouts below.

 

Connecticut                (   ?)

–?  Kulikoff. “soldiers spread smallpox and dysentery throughout coastal Connecticut in 1776.”[1]

 

Massachusetts            (>15)

— >10  Chester, Aug 7-Oct 2. Vital Records of Chester. Cited in Caulfield 1942, p. 61, fn. 187.

— >2  Blackman family.

— >2  Ellis family.

— >2  French family.

— >2  Geers family.

— >2  Johnson family.

—   ?  Kingston. Very mortal. (Caulfield. “Some…Diseases of Colonial Children.” 1942, 60-62.)

— >5  Roxbury. Reverend Samuel Danforth notes “many” deaths; MMWR, CDC, 1776, p. 4.[2]

 

New Jersey                 (51)

–25  Morristown. Record of First Presbyterian Church. Cited in Caulfield 1942, p. 61, fn. 189.

–4  Prudden family members.

–5  Reeve family members.

–26  Pleasantdale,[3] July 23-Sep 24. Jemima Condict diary, in Rae. People’s War. P. 220-221.[4]

–1  July 23                  Adonijah Harrison.

–1  Aug 6                    Child of John Ogdens.

–1  Aug 16                  Jered Freman.

–2  Date not noted.     Isaac Freman children with “the Same Distemper.”

–1  Aug 17                  John Freman child.

–1  Aug 25                  Sam Smith’s child.

–2  Aug 30                  Amos Burrel’s child, and Joseph Pierson’s child.

–1  Aug 30                  Timothy Crane “with the Same Distemper.”

–1  Sep 2                    Thomas Freman’s daughter.

–1  Sep 3                    John Freman.

–2  Sep 4                    Jonathan Smith’s child and Jonathan Condict’s daughter.

–2  Sep 8                    Jabez William’s child and Abel Freman child.

–1  Sep 8                    Widow of John Freman lost a child.

–1  Sep 8~                  John Dod child.

–1  Sep 9                    Another daughter of Jonathan Condict.

–3  No date.                “Enock Beach has Lost three of his Children in About a fortnight.”

–1  Sep 10                  Wife of Joseph Williams.

–1  Sep 15                  Jabes Regs.

–1  Sep 22                  “they Buried his [Jabes Regs] third Child…”

–1  Sep 24                  Wife of Jabes Regs. [Blanchard: Google preview ends here.]

 

New York                   (10)

–>10  Blanchard “stand-in” minimum number.[5]

—    ?  Lake George. Continental Army decimated by camp distemper throughout the summer.[6]

—    ?  Long Island. New England army camp there “full of ‘Fluxes, Fevers, & Smallpox’.”[7]

—    1  New York. Caulfield cites Fithian [who died] description of hospitals as full of dysentery.[8]

—    ?  Upstate NY. Continental Army was in upstate NY, in 1776, and experienced dysentery.[9]

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “If there is any question about dysentery in the Army during 1775, at least there can be no doubt about it during 1776. In June, Captain John Lacey wrote in his journal that the New England camp on Long Island was full of “Fluxes, Fevers, & Smallpox.” In July “The General [was] pained to observe” the frightful condition of the latrines and ordered all filth in and about the camp to be buried daily. The Chief Surgeon of the Hessian forces said that after they arrived in July, hardly a man escaped without dysentery or fever. Young Philip Fithian, describing the American military hospitals in New York, said: “In every apartment are many with the Dysentery”—and this was just before he himself contracted the disease and died. Dr. Ebenezer Beardsley also said that dysentery was rife in the Army during July, August, and September.[10]

 

“James Tilton described the condition of the camp at King’s Bridge: ‘All manner of excrementitious matter was scattered indiscriminately throughout the camp . . . A putrid diarrhea was the consequence. The camp disease, as it was called, became proverbial. Many died, melting as it were, and running off at the bowels.’ On October 4 Washington’s order of the day called attention to the ‘shameful inattention in some camps, to decency and cleanliness.’ At that time it was estimated that one-third of his forces were unfit for duty because of sickness.

 

“Elsewhere, too, there was ample reason to fear ‘more loss of men from Camp sickness than from y^e Gun & Bayonet.’[11] The Reverend Ammi Robbins, heartily distressed “midst sickness and death” while with the forces around Lake George, described the men, first terror-stricken by smallpox in April, then decimated by camp distemper throughout the summer.[12] At one time less than 50 out of a force of 240 men were able to carry on. At the peak of the epidemic five men were being buried daily. Webster was an eyewitness to the ‘terrible fatal’ dysentery among the troops at Ticonderoga. ‘I was at Mount Independence in October, and witness to the ravages of the disease. Of thirteen thousand troops, it was said that one half were unfit for duty.’

 

“ ‘The dysentery which prevailed in most parts of the United States in the year 1776’ was said to have been ‘very mortal’ in Kingston, Massachusetts, but neither in Kingston nor in other Massachusetts towns do my records reveal any terrible epidemics unless the one in Chester, in western Massachusetts, was caused by that disease.[13]

 

“In West Hartford, Connecticut, a two-year epidemic started with the deaths of about twenty soldiers ‘in y^e Camp,’ but most of the multiple deaths among children occurred the following summer [1777].[14]

 

“There was another moderately severe epidemic in Middletown. In one parish in Morristown, New Jersey, there were twenty-five dysentery deaths including those of five members of the Reeve family and four Pruddens.[15] All in all, however, there was nothing comparable to 1775.”

(Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, pp. 60-62.)

 

CDC MMWR 1976: “Reverend Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, Massachusetts, in describing an outbreak of the bloody flux, wrote on July 20, 1776, ‘It was a very sickly time [with] many being visited with gripings, vomiting and flux, with a fever which proved fatal to many infants & little children esp’lly but also to some grown persons.’ (1) A colonist involved in the outbreak claimed hat his condition was ‘truly pitiable’ for he had ‘not had one day or one Nights Ease or rest these days past & do less than 15 times a night I am obliged to get up and that accompanied by the Most excruciating pains in my Bowels, my Back and my Loins!’….(1)

 

“Many of the involved took a variety of variety of cures. A colonist described the disease as ‘an obstinate Diarrhea, that will yield to no Medicine or Skill of the Physician.’ A physician beseeched his patient to take some ‘pilles…made of grated pepper made up with turpentine, and some pepper withhall.’ ‘Butter or oil with a Portion of Beer and Molasses’ was a popular cure advanced by the Boston Weekly News Letter. (1) Another physician urged affected patients to ‘Take an Egge and Boyle it very hard and then pull off the Shell and put it as hot as you can well endure, into the fundament of the patient grieved and when it is much abated of the heat put in another Egge in the same manner and it will cure.’ (1)

 

“The Outbreak ended but not before ‘many both elder and young Persons (were) taken down with Fever and Flux (and) died after less than a Weeks Illness.”[16]

 

Packard: “In 1776 dysentery was prevalent throughout North America, and particularly so in the various camps which covered the country. In Northern New York it was terribly fatal. Webster devotes much space to the attempt to prove that camp-life had nothing to do with the epidemic, but there is no doubt that in many instances the disease was propagated by the conditions in which the soldiery were placed. Dr. Ebenezer Beardsley wrote an interesting account of the outbreak of dysentery in the Twenty-third Regiment of the Continental army, which he attributed to overcrowding in barracks, which were likewise poorly ventilated. The regiment was quartered in New York at the time.”[17] (pp. 100-101.)

 

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

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The Bloody Flux — Massachusetts,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Bicentennial Issue). Vol. 25, July 1976, p. 4. Google preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Ci8gAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Kulikoff, Allan. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers. University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Google digital preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=zK8TBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Packard, Francis Randolph, M.D. The History of Medicine in the United States. Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1901. Google preview accessed 1-26-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dCxAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Rae, Noel. The People’s War: Original Voices of the American Revolution. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2012. Google preview accessed 2-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=2keLBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Kulikoff. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers. 2000, p. 255.)

[2] Five is our number based on statement that the bloody flux had “proven fatal to many infants & little children esp’ly but also to some grown persons.”

[3] We could not locate “Pleasantdale” in a Google search, but this is the name Noel Rae writes as the location of the diarist Jemima Condict.

[4] Memima Condict notes in her diary that the “Blody flux” began on July 23. We have left out the deaths of two elderly persons in that their deaths could have been due to some other cause, or possibly not. Indeed, some of the deaths noted herein may be due to some other cause, but it is clear from the way these diary entries started that the diarist was speaking of the bloody flux (dysentery). She also notes the deaths of several residents from “the Camp Disorder” [dysentery] while off with the Continental Army.

[5] Ten or more is our stand in number given our failure to locate specific numbers as opposed to descriptions of dismal conditions and mortality in several parts of the State.

[6] Caulfield 1942.

[7] Caulfield 1942, pp. 60-61.

[8] Caulfield 1942, pp. 60-61.

[9] Packard: “In Northern New York it was terribly fatal.” (p. 100)

[10] Cites, in fn. 184: Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, I. 542; Cases and Observations, 68.

[11] Cites, in footnote 185: Penn. Mag. Hist. & Biog., CXCIII (October, 1899), p. 394.

[12] Cites, in fn. 186: Theron W. Crissey, History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut (Everett, 1900), 105-116.

[13] Cites, in footnote 187: Vital Records of Chester.

[14] Cites, in footnote 188: West Harford Bill of Mortality (MS., Conn. State Library).

[15] Cites, in footnote 189: The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., I (July, 1880), 55.

[16] The number (1) in the text refers to the reference source: Duffy, J. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: State University Press, 1953.

[17] In footnote 34 notes: “Dr. Beardsley’s paper was published in the first volume of the Transactions of the New Haven County Medical Society. This was the first volume of transactions ever published by a medical society in this country.”

–16  Blanchard total of the breakouts Caulfield produces in footnote 52.

 

–2  Biglow family.     Vital Records of Athol, 185; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–2  Commins family.  Vital Records of Athol, 189; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–3  Dunton family.     Vital Records of Athol, 192; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–3  Foster family.       Vital Records of Athol, 195; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–2  Sanders family.     Vital Records of Athol, 218; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–2  Stockwell family. Vital Records of Athol, 221; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.

–2  Stone family.        Vital Records of Athol, 185; in Caulfield, 1942, p. 22, footnote 52.[1]

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield (Diphtheria section of his paper): “Though the disease in eastern Massachusetts seems to have quieted down considerably after the seventeen-sixties, it continued its periodic outbreaks in the small towns of the north-central section. An epidemic in Westminister in 1764 was followed by another in Athol in 1776 and another more severe one in Princeton and surrounding towns in Worcester County during 1786.”[2] (“Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. 35, April 1942, p. 23.)

 

Source

 

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

 

[1] Notes no causes stated. Caulfield does list these deaths with the other deaths in Athol epidemic which he believes was diphtheria.

[2] Cites Vital Records of Athol, 185, 189, 193, 195, 218, and 221.

— >482  Blanchard tally of State and local breakouts below.[1]

 

Connecticut    (>146)

–>21  Coventry. Susan W. Dimock. Births, Marriages, Baptisms and Deaths in Coventry, 1897.[2]

–2  Ames family.

–2  Brigham family.

–2  Carpenter family.

–3  Colman family.

–3  Curtiss family.

–4  Cushman family.

–2  Jones family.

–3  Mead family.

–100  Danbury. Noah Webster, Epidemic…Diseases, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 59-60.[3]

—    ?  Lebanon. Rev. Solomon Williams, Dec 3, notes abatement of the “sore sickness.” Caulfield.

—  24  Middletown, Aug 11-Nov 19. Middletown First Society, cited in Caulfield 1942, 59-60.

—    1  Wintonbury. One of several “sever epidemics” in CT. Caulfield, 1942, pp. 59-60.[4]

 

Delaware        ( ?)  Caulfield cites Philip Vickers Fithian noting his hope it would stop in DE.

 

Maryland       ( ?) Caulfield citing Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776. 1934, p. 32, 94.[5]

 

Massachusetts (326)

—>12  Bellingham. Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58, citing Vital Records of Bellingham.

–2  Hill family. Vital Records of Bellingham, pp. 189-190.

–3  Eliphalet Holbrook family. Vital Records of Bellingham, pp. 190-194.

–3  Luke Holbrook family. Vital Records of Bellingham, pp. 190-194.

–4  Scott family. Vital Records of Bellingham, pp. 209-210.

—>10  Boston, summer, Jonathan Sewell.[6]

–2  Cotton family. Massachusetts Spy, July 19, 1775 (in Caulfield 1942, 55-56).

–2  Wiswall family. Massachusetts Spy, July 19, 1775 (in Caulfield 1942, 55-56).

—>12  Braintree. Abigail Adams letter to husband, John Adams, cited in Caulfield 1942, 56-57.[7]

—  >7  Brimfield. Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield, in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–3  Bacon family. Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield. Springfield 1879, 90.

–2  Moffatt fam. Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield. Springfield 1879, 369.

–2  Sherman fam. Historical Celebration of…Town of Brimfield. Springfield 1879, 453.

—    ?  Brookline. Epidemic there but less serious than in Groton, Medford and Sutton.[8]

—    1  Cambridge. Cpt. Elihu Adams (brother of John). McCullough. John Adams. NYT.[9]

—    1  Charlestown. Nathan Day, of dysentery, in army camp.[10]

—>15  Chelmsford. Caulfield 1942, 57-58, cites Waters, History of Chelmsford, p. 721.

–3  Butterfield family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, pp. 371-373.

–2  Campbell family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, p. 374.

–2  Chamberlain family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, pp. 376-377.

–2  Isaac Parker family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, pp. 419-420.

–2  Philip Parker family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, pp. 419-420.

–2  Proctor family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, p. 431.

–2  Robbins family. Vital Records of Chelmsford, p. 436.

—    3  Concord, Aug-Oct. Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 17. 2015.

—  >3  Dedham.[11] Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

—    ?  East Bridgewater. Epidemic there but less serious than in Groton, Medford and Sutton.[12]

—>15  Groton (“severe” “epidemic”). Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.[13]

—  15  Lexington (10 children), Aug-Oct. Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 17. 2015.

—    4  Lincoln, Aug-Oct. Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 17. 2015.

–~50  Marlborough (out of population of about 1,400).  Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.[14]

—>23  Medford. Brooks, Whitmore and Usher. History of the town of Medford, in Cataldo, 18.[15]

—  >7  Medway. Vital Records of Medway, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–5  Adams family. Vital Records of Medway, pp. 283-288.

–2  Hammond family. Vital Records of Medway, p. 312.

–~50  Needham, one parish. Rev. Samuel West, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 56-57.[16]

–7  Family (wife and six children) of Joseph Daniels. (Rev. Samuel West Memoirs).[17]

—    1  Newbury. John Pearson, Sep 28, having returned home from army sick with dysentery.[18]

—  >8  Plympton. Vital Records of Plympton, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–4  Boney family. Vital Records of Plympton, p. 443.

–4  Churchil family. Vital Records of Plympton, pp. 458-459.

—    1  Roxbury, Aug 16. Lt. John Bowen. Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 14.[19]

—>20  Sharon.  Vital Records of Sharon, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–5  Clifford Belcher family. Vital Records of Sharon, p. 152.

–4  Jeremiah Belcher family. Vital Records of Sharon, p. 152.

–2  Bird family. Vital Records of Sharon, p. 154.

–2  Coney family. Vital Records of Sharon, p. 159.

–5  Richards family. Vital Records of Sharon, pp. 184-186.

–2  Withington family. Vital Records of Sharon, pp. 192-193.

—  10  Stow (8 children), Middlesex Co. Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 17. 2015.

—    3  Sudbury. Wright Richardson Journal, noted in colonialspinningbee.blogspot, 9-1-2015.[20]

—  17  Sutton. Caulfield 1942, pp. 56-57, and 57-58.[21]

—    ?  Tewksbury. Epidemic there but less serious than in Groton, Medford and Sutton.[22]

—    ?  Wakefield. Epidemic there but less serious than in Groton, Medford and Sutton.[23]

—  27  Westford, July 25-Sep 23. >2% of pop. (Colonialspinningbee.blogspot.com, 9-1-2015.)[24]

—  25  Westford (23 children), Aug-Oct. Judy Cataldo. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, slide 17. 2015.

–2  Dutton family. Vital Records of Westford, p. 275, cited in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–4  Keyes family. Vital Records of Westford, pp. 293-294, in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–2  Read family. Vital Records of Westford, p. 307-309, in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–3  Robinson family. Vital Records of Westford, p. 312, in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–2  Smith family. Vital Records of Westford, pp. 313-314, in Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

–4  Ephraim Wright fam. Vital Records of Westford, p. 321-325, Caulfield 1942, 57-58.

–2  Thomas Wright fam. Vital Records of Westford, 321-325, in Caulfield 1942, p.57-58.

—    1  Weston. Nathan Stone, Aug., on way home from army to Sutton sick with dysentery.

—    ?  Weymouth. Abigail Adams writes husband John that Weymouth was “very sickly.”[25]

—>10  Winchendon. Hyde, Ezra. History of the Town of Winchendon. 1849, p. 60.[26]

 

New Jersey     (>10)

— >10  Cumberland Co. Elmer. History of…Settlement…of Cumberland County [NJ]. 1869. 63.[27]

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “If ever there was a dysentery year in New England, it was the memorable year of 1775. On the surface it seems that during this and the next three years dysentery caused the deaths of more children than all other diseases combined. At this late date, chiefly because the newspapers of that time were devoted almost exclusively to war and politics, it is difficult to find detailed descriptions of many local epidemics; but it was a rare New England town that sometime during these four years did not experience an epidemic that would begin in mid-summer, reach its peak in autumn, and disappear in winter, meanwhile killing off children in groups of twos and threes and fours. Occasionally, in some towns, the epidemic would last two summers, while in other towns there would be two separate epidemics, one in 1775 and another in 1778. Altogether it was one of the most fatal periods for children in colonial history.

 

“As early as June 17, 1775, the ‘Bloody Flux [was] already very bad in Maryland.’ Early in August, Philip Fithian made another note in his diary: ‘. . . many Disorders, chiefly the Flux, are now raging in the lower Counties, Chester, Newcastle &c. I pray God Delaware may be a Bar & stop that painful & deadly disorder. Enough has it ravaged our poor Cohansians . . .’[28]

 

“It was characteristic of dysentery years for the disease to break out in the southern and middle colonies before it broke out in New England. But also contributing greatly to the magnitude of the New England epidemic were the British troops in Boston and the American troops in Cambridge. The first reports of the disease appeared in the newspapers during July: ‘We hear the camp distemper rages in the regular army in Boston, as also among the distressed inhabitants who are confined in that town by order of Tom. Gage, in open violation of his most solemn engagement. It is to be hoped he will meet the fate of Pharoah of old, whose example he so exactly follows.’[29] In August a letter sent through the lines mentioned that two members of the Cotton family and two of the Wiswall family were dead of the flux.[30] It was also learned that three thousand British troops were sick.[31] Apparently by the end of August the disease had appeared in many inland towns, for there was published on the front page of the Massachusetts Spy a whole column of medical news entitled ‘A Cure for the Bloody Flux.’[32]

 

“…Dr. John Morgan, who was at the scene, said that army hospitals were crowded and that contagious diseases, including dysentery, were rampant.[33] Certainly if this army camp was anything like the others during 1776 and 1777, conditions were deplorable. It has been authoritatively stated that more wounded men died from contagious diseases after they reached army hospitals than died from the effects of their wounds. Noah Webster, who did not believe that dysentery was contagious and who ridiculed all his contemporaries who disagreed, tried to prove that the Army was not responsible for the spread of dysentery to civilians by pointing out that there were malignant epidemics during 1773 and that even some 1775 epidemics could have had no relation to returning soldiers. But Webster had no conception of “healthy” carriers, and carriers were undoubtedly a major source of trouble. It is difficult to prove this by the evidence now at hand, but there are a few suggestive items. It so happens, for instance, that the first deaths in the Marlborough epidemic of 1775 were in the family of Colonel Abraham Williams, and there are other instances of multiple deaths of children whose brothers or fathers were serving in the war…

 

“It makes little difference whether or not the Army got its dysentery from British or American sources, for the fact remains that the Army, once infected, was the source of many disastrous local epidemics. The best evidence of this is from the autobiography of the Reverend Samuel West, minister at Needham in 1775:

 

The Dysentery soon prevailed in the American Army & extended itself more or less through the Country. Although it prevailed most in the Town near camp, my Parish partook largely of this calamity. We buried about 50 persons in the course of the season. Some families were dreadfully bereaved. One in particular a Mr. Joseph Daniels buried an amiable wife & 6 very promising Children in about 6 weeks—we often buried 3 or 4 in a day. My time was wholly devoted to visiting the sick, attendance on the dying & the dead.[34]

 

“Writing to her husband about the sickness in her family, Abigail, wife of John Adams,[35] vividly described the epidemic in Braintree. ‘The desolation of war is not so distressing as the havoc made by the pestilence. Some poor parents are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children; and some families are wholly stripped of every member . . . ’Tis a dreadful time with the whole province. Sickness and death are in almost every family. I have no more shocking and terrible idea of any distemper, except the plague, than this.’

 

“The Marlborough records are complete enough to show that the epidemic in that town was the “most destructive” in its history.[36] Out of a population of one thousand four hundred there were seventy-eight deaths during 1775, perhaps fifty from camp distemper. The vital records show many multiple deaths.

 

“In Dedham…August 29, 1775, there was a ‘Parish Fast on acc^t of the mortal Dysentery’ which had been raging for at least a week;[37] and in Groton, Medford, and Sutton the epidemics appear to have been severe. Those in Brookline, East Bridgewater, Tewksbury, and Wakefield appear less serious on the basis of incomplete records. Of the more than twenty-five still unidentified but simultaneous epidemics, the worst were in Bellingham, Brimfield, Chelmsford, Medway, Plympton, Sharon, and Westford.

 

“In addition there were scattered dysentery deaths but no evidence of serious epidemics in numerous other towns in eastern Massachusetts. A Thanksgiving proclamation dated November 4, 1775, mentions the “wasting sickness . . . in many of our Towns,” although by that time it was apparently subsiding, for the “voice of health” was once again being heard.[38]

 

“In Connecticut, according to Noah Webster, there were one hundred dysentery deaths in Danbury;[39] and in Middletown dysentery followed in the wake of “cynanche maligna” in the spring.[40] There were severe epidemics also in Wethersfield, Wintonbury, and, particularly, Coventry. The Reverend Solomon Williams preached a sermon on December 3, 1775, on the abatement of the ‘sore sickness’ accompanied by multiple deaths in Lebanon and ‘in many towns.’[41]” (Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” 1942, pp. 55-60.)

 

Hyde: “Seasons of great Mortality, Sudden Deaths, &c.

 

“Few towns have been favored with more general health than this; yet there have been seasons of great mortality. The disorders which have prevailed to the greatest extent, have been the dysentery and the canker-rash. In 1775, the dysentery, then called ‘fever and flux,’ or ‘camp distemper,’ prevailed: some aged people, and many children died.” (Hyde. History of the Town of Winchendon. 1849, p. 60.)

 

Miller: “Diseases spread quickly in the filthy, overcrowded conditions [of army camps]. Deadly typhoid, smallpox, and dysentery killed thousands. One Delaware doctor recorded that ten to twenty soldiers died of disease for every one killed in battle.” (Miller. Growing Up in Revolution and the New Nation, 1775-1800. 2003, p. 13.)

 

Sources

 

Bell, Michael. Food for the Dead. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2011 Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=xSwMELSIxkYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Brooks, Charles. History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, From its First Settlement in 1630 to 1855 (Revised, Enlarged, and Brought Down to 1885, by James M. Usher.) Boston: Rand, Avery & Company, The Franklin Press, 1886. Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ASwWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Cataldo, Judy. 1775 Dysentery Epidemic (presentation of 21 slides). 3-27-2015. Accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://www.slideshare.net/judycataldo7/historycamp2015-1775-dysentery-epidemic

 

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

 

Colonialspinningbee.blogspot.com, 9-1-2015. Accessed 2-1-2018 at: http://colonialspinningbee.blogspot.com/2015/09/?m=0

 

 

Elmer, Lucius Q. C. History of the Early Settlement and Progress of Cumberland County, New Jersey; and of the Currency of This and the Adjoining Colonies. Bridgeton, NJ: George F. Nixon, Publisher, 1869. Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=xvMCRguVjLoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Find A Grave. “Lieut Samuel Foot, Sr.” Record created on 3-26-2012 by M. Cooley. Accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87418187/Samuel-Foot

 

Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, with Narratives of Incidents and Occurrences in 1775. Cincinnati: H. W. Derby & Co., Publishers, 1852. Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=iL9cAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Hyde, Ezra. History of the Town of Winchendon, from the Grant of the Township by the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1735, to the Present Time. Worcester: Henry J. Howland, 1849. Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=-WJZAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Marvin, Rev. A. P. History of the Town of Winchendon, (Worcester County, Mass.,) from the Grant of Ipswich Canada in 1735, to the Present Time. Winchendon: By author, 1868 Google preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=v2CuIDaPtaIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Miller, Brandon Marie. Growing Up in Revolution and the New Nation, 1775-1800. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 2003. Google digital preview accessed 2-1-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=WDxu48f2bJIC&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, DT: 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] These are just a tally of numbers we have seen. By reading description of the widespread and virulent nature of this epidemic I would speculate that hundreds died, whose deaths are not reflected herein.

[2] Cited by Caulfield, in footnote 182. Pages in Dimock noted are pp. 177-179, 187, and 222.

[3] Michael Bell, in Food for the Dead (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2011, p. 243) writes that “In the four hundred families of the First Church in Danbury, Connecticut, one hundred people had died of the camp distemper by November 1774, and according to the  minister, many other towns had been similarly stricken.”

[4] Caulfield, in footnote 182, notes, “See New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., LXXI, 304-305.” The one death we note is from Findagrave.com, of a soldier, Lt. Samuel Foot, Sr. Specifically notes the cause of death as “`The Camp Distemper,’ dysentery that ran rampant through the war camps.”

[5] “As early as June 17, 1775, the ‘Bloody Flux [was] already very bad in Maryland.’”

[6] Wrote “Death has so long stalked among us that he is become much less terrible to me than he once was…Funerals are now so frequent that for a month past you meet as many dead folks as live ones in Boston streets, and we pass them with much less emotion and attention than we used to pass dead sheep and oxen in days of yore when such sights were to be seen in our streets.” (Quoted by Judy Cataldo in 1775 Dysentery Epidemic slide presentation (slide 11). Caulfield (1942) pp. 55-56, notes that British troops in Boston helped spread dysentery amongst citizens there.

[7] Our number. Caulfield quotes from her letter: “Some poor parents are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children; and some families are wholly stripped of every member…Sickness and death are in almost every family.” To obtain a minimum number we simply added the three, four, and five deaths per family noted.

[8] Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

[9] While we note just this one death, Caulfield writes that Colonial troops had helped to spread dysentery to civilian population. (Caulfield 1942, pp. 55-56.)

[10] Marvin, Rev. A. P. History of the Town of Winchendon, (Worcester County, Mass.,). 1868, p. 359.

[11] The number is our attempt to come with a minimum number to add to tally, based on fact that a Fast was held on Aug 29 in response to “the mortal Dysentery” which had been, in Caulfield’s words, “raging for at least a week.”

[12] Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

[13] Caulfield notes, in footnote 177 that there were multiple deaths in at least seven families: Champney, Hazen, Keys, Moors, Patch, Quailes, and Stone families, though the cause of death is not noted. Notes the death of Abigail Kinrick on Sep 5 that is “expressly attributed to dysentery.”

[14] Notes, at pp. 56-57, that the first deaths were in the family of Colonel Abraham Williams.

[15] “1775: During this and some following years, there was fatal sickness in Medford from dysentery. Out of fifty-six deaths in 1775, twenty-three were children.” It is possible that most, if not all, of the deaths were due to dysentery, but this is not clear. While all twenty-three child deaths may not have been from dysentery, we use this figure, given the ambiguity, because the very young were more susceptible and vulnerable to the effects of dysentery. Caulfield notes, in footnote 177, deaths attributed to dysentery in Angier, Blanchard, Brooks, Calf, Faulkner, Hall, Vitent, Wade, and Winship families. Cites Brooks, History of Medford, 450.

[16] In a slide presentation on the 1775 Dysentery Epidemic, Judy Cataldo notes that “4 deaths in Needham in 1775 would be about 200 people a day today.” (slide 5 of 21)

[17] See Narrative section below. Rev. West goes on to note “we often buried 3 or 4 in a day.”

[18] Caulfield 1942, pp. 56-57.

[19] Hildreth, in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer… p. 381, cites Aug letter of orderly-sergeant Jonathan Stone, noting he was sick with the “camp distemper” which in the words of Hildreth, “prevailed amongst the troops, and extended into the country towns, as was thought by contagion from the sick soldiers.”

[20] “Now God is trying us with another terrible judgement that is the feavour & bloody flux & several have Died of it.” Journal of Experience Wright Richardson, Sudbury Massachusetts, August 29, 1775, privately published 1978. In order to contribute to our tally we “translate” “several” into three.

[21] Notes four deaths in the family of Captain Arthur Daggett, as well as “camp distemper” deaths in the Allen, Bruce, Cordwell, Gibbs, Goold, Haden, Lilly, Marble, Sibley, Stone, Walker, Whipple, and Woodberry families.

[22] Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

[23] Caulfield 1942, pp. 57-58.

[24] The “summer of 1775 was a sad time in Westford Massachusetts when the town experienced an epidemic of dysentery known as the Bloody Flux. 27 died, most were children and uncounted others were sick. The town lost over 2% of the population based on a census from 1776 the year after so the percentage lost was likely higher. The blogger (Judy) lists the names, dates of death, age, and cemetery location on this web page.

[25] “Dr. Tufts [tells] me he has between 60 and 70 patients now sick with this disorder.” They did not appear to be mortally sick. (Sep 16, 1775 letter; quoted on slide 12 of Judy Cataldo presentation on 1775 Dysentery Epidemic.)

[26] Our number, for the purpose of a tally, based upon statement: “…some aged people, and many children died.”

[27] Our number, in order to be able to include in a tally, based on statement: “The dysentery was very prevalent and fatal in Cumberland County in 1775.” Given that a war was being fought, and dysentery amongst troops, spreading into settlements, our assumption of ten or more dysentery deaths in the county seems conservative.

[28] Cites, in footnote 164: Philip Vickers Fithian: Journal, 1775-1776, Robert G. Albion and Leonidas Dodson, Editors (Princeton, 1934), 32, 94.

[29] Cites, in footnote 165: Massachusetts Spy, July 19, 1775.

[30] Cites, in footnote 166: Massachusetts Spy, August 16, 1775.

[31] Cites, in footnote 167: Massachusetts Spy, August 23, 1775.

[32] Cites, in footnote 168: Massachusetts Spy, August 30, 1775.

[33] Cites: Louis C. Duncan. Medical Men in the American Revolution, 1775-1783. Carlisle Barracks, PA: 1931.

[34] Cites in fn 173, Dedham Historical Register, II (January, 1891), 22. Caulfield writes: “The dates given on the Daniels tombstone show that the seven deaths in that family occurred between August 31 and September 12, 1775.”

[35] Cites, in footnote 174: Charles F. Adams. Letters of Mrs. Adams. Boston: 1841, li, 69.

[36] Cites, in footnote 175: Charles Hudson. History of the Town of Marlborough. Boston: 1862, pp. 186 and 252; also Vital Records of Marlborough.

[37] Cites, in footnote 176, Dedham Historical Register, III (July 1892), 130.

[38] Cites, in footnote 179, Massachusetts Spy, Nov 17, 1775.

[39] Noah Webster. Pestilential Diseases, I, 263; II. 23.

[40] Cites, in footnote 180, The Middletown First Society.

[41] Caulfield, in footnote 183, cites: The Greatness and Sovereignty of God, Sufficient Reason to Silence Man’s Complaints of his Providence. Norwich: 1977, p. 24.

–Hundreds of thousands.  US National Library…Medicine. Native Voices. “Timeline. 1775…”[1]

—                       ~84,000  Colonies, Native America.  Fenn. Pox Americana…1775-82. 2001, 274

—                       ~32,000  Great Plains Natives 1780-82.  Fenn. Pox Americana…1775-82. 2001.

—                         13,000  Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa tribes.  Lehmer in Hodge 2009, 79-80.[2]

 

Philadelphia (1776-1777)                                                                             (  2,500)

–2,500  Simonds.  The American Date Book.  1902, p. 82.

–2,500  Willsey and Lewis. “Philadelphia,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 626.

 

Great Plains Native Americans (1780-82)                                                  (~32,000)

—                      ~32,000.   Great Plains Natives, 1780-82.  Fenn. Pox Americana…1775-82. 2001.

—      Tens of thousands.   Hodge, Adam. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, p. 188.

—      Tens of thousands.   Rich, E.E. (ed.). Cumberland House Journals; in Hodge 2009, 87.[3]

—                        13,000.   Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa tribes.  Lehmer in Hodge 2009, 79-80.

—            Terrible losses.   Assiniboine.  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox….” 2009, 81.

—              Considerable.   Blackfoot.  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 76.

—        Several thousand.   Cree.  Hodge, Adam. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 81

–Diminished very much.  Gros Ventres.  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 81.

—                           2,000.   Ojibway.  Calloway, One Vast…, 421, 423; in Hodge 2009, 83.

—                          Heavy.   Piegans.  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 76.

—                         1/3-1/2.   Shoshones. Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 76-77

—               Considerable.   Sioux.  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism…Smallpox…” 2009, 83.

—             Suffered much.   Snakes. Lewis and Clark, Original Journals, V2, 373, in Hodge, 177.

 

Southwestern Alaska Natives. Especially Sitka vicinity (1775-77)          (   ?   )

—  Great numbers.  Portlock, Nathaniel. 1789, pp. 271-72; in Boyd 1999, 23-24.[4]

 

Western Washington Native Americans (1776-78)                                   ( 11,000)

— 11,000  Boyd, Robert Thomas.  The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence. 1999.[5]

 

Canadian Plains First Peoples                                                                     (~30,000)

— ~30,000.  “Canadian plains alone.”  Hodge. Vectors of Colonialism.” 2009, 87.[6]

 

Narrative Information Overview:

 

U.S. National Library of Medicine: “As the American Revolution begins, epidemic smallpox spreads across North America, killing hundreds of thousands of whites and Native peoples, from the Eastern Seaboard to the Mississippi River and from the Gulf Coast into Canada. In Mexico City, smallpox erupts and moves north to the Niuam (Comanche), who carry it north to the Shoshone. The epidemic devastates Native populations from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska.”

 

(United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness.  “Timeline. 1775: Smallpox strikes again in North America.” Bethesda, MD:   National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.)

 

Alaska

 

Portlock:  “12 August 1787, Portlock’s Harbor…

 

“I expected to have seen a numerous tribe, and was quite surprised when I found that it consisted only of three men, three women, the same number of girls, two boys about twelve years old, and two infants….I observed the oldest of the men to be very much marked with the small-pox, as was a girl who appeared to be about fourteen years old.  The old man endeavored to describe the excessive torments he endured whilst he was afflicted with the disorder that had marked his face, and gave me to understand that it happened some years ago.  This convinced me that they had had the small-pox among them at some distant period.  He told me that the distemper carried off great numbers of the inhabitants, and that he himself had lost ten children by it; he had ten strokes tattooed on one of his arms, which I understood were marks for the number of children he had lost.  I did not observe any of the children under ten or twelve years of age that were marked; therefore I have treat reason to suppose that the disorder raged little more than that number of years ago {1775-1777}; and as the Spaniards were on this part of the coast in 1775, it is very probable that from them these poor wretches caught this fatal affliction….A number of the Indians who visited us from the Eastward were marked with the small-pox, and one man who had lost an eye gave me to understand that he had lost it by that disorder; but none of the natives from the Westward had the least traces of it….”  (Portlock, Nathaniel. A Voyage Round The World But More Particularly To The North-West Coast Of America. 1789, pp. 271-72. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2005; in Boyd, Robert Thomas.  The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence:  Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874.  Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, pp. 23-24.)

 

East Coast

 

From November 5, 2001 CNN interview with Dr. Elizabeth Fenn, assistant professor of history at George Washington University, and author of Pox Americana:

 

CNN: Can you tell us how this epidemic affected the course of the Revolutionary War?

 

FENN: It had a dramatic effect on the early episodes. There’s some evidence that indicates that it helped to keep George Washington and the Continental Army from pursuing the British into Washington in 1775 and 1776, and also wreaked havoc on the American soldiers when they invaded Canada and tried to make Canada the 14th colony involved in the rebellion.

 

CNN: Does anyone know the source of this historic outbreak — where it originated?

 

FENN: It appears that smallpox was present in Canada when the American troops got there, but once it took hold in this crowded camp, the effects were devastating….

 

CHAT PARTICIPANT: How is smallpox transmitted?

 

FENN: Smallpox is almost exclusively transmitted from one human being directly to another….you can track connections between people, by watching epidemic smallpox move….

 

CNN: How long did it take to finally eradicate smallpox?

 

FENN: The eradication campaign in a way can be traced back to Edward Jenner’s development of vaccination in 1796…. It’s really vaccination that enabled the eradication of smallpox to even be possible. The World Health Organization’s eradication campaign really lasted for about 20 years. It culminated in the final certification of eradication in 1979.

 

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Are those of us who have been vaccinated for small pox in the forties still protected?

 

FENN: …The vaccination for smallpox confers immunity only temporarily. While smallpox was still around, people were expected to be re-vaccinated periodically, every three to five years…

 

CNN: How great a threat is a bioterrorism attack with smallpox today?

 

FENN: There are really two things to remember about smallpox. First, it depends on having a population of susceptible individuals. Second, it depends upon connections between those individuals. This is because it’s a disease contagious from one person to another. In both of those regards, we are more vulnerable today, odd though it seems, than in the 1700s. So, if an incident were to occur, the consequences certainly could be disastrous.

 

Lamb: “In the fall and winter of 1776-1777 the country was ravaged by the smallpox, the curse of the last century.  The army in Canada had been decimated by it, and it had made appearance in all the larger cities, where inoculation was as yet powerless to check its spread, owing in part doubtless to the general dread of even the milder form of the disease. In January, 1777, the epidemic reached Fishkill, and great alarm was felt that it would be communicated to the barracks.”  (Lamb. The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries.  1879, p. 6.)

 

Philadelphia

 

“Small-pox and camp-fever cause 2500 deaths…1776-77.”  (Willsey. “Philadelphia,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 626.)

 

Great Plains Native Americans

 

Hodge:  “…the arrival of smallpox on the northern plains in 1780 constituted a demographic catastrophe for the region’s Indian inhabitants….it took thousands of lives….[and] constitutes a thus far overlooked turning point in northern Great Plains history.”  (Hodge 2009, 65-66)

 

“The epidemic that eventually reached the Saskatchewan River originated in Mexico in 1779. After killing tens of thousands south of the Rio Grande, smallpox reached into New Mexico and Texas, where it likely met another strand of the disease moving westward from Louisiana. In 1780, the Comanches contracted the disease while raiding the Spanish settlements of the Southwest, thus taking the malady, along with their stolen horses, to the southern Great Plains. From there, it appears that Shoshones contracted the disease from their Comanche neighbors via the horse trade, facilitating its movement northward.[7]….”  (Hodge 2009, 73)

 

“On the northwestern reaches of the Great Plains, the Blackfeet contracted smallpox while warring on the Shoshone….”  (Hodge 2009, 75)

 

“Both the Shoshones and Piegans suffered heavy losses to smallpox…. Later explorers noted that the Blackfoot confederacy as a whole sustained considerable losses during the epidemic of 1780-82….” (Hodge 2009, 76)

 

“Although precise figures are difficult to obtain in regard to the Shoshone, it appears that they lost more people during the epidemic, probably somewhere between one-third and one-half of their population….As the historian George E. Hyde writes, smallpox ‘badly shattered’ the Shoshone.[8]

 

“It appears that Shoshones transmitted smallpox to their Crow neighbors, most likely through the horse trade. When Francois Antoine Larocque visited the Crows in 1805, he learned that just before the disease struck, they occupied some two thousand lodges. As a result of the 1780-82 epidemic, as well as some later outbreaks, according to his hosts, they now counted but three hundred lodges. Hyde estimates that their losses were about fifty percent during the first major outbreak.”[9] (Hodge 2009, 77)

 

“The Crow likely transmitted Variola to the semi-sedentary Missouri River tribes….Since these tribes, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, lived in static, highly populated villages, the disease ran rampant among them. As a result, their casualties far surpassed those of other northern plains tribes, for they suffered from what Trimble refers to as ‘acute crowd infections’.”[10]  (Hodge 2009, 78)

 

“…smallpox simply ravaged the Missouri villagers [such as the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa].”  (Hodge 2009, 79)

 

“Formerly able to send four thousand men on the warpath, the Arikara could muster but five hundred warriors after smallpox ravaged them.”[11]

 

“Scholars place overall losses for the three Missouri River tribes at nearly seventy percent. Donald J. Lehmer conservatively estimates that the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa lost a total of some 13,000 individuals, a mortality rate of sixty-eight percent. Lehmer, however, concedes that losses probably reached closer to seventy-five or eighty percent….”[12]  (Hodge 2009, 80)

 

Hodge speaking of the Cree:  “Those who tried to flee from the disease only spread it further and before long, several thousand Indians died.”  (Hodge 2009, 81-82)

 

“David Thompson and Edwin Thompson Denig, who lived on the plains during the mid-nineteenth century, recorded that the Nahathaway, or Cree, lost half of their people in 1782 and that entire villages simply ceased to exist.[13]….Some two thousand Ojibway perished.[14]  (Hodge 2009, 82)

 

“Although little information is available regarding the precise casualties sustained by the Gros Ventres of the Plains, a neighbor of the Cree and Assiniboine, evidence suggests that smallpox left their population “diminished very much.”[15]  (Hodge 2009, 82-83)

 

Hodge on Sioux:  “Seven separate winter counts produced by Sioux bands record that smallpox killed many people during the years 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782. Of those counts, six of them reported consecutive years of smallpox.[16] The number of losses that the Lakota and Yankton Sioux sustained, however, is difficult to gauge because the winter counts do not provide any numerical estimation of the destruction. Linea Sundstrom suggests that Sioux losses were considerable, as ‘[a] high mortality rate can be inferred from the use of the phrase ‘[smallpox] used them up’.’”[17]  (Hodge 2009, 83)

 

“Scholars’ best estimates place overall Indian losses between one-third and one-half.[18] The Canadian plains alone, which were not even home to the groups which bore the brunt of the outbreak, lost some thirty thousand natives.  As if such heavy casualties were not devastating enough, the epidemic swept the entirety of the northern plains in less than a year and a half. During the course of approximately fifteen months, tens of thousands of Indians sickened and died.[19]  According to Donald J. Lehmer, these tremendous population losses simply “threatened the very existence of the individual tribes” of the region.[20]  Smallpox nearly annihilated some groups, leaving their few survivors broken and struggling to survive….”  (Hodge 2009, 87)

 

(Hodge, Adam R. Vectors of Colonialism: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1780-82 and Northern Great Plains Indian Life (A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts). May 2009.)

 

Pacific Northwest Natives

 

Crosby: “The disease [smallpox] often spread far beyond the European frontier, often to people who had barely heard of the white invaders.   Smallpox probably reached the Puget Sound area on the northwest Pacific coast in 1782 or 1783, a part of the world then as distant from the main centers of human population as any place on earth.  When the explorer George Vancouver sailed into the Sound in 1793, he found Amerindians with pockmarked faces, and human bones scattered along the beach at Port Discovery, skulls, limbs, ribs, backbones – so many as to produce the impression that this was ‘a general cemetery for the whole of the surrounding country.’  He judged that ‘at no very remote period this country had been far more populous than at present.’  It was an assessment that he could accurately have extended to the entire continent.[21]” (Crosby, Alfred W. “Virgin-Soil Epidemics,” in Warren.  American Environmental History, 2003, 54-55.)

 

Fenn, 2003:  “Cruising the northwest coastline of America in 1792, Captain George Vancouver was troubled. Where, he wondered, were all the natives? The land was abundant, with a seemingly unlimited supply of salmon and fresh water, but there were strikingly few people. Instead, the British navigator found deserted villages. The first, encountered south of Vancouver Island on the shores of Discovery Bay, was ‘over-run with weeds; amongst which were found several human skulls, and other bones, promiscuously scattered about’.

 

“As Vancouver charted the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the scene repeated itself regularly. ‘During this Expedition’, crew member Thomas Manby noted, ‘we saw a great many deserted Villages some of them … capable of holding many hundred Inhabitants’. For Manby, the conclusion was inescapable: ‘By some event, this country has been considerably depopulated, but from what cause is hard to determine.’ Vancouver agreed. All the evidence, he believed, indicated ‘that at no very remote period this country had been far more populous than at present’.

 

“There had indeed been a disaster, one so vast, in fact, that even its witnesses and victims could not appreciate its extent. In the years from 1775 to 1782, as the Revolutionary War reshaped society and politics along the eastern seaboard, a very different cataclysm shook the entire North American continent. The cataclysm, huge and hideous, was smallpox….

 

“Recorded eyewitness accounts of the pandemic of 1775–82 end at Hudson Bay and the northern plains. The epidemic, however, did not. It struck the northwest coast, where George Vancouver and others observed its depopulating effects….

 

“References to abandoned villages and to smallpox-scarred Indians can be found in at least a dozen journals kept on seven different voyages to the Pacific north-west from 1787 to 1795. Even Lewis and Clark, returning through the Cascades in 1806, stopped at a nearly deserted Chinook village where they met an old woman ‘badly marked with the Small Pox’, who remained there still. The woman indicated that the disease had struck ‘about twenty-eight or thirty years past’.

 

“If it is clear that the epidemic did indeed strike the north-west coast, it is not clear exactly how or when it did so. It is most likely that the pox proceeded westward from the Shoshones, following native trade networks down the Columbia River to the sea. Yet no evidence proving this has been found.

 

“It is also possible that the pox arrived by sea. From 1775 to 1779, four Spanish voyages cruised north from San Blas, Mexico, in an effort to stake out and protect territorial claims. Could one of these have carried the infection? Perhaps. But if so, it has not yet turned up in the historical record. Nor, for that matter, does mention of smallpox or depopulation appear in the journals of Captain James Cook’s 1778 voyage, perhaps indicating that the epidemic arrived after that date.

 

“Russians also frequented the north-western coastline, and they had already established trading posts in southern Alaska. Smallpox had ravaged Asia’s Kamchatka peninsula in 1768, and there is some evidence that it was present in 1774. But there is no clear indication that Russians carried the contagion eastwards in these years.

 

“We are left, then, with George Vancouver’s mystery. From 1775 to 1782, as conflict and political upheaval rocked the east coast, smallpox had wreaked its own havoc wherever it found access to susceptible populations. From Quebec to Mexico to Hudson Bay, the continent was alive with human activity. Variola found not just susceptible populations, but connections between them. Transported by human carriers between ports and along rivers, roads, lakes, and trails, the virus showed how closely linked seemingly disparate regions already were.  In so doing, it forged a horrific common experience that spanned the continent and reshaped life for years to come.”  (Fenn, Elizabeth A.  “The Great Smallpox Epidemic.”  History Today, Vol. 53, Issue 8, 2003.)

 

Ruby and Brown: “As effective as these tools were [iron], they could not match another Russian import in their swiftness to kill.  Some time around 1750 disease spread from ‘far to the north,’ where it had been borne by a wrecked ship reported to have previously acquired the contagion in a Chinese port.  The plague moved rapidly to the south, trapping susceptible natives in its death swath and wiping out nearly three-quarters of a village at the mouth of the Columbia River near present-day Ilwaco.  To prevent its further ravages Chinook survivors put their lodges, clothing, and other effects to the torch, a practice which some of them would continue until the late nineteenth century.  The once proud and powerful villagers, the scourge of natives in all quarters, now stood scourged themselves and in fear that the Great Spirit would return to vent the rest of his wrath on them.

 

“This would not be the last Lower Chinook exposure to imported disease.  Striking them as it had natives as far east as the Missouri River, where it had been introduced by white traders, the smallpox moved up that river to reach the Columbia sometime about 1782-83, or nearly a quarter of a century before white men would follow its lethal path to the Pacific.  As natives succumbed to its ravages, the British blamed it on American traders, the Americans blamed it on the French, and the French in turn, on the Spanish.”  (Ruby, Robert H. and John A. Brown. The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River. 1976, p. 34.)

 

Sources

 

Boyd, Robert Thomas. The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, 403 pages.  Partially digitized by Google. Accessed 8-28-2017 at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=jnWMCaFcuM4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

CNN. “Elizabeth Fenn: The History of the Smallpox Virus.” November 5, 2001. Accessed at:  http://archives.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/11/05/fenn/index.html

 

Crosby, Alfred W. “Virgin-Soil Epidemics.” Pp. 50-62 in Warren. American Environmental History, 2003.

 

Fenn, Elizabeth A.  Pox Americana – The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82.  New York:  Hill and Wang, 2001.

 

Hodge, Adam R. Vectors of Colonialism: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1780-82 and Northern Great Plains Indian Life (A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts). May 2009. Accessed 9-18-2012 at: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Hodge%20Adam%20R.pdf?kent1239393701

 

Lamb, Martha Joanna. The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries (Vol. III).  New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1879. Digitized by Google. Accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=iCIDAAAAMAAJ

 

Portlock, Nathaniel. A Voyage Round The World But More Particularly To The North-West Coast Of America. 1789, pp. 271-72. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2005; in Boyd, Robert Thomas.  The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874.  Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, pp. 23-24.

 

Ruby, Robert H. and John A. Brown. A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest (revised edition). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=-7zBc-pqnGsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Ruby, Robert H. and John A. Brown. The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976. Google preview accessed 6-7-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=HuCjdhf_hMIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC

 

United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline.” Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 9-17-2012 at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/index.html

 

White, Richard. Land Use, Environment, and Social Change: The Shaping of Island County, Washington.  Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1980, 1992, and 1999. Google preview accessed 6-7-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=KtMhCwAAQBAJ&dq=richard+white+land+use,+environment&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Willsey, Joseph H. (Compiler), Charlton T. Lewis (Editor). Harper’s Book of Facts: A Classified History of the World.  New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Accessed 9-4-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

Additional Reading

 

Robertson, R. G. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 2002. Google preview accessed 6-7-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=-EoEm_OO8RgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

[1] This probably includes Mexico and the Canadian provinces.

[2] Lehmer, Donald J. “Epidemics among the Indians of the Upper Missouri,” Selected Writings of Donald J. Lehmer.  Reprints in Anthropology, vol. 8. Edited by W. Raymond Wood. Lincoln: J&L Reprint Co., 1977, p. 107.  In:  Hodge, Adam R. Vectors of Colonialism: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1780-82 and Northern Great Plains Indian Life (A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts). May 2009, pp. 79-80.

[3] Rich, E. E., (ed.). Cumberland House Journals and Inland Journals, 1775-82 (2 vols.)  London: The Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1952.

[4] Portlock, Nathaniel. A Voyage Round The World But More Particularly To The North-West Coast Of America. 1789. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2005.

[5] Boyd, Robert Thomas.  The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence:  Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874.  University of Washington Press, 1999,

[6] Hodge notes the Canadian provinces “were not even home to the groups which bore the brunt of the outbreak…”

[7] Hodge footnote 24:  George E. Hyde, Indians of the High Plains: From the Prehistoric Period to the Coming of Europeans (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 164; Fenn, Pox Americana, 213-4; Ann F. Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 130; Donald J. Lehmer, “Epidemics Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri,” in The Selected Writings of Donald J. Lehmer, ed. W. Raymond Wood (Lincoln: J&L Reprint Co., 1977), 106.

[8] Hodge footnote 37:  Hyde, Indians of the High Plains. 1959, 165.

[9] Hodge footnote 38: Francois-Antoine Larocque, “Yellowstone Journal,” in Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818, ed. W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1985), 206; Fenn, Pox Americana, 220; Hyde, Indians of the High Plains, 165.

[10] Hodge footnote 40:  Trimble, “Epidemiology on the Northern Plains.” 108.

[11] Hodge footnote 45:  Pierre Antoine Tabeau, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, ed. Annie Heloise Abel, trans. Rose Abel Wright (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1939, 1968), 123-4; Calloway, One Vast Winter Count, 419; Fowler, “The Great Plains,” 16; Hyde, Indians of the High Plains, 17. Jean-Baptiste Truteau mentions that the Arikaras suffered from three different smallpox outbreaks during the late eighteenth century. Truteau, “Journal of Truteau,” 299. According to Hyde, all three outbreaks occurred between 1772 and 1780. George E. Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk: A History of the Oglala Sioux Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1937, 1957), 17.

[12] Hodge footnote 46: Lehmer, “Epidemics,” 107; Fenn, Pox Americana, 274; W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen, eds., Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818 (Norman: Oklahoma Univ. Press, 1985), 6; Donald J. Lehmer, “The Other Side of the Fur  Trade,” in The Selected Writings of Donald J. Lehmer, ed. W. Raymond Wood (Lincoln: J&L Reprint Co., 1977), 100.

[13] Hodge footnote 52:  Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 92; Edwin Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of

the Upper Missouri, ed. John C. Ewers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 109, 114.

[14] Hodge footnote 53:  Calloway.  One Vast Winter Count. 421, 423.

[15] Hodge footnote 54:  Henry and Thompson. New Light, vol. 2, p. 531.

[16] Hodge footnote 56:  Mallery, Picture-Writing, vol. 1, 308, vol. 2, 589; Ronald T. McCoy, “Winter Count: The Teton Chronicles to 1799,” Ph.D. diss., Northern Arizona University, 1983, 217-224. One of these counts refers to consecutive years of measles ravaging the Sioux. McCoy points out that this could have very well also been smallpox, for smallpox was often mistaken for measles at the time. This study counts it as an instance of smallpox, for it is likely that it was part of the larger epidemic.

[17] Hodge footnote 57:  Linea Sundstrom, “Smallpox Used Them up: References to Epidemic Disease in Northern Plains Winter Counts, 1714-1920,” Ethnohistory, 44, 2 (1997): 314.

[18] Hodge footnote 70:  Fowler. “The Great Plains,” p. 20-21; Stearn, Effect of Smallpox, p. 47; Calloway, Our Hearts Fell to the Ground, p. 40.

[19] Hodge footnote 71:  Rich. Cumberland House Journals, lx.

[20] Hodge footnote 72: Lehmer, “Epidemics,” p. 109.

[21] Cites:  Richard White. Land Use, Environment, and Social Change. The Shaping of Island County, Washington. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980, pp. 26-27, and Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown. The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River. 1976, p. 80.

 

–~12  Touringohio.com. Yellow Creek Massacre (webpage). Ohio City Productions, Inc., ©2017.

–~10  Blanchard estimate.[1]

—  10  Greathouse Point Family Research Center. “Letters From Yellow Creek 1774.”

—    9  West Virginia Div. of Culture and History. “April 30, 1774: Massacre of Logan’s family.”

Narrative Information

Brewster: “….Shikellimy, although one of the greatest Indians who ever lived, was always poor….the famous sons were Taghneghdoarus…and Tah-gah-jute, the celebrated Logan. Logan, after serving the English in many ways, removed to the Ohio region, and there in 1774, his whole family was murdered in cold blood, in an unprovoked attack by a company of white adventurers led by Captain Michael Cresap[2] and Daniel Greathouse.

“Although Logan never before had lifted his hand against the whites and had befriended them in many ways in the war which ensued, he avenged himself, in a terrible manner, ravaging the frontier without mercy. When the Indians were defeated, Logan refused to sue for peace; but instead, sent, by a messenger, to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, a celebrated address, one of the gems of oratory and because of its excellence, it is quoted as follows:

I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever, he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said ‘Logan is the friend of white men.’ I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have glutted my vengeance; for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a though that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”[3]

(Brewster. The Pennsylvania and New York Frontier. 1954, p. 10.)

Fleenor: “….Herman [Greathouse] had a son named Daniel, and who lived on his 400 acres in 1771 at Mingo Bottom in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia).  Yellow Creek flows into the Ohio some forty miles above Wheeling.  A Mr. Baker operated a tavern at the mouth of Yellow Creek, and sold alcohol to both Whites and to Indians.  Tensions were already heightened due to several murders back and forth among the settlers and the Indians.  Who had drawn first blood is long forgotten. Word was sent out from Fort Pitt for the settlers to congregate at the fort, as war seemed likely. Baker was preparing to evacuate when a squaw came across the river and told him that the Indians were preparing to murder him and his family.  Baker called for help, and Daniel Greathouse and 21 other men responded, and on April 30, 1774 they concealed themselves in Baker’s back room. Soon nine (some records say seven) Indians, including almost all of Logan’s kin, crossed the river and came into Baker’s Tavern. Among them were Logan’s brother, and two women and a child. The Indians drank heavily, and Logan’s brother put on a coat and hat belonging to one of the white men, and was promptly shot. The concealed Greathouse party then rushed out of the back room, and killed all the Indians except for the child. They then rushed out of the house and saw two canoes filled with armed war painted Indians crossing the River toward the tavern.  The whites fired on the Indians, killing most of the occupants of one of the canoes, and driving the second back across the river.  Greathouse scalped the Indians, and tied the trophies to his belt….” (Fleenor, Lawrence J. Jr. The History of Yellow Creek (webpage). Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Association. Feb 2004.)[4]

Gallo: “On April 30, 1774, a posse of armed colonists murdered a group of unsuspecting Native-Americans in cold blood along the banks of the Ohio River in modern day Hancock County, West Virginia. The Yellow Creek Massacre was so significant that Thomas Jefferson mentioned it in the only book he ever published, Notes on the State of Virginia. He called the killings “inhumane” and “indecent.”

“Thirteen years after the book’s original publication, Jefferson expanded on the massacre in An appendix to the notes on Virginia relative to the murder of Logan’s family (1880). Although the massacre is not widely known, it influenced the direction of the Revolutionary War by pitting some Native-American tribes against the colonists.

“After the French and Indian War, English colonists began to push further west. In 1768, the Cherokee tribe vacated all of the land east of the Ohio River when they signed the Treaty of Hard Labour, which was one of multiple treaties that shaped the early western boundary. All of these  changes created tension between the Native-Americans and the colonists.

“By 1774, tensions were rising along the Ohio River Valley. There were various tribes located along the Ohio River, but they were mostly Shawnees. There was another group of natives along the river: the Mingos.  The tribe was a mixture of Iroquois, Seneca, Cayuga, Delaware, Shawnee and other groups. A major Mingo settlement was located in Ohio at the mouth of Yellow Creek which led into the Ohio River. Across the river, where Mountaineer Racetrack currently stands, was a small trading outpost occupied by English colonist Joshua Baker. According to firsthand accounts, the outpost was frequented by colonists and natives. the were looking to purchase rum off of Baker.

“Even though the colonists and the natives could interact peacefully, there was still tension. Leading up to the massacre, there were multiple incidents of colonists clashing with the natives. A few days before the massacre, Michael Cresap killed two Native-Americans just north of Wheeling, West Virginia. According to first hand accounts, the colonist’s fears were exacerbated by the murder of two men who were canoeing down the Ohio River with goods….

“According to John Sappington, the only person directly involved with the massacre, the final straw for Baker was when a young native girl came to his house crying and saying that the other natives were planning to kill Baker and his family. Sappington stated:

….In consequence of this information, Baker got a number of men to the amount of 21, to come to his house, and it was determined that the men should lie concealed in the back apartment; that if the Indians did come and behaved themselves peaceably, they should not be molested; but if not, the men were to shew [sic] themselves and act accordingly.”

“Sappington’s testimony is important to understanding how the massacre was planned, but it does not necessarily tell the truth. As a historian, one should never assume that a single eye witness account will tell the whole story. Instead, one should gather the most reliable primary sources, and interpret them in the most objective way possible.

“The next day, a group of natives crossed the Ohio River [from OH side] and visited Bakers outpost — four men and three squaws. A settler named Daniel Greathouse and a group of approximately 20 men hid nearby and waited for their moment to strike. As the socializing progressed, a few of the natives became intoxicated on Baker’s rum. At this point in the story, the details start to get blurry. Every account differed in some way, so I will just outline the common claims. At some point during the gathering, the natives supposedly provoked the colonists by mocking them. The twenty or so men, jumped out  and brutally killed all of the natives, except for one child. The child was spared because the mother pleaded with the colonists. She told them that the child was half white, and that the father was a man by the name of Gibson. The colonists spared the child, and then ended the mother’s life. They were cold and calculated. Not only did they kill the natives, but they desecrated their bodies, disemboweled them and hung them from trees. The colonists then ran to the bank of the river and waited for the other natives to cross. As approximately 20 natives started crossing, the colonists sniped them out of their boats, one by one, until they retreated.

“News of the massacre spread quickly, because the first group of natives killed were family members of the powerful Mingo Chief Logan. He was a well-known figure in the Ohio Valley at the time. He was known by many of the colonists because of his conversion to Christianity. However, when he heard the news of the massacre,  Logan, along with a few other Shawnees and Mingos, sought revenge. For Logan and the natives, the massacre was a declaration of war. So began Lord Dunmore’s War….” (Gallo, Louie P. The Yellow Creek Massacre. 2-10-2014.)

Greathouse Point Family Research Center: “The “Battle of Yellow Creek”[5] occurred on 30 April 1774, when the family of a Mingo Indian named Logan, along with some other Indians were killed by a group of white men led by Daniel Greathouse. Logan’s brother, mother, and sister and other Indians went from their camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek (on the Ohio side of the Ohio River) to Joshua Baker’s cabin in Baker’s Bottom (on the Virginia side of the river). After hearing the report of gunfire from Joshua Baker’s cabin, other Indians crossed the Ohio River; ten Indians were killed.

“The sources for this event are letters and depositions of participants who recorded their memories sometimes within days, and sometimes months or years later. The exact date of the massacre–so long a matter of uncertainty–was fixed by Valentine Crawford’s letter to George Washington; it was written at Jacob’s Creek on 7 May 1774. Crawford stated: “On Saturday last, about 12 o’clock, one Greathouse, and about twenty men, fell on a party of Indians at the mouth of Yellow Creek, and killed ten of them. They brought away one child a prisoner, which is now at my brother William Crawford’s.” That Saturday was 30 April 1774. The sister of Logan was the mother of the child who was taken to William Crawford’s plantation at New Haven. (This area later became part of present-day Connellsville, PA, in 1909.)

“At the time of the massacre, Joshua Baker’s cabin at Baker’s Bottom (near present-day Newell, WV) was in the West Augusta District of Virginia, on land which became part of Yohogania County, VA. Land in the West Augusta District was ceded to the counties of Monongalia, Ohio, and Yohogania when those counties were created by Virginia on 8 November 1776….” (Greathouse of Augusta County, VA (webpage) “Letters From Yellow Creek 1774.”)

Landon: “On April 30, 1774, Daniel Greathouse led an ambush at Joshua Baker’s Tavern, at Baker’s Bottom in what is now Hancock County, against a party of Mingo Indians. This attack appears to have been motivated by the settlers’ fears of an impending Indian attack, fears based upon rumors circulated in the upper Ohio Valley and the hostile actions between settlers and Indians. Greathouse assembled a party of frontiersmen, including his brother Jacob, Joseph Tomlinson, and others. The day before the attack they spied on the Mingo camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek, in present Ohio. They found that it was too strong to attack and recrossed the river to Baker’s Tavern in present West Virginia.

“On the night of the attack, a party of eight Mingos arrived at Baker’s Tavern. Accounts of the ensuing events differ. The Greathouse party apparently plied the Indians with alcohol and then killed them in a premeditated act. None of the Indians who were in the tavern survived the attack. The Greathouse party also fired on two canoes of Indians who came to investigate the noise. After the ambush, Greathouse, his men, and some settlers retreated to nearby Washington, Pennsylvania. The massacre had dire consequences on the frontier. Among the dead were Chief Logan’s brother and sister. The attack turned Logan against the settlers and led to several retaliatory raids during the summer of 1774. Logan, who mistakenly credited the attack to frontiersman Michael Cresap, spoke of his grief and ensuing anger in his famous speech.”[6] (Landon, Thomas Swift. Greathouse Party Massacre (webpage). E-WV, The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 8-13-2012.)

Larsen: “Peace in the northern woodlands had been maintained between the European settlers and the Iroquois League for half a century, thanks in no small part to the hard work, friendship, and help of Chief Shikellamy and his sons Tachnechdours “James Logan” named after the Secretary of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, a man the chief held in high regard, and Tah-Gah-Jute “John Logan.” Mindful of all he had done, the Europeans had awarded Shikellamy the King George I Peace Medal. (Moore, 1992).

“All of this was consistent with the British policy toward the American Indians, which was peaceful co-existence and even eventual assimilation. At the time, it was Chief Shikellamy’s plan that there would be no war, but that the Indians would maintain their historic lifestyle….

“At the time of the Yellow Creek Massacre, tensions were high in the area where Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia’s borders met, and the Yellow Creek emptied into the Ohio River. The Iroquois League had been deceived into ceding their lands in the Ohio Valley, south of the river, to the British in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. This treaty was of lesser concern to the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Tuscarora, but it was of paramount importance to the Shawnee, inasmuch as it was their home that had been given away for pennies on the dollar. (Marshall, 1967)

“As bad and one sided as the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was, even it didn’t protect the Indians from the settler’s depredations. “The frontier advanced irrepressibly. The Americans defying every attempt of the English Crown to limit them to territory proscribed in its Indian treaties, trespassed the rich valley of the Clinch and its tributaries and pushed into Kentucky and along the banks of the upper Ohio. They came to hunt and then to settle in lands which the Shawnee and the Cherokee claimed as their hunting grounds. . . . The Shawnee had good reason to complain. Throughout the summer and fall of 1773 separate groups of surveyors appeared in several regions of the Virginia frontier to lay out tracts for homesteaders already on the ground and for placements for government grants to veterans of the French and Indian War. . . . The Shawnee, hoping that the English government would do them justice, protested the white aggressions to Alexander McKee, deputy of Sir William Johnson, who was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department. The King’s orders, they remonstrated, restricted settlement to the Great Kanawha River, but this boundary agreement was being violated and their hunting grounds overrun. . . . In the face of the treaties it had ratified the British government could hardly deny the justice of these arguments. Lord Dunmore, the King’s appointed governor of the colony of Virginia, was therefore reprimanded for allowing and even encouraging the aggressions. In his reply to Lord Dartmouth he [wrote], ‘the established Authority of any government in America, and the policy of Government at home, are both insufficient to restrain the Americans; and that they do and will remove as their avidity and restlessness incite them . . . they do not conceive that Government has any right to forbid their taking possession of a lands’ attracted by the plenty of game they found to employ ‘themselves in hunting, in which they interfere much more with the Indians than if they pursued agriculture alone, and the Indian hunters … already begin to feel the scarcity this has occasioned, which greatly encreases (sic) their resentment.’” (Caruso, 2002)

“…John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore was the man most behind destruction of the peace put together so carefully by men like Chief Shikellamy and King George II…. On 25 April 1774, the Earl issued a proclamation that stated in part, “Whereas, I have Reason to apprehend that the Government of Pennsylvania, in prosecution of the Claim to Pittsburg and its Dependencies, will endeavour (sic) to obstruct his Majesty’s Government thereof under my Administration, by illegal and unwarrantable Commitments of the Officers I have appointed for that Purpose, and that that Settlement is in some Danger of Annoyance from the Indians also. . .” (Jacob, 1826, p 58; Bailey, 2000) Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and more than a few others then and since have believed that Dunmore was behind the Indian war, and furthermore, it was his ill-rule that was most often the model for the complaints to King George III, in the Declaration of Independence….

“Cresap’s War II

“Michael Cresap then started the shooting war between the Colony of Virginia and the Mingo and Shawnee Indians. How did it happen? Dunmore’s agent Connolly, sent a letter to Cresap dated 21 April 1774, and received O/A 26 April 1774, basically telling him that war with the Indians was inevitable. (Jacob, 1826, pp 64-64) Cresap quickly called together his command, as well as some settlers, and traders, and with a few exceptions, all declared war on the Indians. His minions went forth and before the end of the day were back with a couple of Indian scalps. The next day Cresap and his men attacked a party of Shawnee who were traveling on the Ohio, killing one of them and wounded two others.

“Had these military actions been for the purpose of protecting the settlers from Indian depredations, they would have targeted the offending Indians, or at the very least their clan. Rather, Cresap’s command targeted, unoffending, friendly Indians, who were close at hand, and unsuspectingly going about their daily business….

“It was then that Cresap took his command and headed up the Ohio with the stated intention of wiping out the Yellow Creek Indian village. They marched about five miles in that direction, but stopped to eat; it was then the men got talking among themselves. Several had been at the village about four weeks previous, and knew it to be peaceful; it was full of men, women, and children, with all their possessions. That it presented no threat to the white settlers was well know to these men and they then mutinied and refused to proceed further. (Clark, 1798)

“Thomas Jefferson was among the first to write of the white man’s war on the Indians on the Ohio River. His Notes on the State of Virginia in Query VI, contained only a couple of paragraphs on the subject, and was privately printed in 1782, was printed in Paris in 1785, and in London in 1787. (Jefferson, 1787) Yet it created such a stir that it caused him to re-investigate the matter between 1797 and 1800 and again published his findings and conclusions in Relative to the murder of Logan’s family, printed in Philadelphia. (Jefferson, 1800) This addendum was included as appendix 4 in subsequent printings of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. With lots more evidence, but only minor revisions he came to basically the same conclusion he had previously reached.

“Yellow Creek Massacre….Yellow Creek was not only an unprovoked surprise attack, but it also signaled a significant change from Britain’s peaceful co-existence policy, to the make war – steal land policy that followed….

“…Theodore Roosevelt called the Yellow Creek Massacre “one of the most brutal and cowardly deeds ever done on the frontier. . . . It was an inhuman and revolting deed, which should consign the names of the perpetrators to eternal infamy,” and he called Greathouse, and by implication Dunmore, Connally, & Cresap, “inhuman and cowardly scoundrels.” (Roosevelt, 1889)

“Hermann Groethausen, was a German immigrant. His descendant Daniel Greathouse was a frontier trader, a neighbor of Cresap’s, a friend, and a fellow war hawk, and he did heed Cresap’s declaration of war. Daniel gathered a group of friends and relatives to the number of roughly 20, who conspired to “kill them some Indians.” Among Daniel’s confederates were Joshua Baker, John Biggs, George Cox, Jacob & Jonathan Greathouse, Wm Fitzgerald, Wm Grills, Edward King, John & Rafe Mahon, John Martin, Michael Myers, John Sappington, Joseph Smith (a one armed man), Benjamin, Joseph, & Samuel Tomlinson. (Joshua Baker’s wife was a sister of the Tomlinsons) Each of the foregoing participants is known with varying degrees of certainty, and the rest of the 20, thankfully for the sake of their posterity, are lost to history. (Smith, 2006) The Greathouse clan decided to attack the Mingo, not because of anything those particular Indians had done, but because they were close at hand, peaceful, and therefore easy and not too dangerous….

“On 29 April 1774, they reconnoitered the Mingo camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek, located on the Ohio side of the river about halfway between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Wheeling, West Virginia. They concluded it would be too risky a target to attack. According to a statement by Michael Myers, given three-quarters-of-a-century after the fact, he killed two Indians during the reconnoiter. (Thwaites, 1905, pp. 9-19) Since no one else ever reported these killings, it’s hard to know if Myer’s story is true or just some sort of “fish tale” braggadocio….

“Greathouse’s scouting party then re-crossed the river to Joshua Baker’s trading post and tavern at Baker’s Bottom, Augusta County, Virginia (later Ohio County, Virginia, and now Hancock County, West Virginia).

“The following day, 30 April 1774, a group of between seven and ten Mingo Indians came to Baker’s, where the Greathouse gang offered them all the free liquor they could drink, which all but three refused. They then challenged the sober men to a shooting match. They adjourned to the outdoors to shoot at a mark . Once the Indians had discharged their weapons, the men hiding in the backroom rushed out and began a killing spree.

“Among the dead were the following members of Logan’s immediate family: his wife Mellana Alvaretta…his brother Taylanee ‘John Petty’; his nephew Molnah; his sister Koonay ‘Ann Gibson.’

“During the massacre, Ann, with her papoose in a cradle board strapped to her back, begged them not to murder her daughter as, “she is your kin” having a white father. Ann was shot in the head, and her two month old daughter was cut from her back and grabbed by the ankles with the intent of dashing her brains out on the rocks. The Greathouse group then proceeded to mutilate the other Indian’s bodies, scalping them, hanging the trophies on their belts….

“Two canoes of Indians were seen coming across the river to investigate the ruckus. The Greathouse group fired on them killing all in the first canoe and sending the second skedaddling.

“The Greathouse gang did not, however, kill Ann’s daughter, Diana Gibson, but rather took her as a prisoner of war. She, along with one of the scalps, was reportedly delivered to Cresap. She was in turn turned over to Colonel William Crawford; she was eventually returned to the care of her father, Captain John Gibson. (Jefferson, 1800; Mayer, 1867)….”

(Larsen, Clark. The Yellow Creek Massacre: Lord Dunmore’s War & Logan’s Lament. 5-27-2013.)

 Nelson: “….In 1773, a Mingo headman named Johnny Logan and a small band of followers had established a village thirty miles north of Wheeling, near the mouth of Yellow Creek (close to present-day Wellsville, Ohio). Logan was the oldest son of Johnny Shikellamy, and both father and son were well known along the western border for their steadfast loyalty to the British….

“Logan’s home lay opposite the site of Joshua Baker’s Virginia homestead and trading post. Baker and the Mingos had lived peacefully ever since Logan’s arrival. But in early May, a group of Virginians, led by Daniel Greathouse, methodically lured ten members of the Mingo village to Baker’s trading post where, over the course of the afternoon, they were murdered. Among the dead were several members of Logan’s immediate family, including his mother and brother. Greathouse and his companions also killed Logan’s sister as she carried her newborn infant on her back….” (Nelson, Larry L. A Man of Distinction Among Them, Alexander McKee and the Ohio Country Frontier, 1754-1799. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999. Excepts from pages 67-81 accessed 3-27-2017 at frontierfolk.net.)

Touringohio.com: “Johnny Logan is a name deeply associated with Ohio.

“Logan’s friendly relations with white settlers changed with the Yellow Creek Massacre of 30 April 1774. A group of Virginia frontiersmen led by Daniel Greathouse murdered a number of Mingos, among them Logan’s brother, (commonly known as John Petty), and at least two other close female relatives, one of them pregnant and caring for her infant daughter. Her children were fathered by John Gibson a prominent trader in the region. These Mingo had been living near the mouth of Yellow Creek, and had been lured to the cabin of Joshua Baker, a settler and rum trader who lived across the Ohio River from their village. The Natives in Baker’s cabin were all murdered, except for the infant child, who was spared with the intention of giving her to her father. At least two canoes were dispatched from the Yellow Creek village, but they were repelled by Greathouse’s men concealed along the river. In all, approximately a dozen were murdered in the cabin and on the river. Logan was not present in the area when the massacre took place and was summoned to return by runners.

“Influential tribal chiefs in the region, such as Cornstalk (Shawnee), White Eyes (Lenape), and Guyasuta (Seneca/Mingo), attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution lest the incident develop into a larger war, but by Native American custom Logan had the right to retaliate for the murders. Several parties of mixed Mingo and Shawnee warriors soon struck the frontier, including one led by Logan. They attacked settlers in several frontier regions both killing and taking captives. The Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, responded by launching an expedition against the Mingos and Shawnees, in the conflict known as Dunmore’s War.” (Touringohio.com. Yellow Creek Massacre (webpage). Ohio City Productions, Inc., ©2017.)

West Virginia Division of Culture and History: “April 30, 1774: Massacre of Logan’s family.

“During colonial days, tensions ran high between white settlers and Native Americans in the Ohio Valley. But, when the family of Logan, a well-known Mingo chief, was murdered April 30, 1774, matters exploded into open warfare.

“Members of Logan’s family and others were slaughtered along the Ohio River in present-day Hancock County. While Logan was away on a hunting trip, his family members crossed to the western Virginia side of the river at Baker’s Tavern and met up with a group of settlers, led by Daniel Greathouse. After an evening of heavy drinking, Greathouse and his companions killed 9 of the Indians. Logan, who had previously been considered a friend of the frontier pioneers, vowed to kill 10 white settlers for every murdered member of his family. That summer, Logan killed between 13 and 30 western Virginians and took others prisoner….” (West Virginia Archives & History. On This Day in West Virginia History… “April 30, 1774: Massacre of Logan’s family.” 2015.)

Sources

Brewster, William. The Pennsylvania and New York Frontier. History of from 1720 to the Close of the Revolution. Philadelphia: George S. MacManus Company, 1954.

Fleenor, Lawrence J. Jr. The History of Yellow Creek (webpage). Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Association. Feb 2004. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: http://danielboonetrail.com/history-perspectives/the-history-of-yellow-creek/

Gallo, Louie P. The Yellow Creek Massacre. 2-10-2014. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: https://intriguinghistory.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/april-30-1774-a-turning-point-in-american-history/

Greathouse Point Family Research Center. Greathouse of Augusta County, VA (webpage) “Letters From Yellow Creek 1774.” ©1998-2011. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: http://greathouse.us/archives/usa/va/augusta/1774-letters-from-yellow-creek.htm

Jefferson, Thomas. Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relative to the Murder of Logan’s Family. Philadelphia: Printed by Samuel H. Smith, M.D.CCC (1800). Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Pittsburgh Library System. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: https://archive.org/details/appendixtonoteso00jeff

Landon, Thomas Swift. Greathouse Party Massacre (webpage). E-WV, The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 8-13-2012. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2160

Larsen, Clark. The Yellow Creek Massacre: Lord Dunmore’s War & Logan’s Lament. 5-27-2013. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: https://familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/1161689

Nelson, Larry L. A Man of Distinction Among Them, Alexander McKee and the Ohio Country Frontier, 1754-1799. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999. Excepts from pages 67-81 accessed at frontierfolk.net. Google preview accessed 3-27-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=y1KekDaaKKAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Touringohio.com. Yellow Creek Massacre (webpage). Ohio City Productions, Inc., ©2017. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: http://www.touringohio.com/history/yellow-creek-massacre.html

West Virginia Division of Culture and History. West Virginia Archives & History.  On This Day in West Virginia History… “April 30, 1774: Massacre of Logan’s family.” 2015. Accessed 3-27-2017 at: http://www.wvculture.org/history/thisdayinwvhistory/0430.html

 

 

[1] Since the number of ten native dead is noted in a letter to George Washington just seven days later (on May 7), this appears to be fairly authoritative. However, given the ambiguity one can see in the accounts noted herein, especially as to the number of Natives in canoes, we use the “~” sign to indicate “approximately” ten Natives. No writes died.

[2] Cresap was not involved, though Logan obviously thought he was responsible. See other entries below.

[3] Thomas Jefferson, in his Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relative to the Murder of Logan’s Family, writes that the speech “was so admired, that it flew through all the public papers of the continent, and though the magazines and other periodical publications of Great Britain; and those who were boys at that day will now attest, that the speech of Logan used to be given them as a school exercise for repetition.” (p. 5.)

[4] Approval to use sought and received from Lawrence Fleenor 3-27-2017.

[5] The only account we have thus far seen that refers to this atrocity as a “battle” is on the Greathouse family website. As we have noted in footnote above, no whites were killed, nor apparently wounded.

[6] Cites: (1) Alexander Scott Withers. Chronicles of Border Warfare. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1895; reprint, McClain, 1994. (2) G. L. Cranmer. History of the Upper Ohio Valley. Madison, WI: Brant, Fuller & Co., 1891. (3) Thomas Jefferson. Notes on the State of Virginia. Richmond, VA: J. W. Randolph, 1853.