A Meeting of Two Funerals

"We met a Niger Funeral."

- Samuel Sewall, 20 October 1721

In 1721, a virulent smallpox epidemic ravaged the city of Boston. Between April and December, 5,889 Bostonians contracted the disease and 844 died of it. The danger peaked in October, with 411 deaths.

The 1721 epidemic is most often remembered for sparking a controversy over inoculation. Most Bostonians agreed with Dr. William Douglass that inoculation was a dangerous innovation that threatened to spread disease and kill hundreds.* A few prominent citizens, including Cotton Mather and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, supported inoculation based on information gathered from slaves (particularly Onesimus, a slave owned by Mather) who had undergone the procedure in Africa and from the Royal Society of London (which, in turn, got much of its information from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's female informants in Turkey). For a wonderful narrative treatment of this controversy, see Jennifer Lee Carrell's The Speckled Monster.

For me, one of the most interesting things about the 1721 epidemic is that the records it generated allow us to get a glimpse of how white and black Bostonians interacted in the context of illness and death. Onesimus' pivotal role in convincing white elites to adopt African medical knowledge is well documented, but it is far from the only instance of confrontation/collaboration between free and enslaved Bostonians during the crisis.

Samuel Sewall's diary provides a window into the events of that deadly autumn. The diary does not usually pay much attention to the comings and goings of slaves, but in September and October of 1721, they are unusually conspicuous. On September 16, Sewall noted that Jane Hirst had been brought home from her boarding house when she fell ill, and that "Boston carried her in his arms." When she was moved to another house on October 15, "Scipio carried a Note for Thanks." Five days later, Sewall attended a quintuple-funeral at the "South-Burying place" (later Granary Burying Ground), where he and his well-heeled acquaintances "met a Niger funeral."

With so many deaths, it is unsurprising that Sewall's burial party should have encountered another at the burying ground. I find this short entry very suggestive — a cadre of elite, white Bostonians burying five of their dead comes face to face with a group of their black neighbors in a space that is shared by both, yet their rituals are separate. Did the two funeral parties regard one another with hostility? Respect? Indifference? How did they feel about sharing the space of the graveyard? How did they judge each other's performance?

*It should be noted that these fears were not without merit. As Elizabeth Fenn has noted, wealthy citizens were much more likely to choose/afford inoculation than their poorer neighbors. Those who underwent the procedure (including Abigail Adams in 1775) saw no need to quarantine themselves, despite the fact that they were contagious and posed a very real danger to the non-immune public. According to Fenn, variolation "was really as likely to start an epidemic as it was to stop one, unless it was administered under a very strict quarantine."

Dissertation Procrastination

What do I do when I'm not in a graveyard? Lately, I've been playing a lot of board games with Pete and my Am Civ friends. One of our recent favorites is Pandemic, a cooperative game in which players race to eradicate four deadly diseases. On each turn, you turn over cards to find out how the diseases have spread, then you rush all over the map trying to prevent outbreaks and contain the epidemics long enough to find a cure.

Each player in the games has a role that gives him/her special powers:

• Dispatcher: moves pawns around
• Operations Expert: builds research stations
• Scientist: can cure disease at a 1-card discount
• Medic: cures more people
• Researcher: can exchange cards with others
  

It rained today, so Pete and I stayed in and played a few rounds. I always forget what my role is and don't use it to the best advantage (especially if I'm the Dispatcher, which is of limited usefulness in a 2-player game). Part of the problem is that the pawns are not very evocative of the role they signify. To remedy this, I made my own little meeples:

Carved in Stone

One thing about carving something in stone — it's really tough to erase mistakes.

The Wood family of Little Compton, RI suffered a tragedy in 1712: all four of their teenage children died between March 8 and March 16. There are several other gravestones in the immediate area dated January-March 1712, which indicates a major epidemic. I haven't been able to find out exactly what the epidemic was — it was unusual in its virulence among teenagers and young adults.

Two of the Wood children, Deborah (age 18) and Margeret (age 16), are buried under the same headstone. It is a lovely example of an early John Stevens I double stone with strong letters, dotted capital Is, and muffin-shaped deaths heads.

If you look closely, you can see that Stevens originally misidentified Deborah as "Elizabeth" — you can see the initial E, the I, and a faint ghost of the Z. Stevens reused the H at the end and sort of gave up on trying to erase the T.

If there was a widespread epidemic, Stevens may have been inundated with orders. Perhaps he mixed them up.

Throat Distemper @ Cambridge, 1740

In June of 1740, a deadly epidemic of "throat distemper" gripped the town of Cambridge, MA. A few adults and many young children succumbed to the disease, most between June 22 and June 25.

On June 23, Harvard dismissed its students early, sending them home in hopes that they would not fall ill. This precaution seemed prudent, especially since President Holyoke's and Steward Bordman's families were among those hardest hit.

Many of the victims of this epidemic are buried in the Harvard Square burying ground.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics

In addition to the fine books I mentioned yesterday, those interested in the history of disease might consider checking out Harvard's online collection, Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics.

The collection, which features over 500,000 pages of manuscripts, is freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. The collection is broken up into categories, some of which focus on individual diseases (Syphilis, 1494-1923) while others gather sources on specific epidemics (The Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1721) and still others are dedicated to broad themes (Concepts of Contagion). Each category contains links to scanned copies of manuscripts from Harvard's collections.

I particularly recommend the section called Pestilence and the Printed Books of the Late 15th Century. The Herbarius (1485) has such beautiful hand-colored pages. I wish I could read the marginalia.

Readings in the History of Disease

After last night's post, I thought I should recommend a few good reads on the topic of epidemics and disease in early America. I also want to try out my new Amazon Associate membership. I'm not really looking to make any money (very unlikely), but I like the look of links I've seen on other blogs.

This isn't the first time I've recommended Elizabeth Fenn's Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (2001). The best thing about this book is its broad geographical sweep. Too often, "early America" means "New England" (I'm guilty of contributing to this), but Fenn traces the epidemic from Canada to Mexico, Atlantic to Pacific, and everywhere in between. Her writing is clear and concise, making Pox Americana a great book for undergraduates and the general public.

One of my absolute favorite books about the history of disease is Jennifer Lee Carrell's The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox (2004). While some of the Amazon reviewers did not enjoy its structure, I loved the way Carrell braided together the stories of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston as both fought for inoculation. Reading her description of victims in the throes of confluent smallpox makes you marvel at what the human body can endure and (sometimes) survive.

Another good one is The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (2006) by Steven Johnson. It deals with a cholera epidemic, the miasma theory of disease, and sanitation in mid-19th-century London. It's good stuff and it sometimes reads like a thriller. I haven't had a chance to read Johnson's new book — The Invention of Air — but I'm looking forward to it.

Other books I haven't read, but am hoping to:

• The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby
• The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
  

Remembering Epidemics

Pete and I just finished listening to an episode of This American Life that featured a story about a measles epidemic in San Diego that was caused by some parents' decision not to vaccinate their kids. My goal here is not to wade into the vaccination wars directly (others have reviewed the episode in question). Rather, a thought came to me while listening to anti-vaccination parents blithely pooh-poohing measles: I wonder whether Americans' notoriously short historical memory is contributing to this trend.

Most people are vaguely aware that infectious diseases are routinely fatal in eras and areas that do not have access to modern medicine. Yet, we are rarely asked to contemplate what that meant for people living in the past and continues to mean for people around the world today. A visit to any early New England graveyard will provide some testimony to the perils of infectious disease in a community without access to vaccination, most often in the heartbreaking double, triple, and high order multiple gravestones dedicated to children who died during epidemics. Here are a few examples:

Charlestown, MA, December, 1741:
This stone commemorates five daughters of Francis and Frances Lee, four of whom died in the same month. Eleven-year-old Mary survived, but died in 1748.
Margaret, age 10, d. December 1741
Frances, age 7, age 10, d. December 1741
Elizabeth, age 5, age 10, d. December 1741
Sarah, age 3, age 10, d. December 1741

Lexington, MA, August, 1778:
Six children of Abiah and Sarah Childs (more info here):
Moses, age 3, d. 19 August 1778
Eunice, age 12, d. 23 August 1778
Benjamin, age 4, d. 24 August 1778
Sarah, age 13, d. 28 August 1778
Abigail, age 7, d. 29 August 1778
Abijah, age 11, d. 6 September 1778

Chelmsford, MA, October, 1778:
This may have been the same epidemic that claimed the Childs children in Lexington a month before.
Hannah Fletcher and her four children:
Hannah Fletcher, age 30, d. 26 September 1778
Rebeckah, age -, d. 24 September 1778
Jepthae, age 4, d. 26 September 1778
Mary, age 9, d. 3 October 1778
Sarah, age 6, d. 5 October 1778

The Lynd Family of Malden, MA:
The Lynd (or Lynds) family of Malden lost three children in an epidemic in 1753. Twenty-five years later, another epidemic claimed three more. Though the parents of both sets are named Joseph and Mary, the chronology makes it unlikely that all of these children are siblings. I think that an older Joseph and Mary are the parents of the first three and the Mary who died in 1778, while the second Joseph (father of the Mary and Joseph who died in 1778) is probably their son.
Mary, age 12, d. 12 July 1753
Elizabeth, age 3, d. 12 July 1753
Phebe, age 5, d. 13 July 1753

Mary, age 4, d. 17 July 1778
Joseph, age 14 months, d. 23 July 1778

Mary, age 23, 14 August 1778

Menotomy, MA, August-September, 1802:
In Menotomy, now Arlington, MA, epidemics killed large numbers of children every few years, usually in September. Gravestones indicate that particularly destructive diseases hit the community in 1795, 1802, and 1805. Some families lost several children in each successive epidemic.

Three daughters of Amos and Helen Whitmore:
Mary, age 11 months, 24 August 1802
Harriot, age 10, d. 9 September 1802
Nancy, age 8, d. 25 September 1802

Two children of Jacob and Rhoda Nason:
Lydia, age 20 months, d. 5 September 1802
Jacob, age 5, d. 8 September 1802

Three children of Ephraim and Deborah Cutter:
Samuel, age 2, d. 1 September 1802
Debby, age 11, d. 7 September 1802
Benjamin, age 1, d. 8 September 1802

A daughter of Joseph and Mehittable Locke:
Louisa, age 22 months, d. 6 September 1802

Pox Americana

I love books about smallpox. Not just smallpox — I also enjoy reading about cholera, yellow fever, typhus, bubonic plague, and most other epidemic diseases.

Elizabeth Fenn's Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 is one of my favorite disease-related light reads, right up there with The Speckled Monster and The Ghost Map. That's probably not fair — Pox Americana is more scholarly than either of the two, but it's not a dense text.

In Pox Americana, Fenn traces the path of smallpox from Boston to Mexico City to Vancouver, exploring how the disease affected social, economic, and political conditions wherever it struck. The best thing about this book is that Fenn follows the disease across the continent rather than confining her analysis to the eastern seaboard. By tracing the epidemic to the Spanish southwest, Hudson Bay, and across the Great Plains, Fenn offers a broad overview of the North American situation c. 1780.

Some of the more memorable take-aways:

• Rather than blaming opposition to inoculation on superstition or ignorance, Fenn argues that poor people opposed inoculation because it was a prohibitively expensive procedure and because the rich put everyone at risk by wandering around willy-nilly while they were contagious.
• Many of the African-Americans who took Governor Dunmore up on his offer of freedom didn't live long enough to enjoy it. 
• The Spanish had a pretty impressive infrastructure in place in Mexico in the 18th century, but control lessened considerably as one traveled away from Mexico City. 
• Native Americans in the American West were part of extensive trade and kinship networks that brought them into contact with European technologies and diseases long before they had direct contact with Europeans. (not earth-shattering, but worth a reminder)
  

Let's end this review Reading Rainbow style:
Whether your a big fan of infectious diseases or just interested in a study of 18th-century America that goes beyond Boston, this is the book for you. Pick it up at your local library!

The Childs Children

In the burying ground in Lexington, MA, there is a stone dedicated to the six children of Abijah and Sarah Childs who died in August and September of 1778. The Childs family had a seventh child who either survived or was not born until after the epidemic. 

The stone does not specify the children's cause of death, but it was probably an infectious disease such as smallpox or dysentery. These illnesses were rampant in Massachusetts in the 1770s, due in part to the poor sanitation and cramped quarters in army camps. In the summer of 1778, an outbreak of smallpox in nearby Cambridge forced the cancellation of commencement ceremonies at Harvard and inspired frightened citizens to build a new smallpox hospital near Fresh Pond. I can't say for sure that smallpox killed these children, but it isn't a bad guess.

Other bloggers have commented on this stone and on the epidemics that swept the Boston area during the 1770s. I don't have much to add — I haven't been able to identify the disease that killed these children and their story is tragic, but not unique. I just wanted to call attention to the individual portraits of the children, which are beautifully detailed.

Sarah Childs, age 13

d. August 28, 1778

Eunice Childs, age 12

d. August 23, 1778

Abijah Childs, age 11

d. September 6, 1778

Abigail Childs, age 7

d. August 29, 1778

Benjamin Childs, age 4

d. August 24, 1778

Moses Childs, age 2

d. August 19, 1778