Lexplore history together!
Lexington Historical Society
  • Home
    • About
    • Board Directory
    • Blog
    • Contact
    • COVID-19 Information
    • Digital Content
    • Staff
  • Visit
    • Accessibility and Logisitics
    • Current Exhibits >
      • Past Exhibits
    • Historic Sites >
      • Buckman Tavern
    • Walking Tours
    • Virtual Tours
  • Education
    • Digital Learning
    • Family and Youth Programs >
      • April Vacation Activities
      • Children's Battle Reenactment
      • Colonial Kids
      • First Shot Summer Camp
    • Home School Programs
    • School Programs
    • School Group Visits
    • Colonial Performers
  • Events
  • Join
    • Membership
    • Volunteer >
      • Archives
      • Buildings and Grounds
      • Collections
      • Hancock-Clarke Greeters
      • Munroe Tavern Greeters
      • Programs and Events
  • Give
    • Bluebirds of Hope
    • Corporate Community Partners
    • Donate Something >
      • COVID-19 History Project
    • Help Us Conserve Something
  • Research
    • Archival Procedures
    • Archives & Research Center
    • Online Collections
    • Online Exhibits
    • Publications and Reports
    • Research Requests
    • Research & Reproduction Fees
  • Rent
    • Catering, Bartending & Equipment Rental
    • Depot Floor Plan
    • Depot History
    • Depot Photos
    • Rental Inquiry Form
    • Rental Rates
    • Venue Details
  • Shop
  • Home
    • About
    • Board Directory
    • Blog
    • Contact
    • COVID-19 Information
    • Digital Content
    • Staff
  • Visit
    • Accessibility and Logisitics
    • Current Exhibits >
      • Past Exhibits
    • Historic Sites >
      • Buckman Tavern
    • Walking Tours
    • Virtual Tours
  • Education
    • Digital Learning
    • Family and Youth Programs >
      • April Vacation Activities
      • Children's Battle Reenactment
      • Colonial Kids
      • First Shot Summer Camp
    • Home School Programs
    • School Programs
    • School Group Visits
    • Colonial Performers
  • Events
  • Join
    • Membership
    • Volunteer >
      • Archives
      • Buildings and Grounds
      • Collections
      • Hancock-Clarke Greeters
      • Munroe Tavern Greeters
      • Programs and Events
  • Give
    • Bluebirds of Hope
    • Corporate Community Partners
    • Donate Something >
      • COVID-19 History Project
    • Help Us Conserve Something
  • Research
    • Archival Procedures
    • Archives & Research Center
    • Online Collections
    • Online Exhibits
    • Publications and Reports
    • Research Requests
    • Research & Reproduction Fees
  • Rent
    • Catering, Bartending & Equipment Rental
    • Depot Floor Plan
    • Depot History
    • Depot Photos
    • Rental Inquiry Form
    • Rental Rates
    • Venue Details
  • Shop

Of  Pestilence and Pox

8/24/2020

3 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
One of the most enduring mysteries of the Old Burying Ground is a low, long gravestone, adorned not with the usual winged soul of the Revolutionary years, but with six tiny, very human figures. These carvings represent six of the seven children of Sarah and Abijah Childs, who died within three weeks of each other in the summer of 1778. These children were among many casualties in an unnamed epidemic that swept through Lexington that year. Such a marker is a testament to how little some things change over the years, as we work our way through humanity’s latest deadly disease.

One thing that makes the current situation easier to bear, from a historical perspective, is the amount of documentation we have: newspaper articles, blogs, photos, videos…the amount of information a 22nd century historian will have on the coronavirus is staggering. But in the 18th century? Studying disease can be a frustrating process, involving poring over town books and letters, with much internal groaning over our ancestors’ lack of death records. Most 18th century vital records do not list what someone died of and, course, even when records do exist, they are often speculation, or use archaic terms for a variety of diseases. The outbreak in Lexington has been argued by some historians to be dysentery, an offshoot of noted outbreaks in other towns, but the possibilities are endless. Measles, whooping cough, diphtheria…all were rampant at different periods of time, particularly among children.

The most popular possibility for any 18th century mystery epidemic is usually smallpox, being the most well-known and well-documented disease of the time period. But was it in evidence here? Boston did publicly notify of infections in town, mainly to ease the minds of the locals whenever rumors of illness started sweeping through the streets. It was not uncommon to see news reports specifying that a local case had been discovered, that the infected persons had been removed to the quarantine hospital on Rainsford Island, in the harbor, and that the town was currently free from disease. The spring of 1778 did see an outbreak in the city, and letters to the editor in Boston newspapers complained in mid-summer that the pox didn’t seem to be abating, despite reassurance from officials.

The largest outbreak of smallpox in the greater Boston area was in 1776, and we do know that it made its way to Lexington by the end of that year. In December, Betty Clarke, the 13-year-old daughter of Reverend Jonas Clarke, contracted smallpox, possibly during a visit to the city. As soon as Betty showed signs of pox, Reverend Clarke rushed to make an appointment with a local doctor to inoculate the whole family. Whether Clarke urged the rest of the town to do the same to prevent the outbreak from spreading is unknown, so we still can’t rule smallpox out for what was plaguing the town in 1778. But the practice of inoculation was widespread at the time.

The precursor to modern vaccines, inoculation, had been popularized in Boston a generation earlier during an outbreak in 1721. The process, involving depositing infected matter into the body of a healthy person to induce an immune response, had actually been in successful use in Asia and Africa for several centuries, while Western doctors looked on in distrust. It was actually the enslaved population of Boston who first told the locals about the practice. Onesimus, a man enslaved by Cotton Mather (of witch trials fame) told his master that a scar on his arm was from an operation he had had back in Africa, which made him immune to the pox. After corroborating this account with others, Mather began an extensive public campaign encouraging locals to adopt inoculation, but then, as now, it took the public a long time to get over fears of complications, or spreading the disease further. John Adams was inoculated before the Revolution, in 1764, and wrote of his experience:

​“They took their Launcetts and with their Points divided the skin for about a Quarter of an Inch and just suffering the Blood to appear, buried a Thread about half a Quarter of an Inch long in the Channel. A little Lint was then laid over the scratch and a Piece of a Ragg pressed on, and then a Bandage bound over.”

The thread mentioned would have been soaked in fluid from a fresh pustule, allowing the virus to enter the bloodstream through the cut. Not something that would work in a modern hospital! The development of vaccines has clearly come a long way since the 18th century, no longer dealing in live viruses and mass cross-contamination. But at the time, this was (in America, at least) a revolutionary new technology that allowed people to believe they had a fighting chance against the most infamous disease in the world. While our experiences of dealing with medical mysteries have been frustratingly similar through the centuries, hopefully flu shots this winter, and COVID shots to come, won’t seem nearly as harrowing now. And in the future, we will hopefully have our stories preserved so that future historians won’t be quite so in the dark as they try to piece our long and complicated story.

If you would like to add your story of what it’s like to live in Lexington during the COVID-19 pandemic, please consider contributing to the COVID-19 History Project!

-Sarah McDonough, Programs Manager 

3 Comments
Judy Cataldo link
8/24/2020 05:37:40 pm

I have studied the 1775 epidemic of the Bloody Flux, more on that here http://colonialspinningbee.blogspot.com/2020/04/bloody-flux-of-1775-looking-at-little.html
During the period of the 1775 epidemic, August-October 1775, Lexington had 17 deaths, 11 of those children but only 2 graves from that period are marked. The 1777 deaths were quite possibly the same disease, I have seen diary entries from NH that mention it for that year. Known as the "Summer Complaint" dysentery is a common cause for childhood illness and death throughout history, some years were worse than others.

Reply
Millicent Hughes link
8/25/2020 09:52:39 am

The 1775 plague that struck Danbury CT seems to be the same one. At that time, they called it "camp fever," later disproven, as per your investigation. In my historical novel, The local militia had headed off to war, with the entire town counting them written off dead. Every single man returned -- to find their children dead instead. I use the loss of 70 (mainly) children within a few weeks as the partial cause of a father's paranoid PTSD.

Reply
Millicent Hughes
8/25/2020 09:55:03 am

What today we call "camp fever" would be typhus - not the case then.




Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    Featuring the voices of Lexington Historical Society permanent staff and occasional guest authors.

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Picture
Funding from Mass Humanities has been provided through the National Endowment for the
​Humanities ​as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Copyright 2021 Lexington Historical Society
Physical Address:
Lexington Historical Society
13 Depot Square
Lexington, MA 02420

Mailing Address:
Lexington Historical Society
P.O. Box 514
Lexington, MA 02420

Main  Office: 781-862-1703
Archives & Collections: 781-862-3763
Tours: 781-862-3763
Subscribe to Newsletter