Connecticut Historical Collections

On the 26th of August, (1793,) the inhaliitants of New London were somewhat alartned by the death of Capt. Elijah Bingham, keeper of the Union Coffee House, after an illness of but two or three days. His funeral was immediately attended, it being Sunday, by the Union Lodge of Free Masons, of which he was a member, and an unusual number of people, whom the solemnity of the ceremony and esteem for th^deceas- ed drew together. It was, however, remarkeil at the time, thai if the extreme hot weather continued, it would not be long before the burying ground would be so thronged again : and the remark was too fully veri- fied. Two days after, three persons in the neighborhood died of the same disease, which was soon ascertained to be tiie dreadful Yellow Fe- ver. The citizens now perceived their danger and removed from tho infected part ; the corporation and civil authority left their posts, and a health committee, consisting of John Woodward, John Ingraham, James Baxter, and Ebenezer Holt, Jr. were appointed to attend the burial of the dead, the care of the sick, and relief of the indigent. The sickness rapidly increasing, the next week witnessed no less than twenty five deaths, among whom were some of the most respectable cltaracters belonging to the city or state, and the wife, a son, and a daughter of the late Capt. Bingham, in the vicinity of whose house the contagion was yet principally confined. This very great mortality among so small a number of people, filled the citizens with consternation : the dead were interred with all possible speed, and without the least formal- ity, the hearse being commonly attended only by the sexton and two. or three black assistants, one of whom died of the prevailing disease^ NEW LONDON. O39 Laying out the corpse, ornamentiiii; the coffin and covering it with a pall, he. were generally dispensed with, every consideration giving way to the important duly of consulting the safety and convenience 0I" the survivors. The country people naturally shunned the pestilential air of the devoted city, and the adjoining towns toolc measures for pre- venting our flying inhahitants from spreading the infection. From this period the progress of the disease was varied according to the favorable or unllivorable changes in the air, the efleots of which were visibly perceived on the persons of the sick, and the number of new cases which occurred. That portion of the city where it first ap- peared being almost entirely abandoned, it gradually extended into most of the compact parts within the distance of an hundred rods; but de- creased in the violence of its symptoms and frequencv of its attacks, as the season advanced, and by the 14lh of October, it' had so far abated that the citizens began to return to their dwellings and resume their usual occupations. The n)ortality within the aforesaid limits, (viz. one hundred rods north and south from the market,) was equal to that among the same number of inhabitants, in any part of Philadelphia in the same length o( time. In ]>ank street below the market, to the south corner of Gol- den-hill street, of those who did not remove from the spot, but two per- sons over twelve years of age escaped the infection. In this space, ex- cluding the buildings which were evamated and the people who fled, are 15 houses, shops and stores, in which lived or were em|)loyed 92 per- sons, of which 90 had the fever, 'S.i died, and 2 esca|)ed entirely. The deaths above the maikfl were iu)t In so great proportion. By October 2Sth, the fever had nearly disappeared after havlii^r j,, about eight weeks cut olF SI persons. " The weather Im some weeks previous to the fever, was uncom- monly dryand warm, light breezes and calms had long i^)revalled, no rain had fallen for two months, vegetation was parched, wells were dried, and the crops within a few miles distance, were cut otW The mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer frequently stood in the shade at 96 degrees, and several times at 98, a height never before witnessed here; and sea captains complained that they never felt so much incon- venience from the warmth in the West Indies." Dr. Webster, in his history of epidemic and pestilential diseases, (Vol. 1, 333, says, "considerable quantities of salted fish, which lay in certain stores, wliich had not been well cured with the usual quantity of salt, became fetid and oilensive." This was opened and spread in the street where the disease first appeared. " It is probably true, (says he,) that the bad state of the fish was partly owing to a previous bad state of the air: although it afterwards became a cause of a icorse state of air. What seems to put this beyond doubt, is the unusual number of musketoes, in the adjacent country, and multitudes of flies of un- common size, exceeding what had been before observed." '' Early in the sickness all the |)hysiclans, but one who was too much indisposed to practice, and another, Dr. Rawson, who was violently attacked with the fever, deserted the city, excepting Dr. Samuel H. 37 290 N O 11 W I C H . F. Lee, to wliose lot it fell alone and unassistetl, to combat the fury of this (Jreailfiil pestilence such was the diliiculty in procuring nursey and watchers, that some of our most opulent citizens were seen going from house to house with money in their hands, oliering any price for assistance even for a sinirle niiiht in vain." AVio LontUni, April 10, 179'J. Su long and severe a winter ajs the one hardly now fi:iM, has not beiMi known in the memory of the oldest man living. Its rnjurious eri'ecis have been Iclt in u parlicidar manner by the inhabitants of some of our nc.'ighboiing towns. Pinched liy liie scar- city of fodder and the uneomrnoii coldness of the ueuiher, the cattle have died in abundance. Some fanners lost twenty iiead in a very bliorl time. In Lyme it is sup- posed one fourth of the stock perished. Sioningtoii iias suffered in an equal degree, and Moiitville and Colchester considerably, with tlie prospect of a still further loss. I'ram the Connecticut (iuntlc, \i>. 18G:», (yew Ijnulon) .^cpL. 4, 17'J'J. This city dLiring the Mimmer mnv cKim/iI lia> enjuyed ils usual iniKl ami salubiioiis atmosphere; and in many re.-<peels li;i> the sims.hi I.een ilisiingnished Irom the pesti- lential summer of 171)H. 'in thai summer, lidm ilie -J^th of Jidy to the 1st of Septem- ber, the heat was intense; the meieuiv m fain enheit's llici mcimeter, placed in the open air, stood at mid-day Irom 81)° to '.Ki"^, wiih ilie e,\c(|itinu (dli\c dav.'; in which it stood at 8-2°, and one day at 7H°, wliich was lis L;rcair-i dcprt-sum. 'I'iiere vvas only one thunder shower during this period. Thf riiMh being jKuehed luuier excessive droughts, vegetati(in faih-d eai ly m Au'/nsi, aiid ujany trees shed their k-aves. It wa.-j noticed thai the air was remaikably unrlasiic, t-|iiiially in that pait of the city \ihere the desolating sielcness juevailed. Our u^ual liesh siuilhwesieis left us, and We haii only very light winds in the da}'. Scarcely a day occurred for seven weeks, in which a person micht not have carried a liglited candle through the streets. The nights, in gloomy succession, brought a deadly calm, ailended with sultry heat. Such a seasou as that of 1798, is not in the recollection of the oldest citizen. NORWICH. NouwiCH was tirst settled in KUiO. Durinii; the wars between Un- cas and the rVarrti^aiisetls, I'ncas was closi'ly- bcbiegod in his lort near the Thatiies, until his provisions biM^ame nearly exhaustetl and he with his men were on the point ol' perishing by famitie or sword. Fortu- nately he found means of giving intelligetice to the scouts who liad been sent out frotn Saybrouk fort. \\y his messengers, he representetl the great danger the English would be in, were the Narragansetts sullered to overpower the i\b)hegans. " Upon this intelligence, one Thomas Ijeflingwell, an ensign at Say- brook, an enterprising, bohl man, loaded a canoe with beef, corn and peas, and under the cover of night paddled from Saybrook into the Thames, and had the address to get ilie whole into the fort. The en- emy soon perceiving that Uncas was relieved, raised the siege. For this service, Uncas gave Leflimiiwell a deed of a great part, if not the whole town of Norwich. In June, 1G59, Uncas, with his two sons, Owaneko and Aliawanhood, by a more formal and authentic deed, matle over to said Lellingwoll, John Mason, Esq., the liev. James Fitch and others, consisting of thirty five proprietors, the whole of Norwich, wliicli is about nine miles square. The company al this time gave Uncas and NORWICH. 291 his sons about £70, as a further compensation, for so large and fine a tract."* In the sprinjj; of KJCO, the Rev. James Fitch, with the principal part of his congregation, removed from Saybrook to Norwich, and began the settlement of the town. Three or four planters joined them from New London, and two or three from the towns of Plymouth and Marshfield, in Massachusetts. In 1GG3, the general court ordered that the deed should be recorded. The limits were afterwards ascertained, and the town received a patent of the w lu)le. The southern boundary of Nor- wich did not meet LJneas' deed, the northern boundary of New London, by nearly three miles. This stiip of land became a bone of contention between individual whites, and between the English and TNIohegans, in- stigated by some of tlie disaifected English, in after years. It is now included in the lirst society in IMontville, in the eastern part of what is now called Mohegan.