June’s retrospective is devoted to highlighting a selection of cases involving disease, inoculation, and death in the New Haven County and Superior Court records.
Please note that this compilation is not comprehensive. There are several cases involving or mentioning disease and untimely death in the New Haven County and Superior Court records. This retrospective is meant to serve as a starting point for future researchers and investigators, giving a glimpse into the information these records contain.
Please be advised that this post links to materials discussing sensitive topics that some might find upsetting, triggering, or offensive. These subjects include, but are not limited to, suicide, murder, death of children, and violence against members of marginalized groups. In addition, these cases may contain detailed descriptions of crimes committed.
Woodcut depicting victims praying to be delivered from the ravages of syphilis, 1496. Courtesy of Wellcome Images, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, via Wikimedia Commons.
While it is common knowledge that several debilitating and deadly diseases afflicted the European colonists, enslaved and free Africans, and Indigenous peoples of New England, it is less known that controversies surrounding disease and public health management ended up in the courts. This post examines the ways colonists perceived disease, how illness affected their household economies, and how government handled epidemics.
Disease in Colonial New England
Writ for Michael Baldwin vs. John Goodwin, October 1771. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.
In colonial Connecticut, people feared smallpox so greatly that there was a law allowing victims to sue for damages if someone spread the dreaded disease to them or their households. When young Dudley Baldwin contracted smallpox in 1771, his father Michael took John Goodwin, the alleged perpetrator of this outbreak, to court.
Smallpox Transmission and Culpability
Court papers for the Governor and Company of the State of Connecticut vs. Simon Hide, March 1777. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.
Although the New England colonists greatly feared smallpox, they also distrusted inoculation. In Connecticut, inoculation was illegal unless the town selectmen granted permission. While the procedure was more dangerous than modern vaccination, it reduced the risk of fatality enough for people to seek it out regardless of legal penalty. This post examines a group of cases in April 1777, where four men were accused of illegally obtaining inoculation for themselves or family members.
Digitized case documents (Governor and Company vs. Simon Hide)
Digitized case documents (Governor and Company vs. William Russel)
Digitized case documents (Governor and Company vs. Moses Gaylord)
Digitized case documents (Governor and Company vs. Jesse Cole)
Writ for Stephen Burret vs. Mordecai Marks, March 1768. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.
When young Nehemiah Marks served as apprentice to a tailor, he committed fornication and contracted a venereal disease. Because he was unable to work during his illness, his master sued his father Mordecai for breach of contract. Given that men in colonial New England were legally responsible for their wives, minor children, and any servants or enslaved persons present in their household, the case didn’t look promising for Mordecai... until he countered with a clever legal argument that absolved him from paying for his son’s misbehavior.
“That Fornication He Should Not Commit”: Venereal Disease and Economic Damage
Puritan death head in New England cemetery, 2019. Courtesy of Ceoil, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License, via Wikimedia Commons.
This post examines inquests: judicial investigations into accidental, unusual, and suspicious deaths in New Haven County.
“Casuall Drowning” and Other Accidental, Unusual, or Suspicious Deaths in Connecticut
In addition to the blog, we profiled on Instagram an inquest conducted in 1728 for the drowning of Andrew Morrisson.
In our February blog post, we discussed the following cases involving African and Indigenous persons:
“The Defendant Did Affirm Said Boy to Be Well & Sound”
A 1756 debt case involved a man of African descent named Robin, who was enslaved by Abner Johnson of Wallingford but got sick at Aaron Day’s house in New Haven.
As noted in a previous post, the records for these cases, as well as several of the cases previously profiled in this blog, are currently in the process of being digitized. They will eventually be available for public viewing at the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA).
This project is made possible through funding from the Historic Documents Preservation fund of the Office of the Public Records Administrator. We also recognize the past support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
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