Lewisboro History: A pox on you: No needles for Salem

By MAUREEN L. KOEHL

With the recent spotlight on vaccinations, or lack thereof, we thought a look back 260 years to the prevalent thoughts on vaccination at that time might be an interesting topic.

For the first 150 years our town subscribed to the New England town meeting style of government, holding its annual town meeting early in April. Only on special occasions were additional meetings called during the course of the year. One such meeting jumps from the leather-bound pages of the record books. On Jan. 10, 1763, the town fathers met to discuss the imminent dangers of smallpox inoculation. In the 18th century, smallpox caused much alarm to our forefathers and mothers and was a subject of much concern throughout New England.  

Smallpox inoculation involved more than just a needle prick and a little scar, as those of the baby boomer generation and older remember. According to Cokie Roberts in her book, “Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation” (2004), the patient had to endure “days of medication before the inoculation, then weeks of confinement with other sufferers.” Inoculated patients suffered a mild case of smallpox, which made them ill for a short time, but protected them and the community from an epidemic. 

Salem’s town “clerk,” Abijah Gilbert, entered the following minutes into the town’s record books, transcribed as written:

 “At Town Meeting Legally Warned & met at the School house in Salem this 10 Day of Jany. 1763. To Consider of such matters & pass Such Votes as may be for the Wellfare of the Town. This Meeting being Informed that one Doctor Michael Abbott of Ridgfield in the Colony of Connecticut hath Lately Come into this place with sundry other persons from the Colony of Connecticut … The aforesaid Abbott hath Enokilated with the Small pox at the house of one Gershom Sillick which house Stands on a publick Highway in this place by means whereof the people are Greatly Exposed & put in much Danger of Taking the Small Pox … This meeting taking the matter of the aforesaid Information into their Consideration and apprehending Great Damag of having the Small pox Spread by means of Such unjust proceedings and that under the present Circumstances of this place Such a Distemper being Spred among us would be attended with most fatal consequences by Reason of the Great number of poor people among us that are not by any means able to pay the Charges for inoccilation of themselves & families … This meeting thinks it is Contrary to natural Right as Well as the Intentions of the Law which is Calculated for the peace and Safety of all his majesties Subjects that they Should be thus Exposed and Endangered in their Lives and Estates to Gratifie the avaricious Inclinations of a Doctor or Doctors from the Colony of Connecticut …” 

Town officials “unanimously Vote(d) that no person or persons from the Colony of Connecticut be Suffered to Communicate or Receive the Small pox by way of Inoccilation within this town… Such as have allready presumed  to Introduce the Small pox in that way Contrary to the forbiddance of the Justice or Justices of this place or that Shall hereafter Introduce it be prosecuted for the Same & that this meeting by their Vote now passed Do make themselves Complainants against those who have allready received it as well as against the Doctor who Communicated it & Do further appoint a Committee of Samll Brown Benjamin Close & Nathan Osborn to appear and prosecute the afore Said Complaint in behalf of this meeting …” 

There you have it, folks. Take your needles and germs back to Ridgefield. 

Long before Salem residents objected to out-of-colony physicians bringing their dreaded needles across the border, the colonies, and especially Boston, had experienced smallpox epidemics in the mid- and later-1700s. 

In 1764, after being pressured by his mother, future president John Adams agreed to be inoculated by Dr. Joseph Warren. The process included having a thread contaminated with the bacteria inserted under the patient’s skin to induce a mild form of the disease. Adams was confined for three weeks and suffered headaches, backaches, fever, and pock marks during his recovery from the inoculation. He called smallpox “ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians and Indians together.” His wife, Abigail, after she and her children were inoculated in 1776 said of the disease, “Tis a pestilence that walketh in Darkness.”

Smallpox played a dark and unspoken role in the Revolutionary War. Adams wrote to Abigail in 1777 that “for every soldier killed in battle, disease killed ten.” 

George Washington, realizing the impact of the disease spreading through his troops and no precautions being taken, in 1777, ordered that all soldiers be inoculated because he determined smallpox “more destructive than the sword.” It was a controversial action, but Washington’s medical mandate may have been an important contributor to the successful outcome of the Revolutionary War. 

Earlier wars and European dealings with the indigenous inhabitants had decimated the native population which wasn’t immune from the diseases introduced by the Europeans, smallpox being the most deadly because it was so easily spread by close contact. Armies used the disease via infected blankets sent to native camps to sicken their enemies in the French and Indian Wars between 1754 and 1763. Lord Jeffrey Amherst (namesake of Amherst, Mass. and College) was the biggest proponent of this biological warfare.

It was not until Dr. Edward Jenner noticed the “milkmaid phenomenon” at the close of the century that smallpox’s scourge was finally on its way to being eradicated. He developed his “cowpox” vaccine in 1796, 30 years after the Salem town meeting. 

Note: I believe the Gershom Sillick house is now called Onatru. I recommend “Changes in The Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England” by William Cronon (1983) for a comprehensive look at the early days of our Northeast.

Maureen Koehl is the Lewisboro town historian.