Epidemics in the USA 1657 -
1819
This listing comes from Judy
Nordgren and the retired Rootsweb Mailing List.
Epidemics have always had a great
influence on people — and thus influencing, as well, the genealogists trying
to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records can be traced to
dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the
major epidemics in the United States are listed below:
- 1657 Boston: Measles
- 1687 Boston: Measles
- 1690 New York: Yellow Fever
- 1713 Boston: Measles
- 1729 Boston: Measles
- 1732-33 Worldwide: Influenza
- 1738 South Carolina: Smallpox
- 1739-40 Boston: Measles
- 1747 Connecticut, New York,
Pennsylvania & South Carolina: Measles
- 1759 North America (areas inhabited
by white people): Measles
- 1761-61 North America & West
Indies: Influenza
- 1772 North America: Measles
- 1775 North America (especially hard
in New England): Epidemic (unknown)
- 1775-76 Worldwide: Influenza
- 1781-82 Worldwide: Influenza (one
of worst flu epidemics)
- 1788 Philadelphia & New York:
Measles
- 1793 Vermont: Influenza and a
"putrid fever"
- 1793 Virginia: Influenza (kills 500
people in 5 counties in 4 weeks)
- 1793 Philadelphia: Yellow fever
(one of worst)
- 1783 Delaware (Dover):
"extremely fatal" bilious disorder
- 1793 Pennsylvania (Harrisburg &
Middletown): many unexplained deaths
- 1794 Philadelphia: Yellow fever
- 1796-97 Philadelphia: Yellow Fever
- 1798 Philadelphia: Yellow Fever
(one of worst)
- 1803 New York: Yellow Fever
- 1820-23 Nationwide:
"fever" (starts on Schuylkill River, PA & spreads)
- 1831-32 Nationwide: Asiatic Cholera
(brought by English emigrants)
- 1832 New York & other major
cities: Cholera
- 1837 Philadelphia: Typhus
- 1841 Nationwide: Yellow Fever
(especially severe in South)
- 1847 New Orleans: Yellow Fever
- 1847-48 Worldwide: Influenza
- 1848-49 North America: Cholera
- 1850 Nationwide: Yellow Fever
- 1850-51 North America: Influenza
- 1852 Nationwide: Yellow Fever (New
Orleans: 8,000 die in summer)
- 1855 Nationwide (many parts):
Yellow Fever
- 1857-59 Worldwide: Influenza (one
of disease’s greatest epidemics)
- 1860-61 Pennsylvania: Smallpox
- 1865-73 Philadelphia, New York,
Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis, & Washington D.C.: a series of
recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever
& Yellow Fever
- 1873-75 North America & Europe:
Influenza
- 1878 New Orleans: Yellow Fever
(last great epidemic of disease)
- 1885 Plymouth, PA: Typhoid
- 1886: Jacksonville, Fl: Yellow
Fever
- 1918 Worldwide: Influenza (high
point year) More people hospitalized in World War I from Influenza than
wounds. US Army training camps became death camps—with 80 percent death
rate in some camps.
Finally, these specific instances of
cholera were mentioned:
- 1833 Columbus, Ohio
- 1834 New York City
- 1849 New York
- 1851 Coles Co., Illinois
- 1851 The Great Plains
- 1851 Missouri