1801 — Oct (1st week), Dysentery outbreak (3-4 children a day), Salem, MA — >10
— >10 Salem. Blanchard estimate based on Bentley Diary entries for Oct 3 and 5.[1]
Some Isolated Cases
— 2 Haverhill. Vital Records of Haverhill Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849 (Vol. II).
–William Cogswell, Sep 15, child of John Cogswell, jr, Vital Records Haverhill, p. 377.
–James Le Bosquet, Oct 28, age 1. Vital Records of Haverhill, MA, p. 437.
— 1 Leominster, Aug 8. Alphaus Lincoln, age 2. Vital Records of Leominster, MA. 334.
— 1 Lynn, Aug 30. Ellis Newhall, age 2. Vital Records of Lynn, MA. 1906, p. 547.
Narrative Information
Bentley: “Oct….3. The mortality great among Children, 3 & 4 of a day. It has been chiefly in the center of the Town but it now begins to spread. It is chiefly by the Dysentery. Many are now sick. The number of 600 has been given as under the hands of the physicians at the same time tho’ not all of them dangerous….
“5. For the first time that I recollect I attended four funerals in one afternoon. Three were of children & one a married woman. It begins to be an alarming state of sickness in our families & many are now sick, tho’ chiefly children, & principally infants. The complaints began in the middle of the Town & now are in every part. Among children the disease began with a cough which would continue many weeks before the Dysentery appeared. Those which I have buried had not the dysentery in a severe degree, but seemed rather to have died of a high internal fever, & I suspect in no instances under my own observation has the true dysentery appeared. But the Dysentery is the name under which the alarm is given. One of the Physicians has insinuated his apprehensions of a real bilious fever.” (pp. 395-396.)
Sources
Bentley, William. The Diary of William Bentley, D. D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts (Vol. 2, January, 1793 — December, 1802.). Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1907. Google preview accessed 2-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=R70-3R_M2SwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Vital Records of Haverhill Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849 (Vol. II — Marriages and Deaths). Topsfield, MA: Topsfield Historical Society, 1911. Google preview accessed 2-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=2-TOpP3nuGwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Vital Records of Leominster, Massachusetts, To the end of the year 1849. Worcester, MA: Franklin P. Rice, 1911. Google preview accessed 2-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=oSclAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Vital Records of Lynn Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849 (Vol. II, Marriages and Deaths). Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1906. Google preview accessed 2-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=-VqpbfPKZOwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
[1] Bentley writes Oct 3 that 3-4 children were dying daily. On the 5th he writes of attending funerals of three children and an adult female. Notes that 600 were under care of physicians at one time, that there was great mortality.