Smallpox Outbreak of 1760

In December 1760 smallpox struck the Dutton family of the Old Corner neighborhood, killing four people in three weeks. Between the outbreaks of 1690 and 1811 (see Smallpox Outbreak of 1690 and Smallpox Outbreak of 1811) it is the one outbreak at home in Billerica that the records show; otherwise the town's smallpox deaths of the eighteenth century were of people who caught the disease elsewhere.

In the eighteenth century the vital records note smallpox deaths of Billerica people mostly when they caught the disease away from home. Deacon William Patten, a former representative of the town who lived near the Corner, died of smallpox in Cambridge on October 5, 1730, during the epidemic of that year around Boston. In December 1760 the disease struck the Dutton family at home: John Dutton died of it on December 1 in his forty-sixth year, his wife Rebeckah on December 9 and their daughter Rebeckah, nineteen, on December 17, and Benjamin Shed Jr., thirty-three, on December 20. All four were buried in the Old Corner Burying Ground, where their gravestones give the cause. During the Revolution David French of Billerica died of smallpox in Dunstable on December 29, 1779. No vote of the town on inoculation or on an inoculation hospital in the eighteenth century has been found in the published records.

People

• William Patten: Deacon and former representative who died of smallpox in Cambridge on October 5, 1730.
• John Dutton: Died of smallpox on December 1, 1760, followed by his wife and daughter in the same month.
• Benjamin Shed: Died of smallpox in December 1760 in the same outbreak as the Duttons.
• David French: Billerica man who died of smallpox in Dunstable on December 29, 1779.

References

1. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), deaths: John Dunkin, small pox, Dec. 19, 1690; John Dutton Dec. 1, 1760, wife Rebeckah Dec. 9 and daughter Rebeckah Dec. 17, small pox, gravestones.
2. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), deaths: Benjamin Shed Jr., small pox, Dec. 1760; Daniel Shed, small pox, 1690, and his daughter Dorothy, Dec. 23, 1690.
3. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), deaths: Dea. William Patten, small pox, Oct. 5, 1730, in Cambridge.
4. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), deaths: David French, small pox, Dec. 29, 1779, in Dunstable.