Smallpox Outbreak of 1811

Type	Disaster
Date	1811

The Smallpox Outbreak of 1811 was the best documented epidemic of the disease in Billerica, and the last. It broke out in the north part of the town in the summer of 1811, when the town opened a pest house, buried its dead apart from everyone else and ended the outbreak by a general vaccination. Afterward the town relied on vaccination, required by state law for every school child, and smallpox vaccination stayed a condition of entering the Billerica schools until 1972. Earlier outbreaks are told under Smallpox Outbreak of 1690 and Smallpox Outbreak of 1760.

The best documented outbreak came in 1811. Farmer wrote: "In the summer of 1811, the small pox made its appearance in the north part of the town. The cause from whence it originated, seems to be involved in mystery. It commenced in the family of Asa Frost, and had communicated to several others, before the disorder was known." The alarm "became general, and extended through the town, and to others in the vicinity, till a period was put to it by a general vaccination, which was effected in a few weeks. Of fifteen, who had the small pox, five persons fell victims to its malignity." Vaccination with cowpox had been brought to New England only about ten years before. As the state smallpox laws of the 1790s required, the town took charge of the sick at a "small pox hospital" or pest house, which stood on what a 1930 newspaper called "formerly Johnny Frost Road," now Oak Street. The town accounts of September 1811 to February 1812 pay John Danforth and Josiah Trull for nursing there, John Parker for "sundries for Pest House and for Poor" ($67.51) and for lime, Thomas Richardson for rye, cheese and soap, Jacob Farrar for five coffins and a "smoak house," John Dyke for burying Asa Frost Jr. and for "making coffin for a child," John Danforth and Isaac French for digging graves, and Dr. Jacob Kittredge $1.50 "for doctoring at poor and pest houses." Messengers were paid to notify Chelmsford, and on December 16, 1811 the town voted Joseph Batcheller $36 toward "the expense of him and his family's having small pox"; his infant son was among the dead. The six victims, Asa Frost, Asa Frost Jr., Levi Frost, Eleazar Farmer, Sarah Hodgman and Samuel T. Batcheller, were buried together on a gravel rise in a swamp, far from any house, instead of in the town's burying grounds. On November 10, 1834 Town Meeting voted a monument there, with Capt. Thomas Spaulding, Col. Josiah B. Richardson and Jonathan S. Bowers as a committee, and in 1835 the town paid $20 for the slate stone that still marks the Smallpox Cemetery near the railroad between High Street and Pond Street.

After 1811 no epidemic of smallpox is recorded in Billerica, and the town's defense was vaccination. A state law of 1855 barred unvaccinated children from the public schools; as the school physician quoted it in 1918, "A child who has not been vaccinated shall not be admitted to a public school, except upon presentation of a certificate," the exception for children unfit to be vaccinated dating from 1898. In the accounts for 1885-86 the town paid G. F. Colson $1.50 for "printing vaccination notices." In the school year 1890-91 the superintendent had the teachers count the pupils who had not been vaccinated and directed them to see the physician during the Thanksgiving recess, but "on account of the unexpected severity of the weather this direction has not been enforced." Dr. Omar A. Flint was paid $75.25 for "vaccinating children and reporting births, 1893."

The last scare came at the turn of the century, when smallpox spread again in Massachusetts. In their report for the year ending in February 1901 the selectmen wrote: "The prevalence of smallpox and its near approach during the past summer reminds us that there is no place available, should occasion require, for the reception of patients suffering from this or other contagious disease. In our opinion provision should be made by the town for this purpose." No smallpox case in the town is recorded in the reports. The school medical examiner, Dr. Maurice A. Buck, counted 47 unvaccinated children among 358 pupils in 1907-08 and 96 in 1909-10, when he asked that every pupil bring a certificate of "successful" vaccination; by 1918 he could report that "with very few exceptions all pupils have been vaccinated before entering school or soon after."

The disease left its mark on the town's memory more than on its later health records. In 1945 the cemetery commissioners, Albert Warren Stearns and Harry Dunlap Brown, called the 1811 burial ground a public cemetery because the town had put up its monument, though they misdated the epidemic to 1815, and the town's lists of historic sites in 1969 and 1970 included the "Small Pox Cemetery, 1811." Children were still vaccinated against smallpox at the town's Well Child Clinic, run by Dr. Harriet P. Leach, in 1971, but in 1972 the public health nurses reported that "vaccination for small pox has been discontinued, no longer a requirement for entrance to school." When the restored Smallpox Cemetery was dedicated on October 27, 1979, Dr. Leach spoke on the history of the site and of vaccination, and in 2019 Alec Ingraham of the Historical Commission recorded the grave and the town accounts of 1811 on a state inventory form.

People

John Farmer: Historian whose 1816 memoir gives the only contemporary account of the 1811 outbreak and its general vaccination.
Jacob Kittredge: Physician paid by the town in 1812 for doctoring at the poor and pest houses during the 1811 outbreak.
Joseph Batcheller: Father of the infant Samuel T. Batcheller; the town voted him $36 on December 16, 1811 toward his family's smallpox expenses.
Thomas Spaulding: Member of the committee named by Town Meeting on November 10, 1834 to erect the monument at the smallpox burying ground.
Josiah B. Richardson: Member of the 1834 monument committee, paid $20 in 1835 for the stone.
Jonathan S. Bowers: Member of the 1834 committee for the monument at the smallpox burying ground.
Omar A. Flint: Physician paid by the town for vaccinating children in 1893.
Maurice A. Buck: School medical examiner who counted unvaccinated pupils from 1908 and enforced vaccination certificates.
Albert W. Stearns: Cemetery commissioner who in 1945 declared the 1811 burial ground a public cemetery; recorded the tradition of night burials.
Harry D. Brown: Cemetery commissioner who joined in the 1945 report on the Smallpox Cemetery.
Harriet P. Leach: Physician who directed the Well Child Clinic that gave smallpox vaccinations until 1972 and spoke at the 1979 dedication of the Smallpox Cemetery.
Alec Ingraham: Historical Commission member who documented the 1811 outbreak and the town accounts on the 2019 inventory form.

Smallpox Outbreak of 1811

Smallpox Outbreak of 1811

People

References