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October 2007: Mortality in Old Hampton
My wife and I are members of Rock Island County Genealogical Society. We receive their quarterly publication which usually contains interesting facts about Rock Island County. This issue I found particularly interesting. It contains the 1860 Mortality Schedule for Rock Island County, Illinois. Transcribed and Indexed by Lowell M Volkel. It was researched by Society member Ken Jones. I am not sure whether Mr Volkel was an elected or appointed official, but he had the job of keeping track of the deaths in the county, giving ages, places of birth, dates of demise, occupation, and cause of death. From my perusal of the document, I would say that it was very carefully done. Reading it gives a great deal of insight into life 147 years ago.
I will confine myself to Hampton and Port Byron Townships, though there are fascinating items throughout the county. In 1860 27 people died in Hampton Twp and 9 died in Pt Byron Twp. Of Hampton Twp’s deaths, 19 were of individuals 6 or younger. In Pt Byron 6 were in that category, this is graphic evidence of the high mortality rate among children in those days. When we go to causes of death we see such things as croup, dysentery, pneumonia, diarrhea, epilepsy, and scarlet fever, also some more exotic ailments. One Pt Byron 6 year old girl died of General Hepatic Derangement. What in the world was that? A 3 month old Hampton girl had erysipelas. I remember from my days on the farm that that was an affliction of pigs. Several of the kids died of “infantile disease”. That sounds to me what the doctor said when he didn’t know what was wrong. Two kids died of “brain congestion”. ??? One of these was 1 year old Charles McNabney, a familiar name. 3 year old Wm. Lathrop died from a fall from a second story window. 77 old Betsey Hobart earned one of the longer explanations. It says she died of Diseases of the heart and goes on to say she was not seriously ill until immediately before death which was nearly momentary.
We could go on and on about this but to make fun of it is foolish. Many of the causes of death we label today, I’m sure will be comical 50 years from now. We’ve mentioned before in the column how the “Good Old Days” weren’t that good.
Perhaps it is appropriate that this column be about death as the possibility of the Crier’s death might be imminent. We all hope for a last minute event that prolongs the life. As of this writing its up in the air. The Crier came from the 1988 Sesquicentennial Celebration when Carol Doose went around with a bell to announce the various events. Later she started this periodical. I used to supply her with announcements about the Historical Society Events. One time I got carried away about something and launched into a historical type piece. I submitted it to her thinking she might not like it, with the directions “feel free to edit the hell out of it”. It turned out she was delighted with it and so was born this column.
When Carol left, Stacy (Weiss) Graham took over. It was she that asked my wife to write something in the home economics line and so was born “Jammin With Jane”. Stacy moved to Erie and passed the Crier to Michaela VanDieren for a time and she passed it on to Delores Sierra who did it about a year when our present editor, Jane Cady who has raised it to new heights. Let’s hope it can keep going. Hampton has never had a newspaper in its past and a lot of history has been lost because of that.