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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.
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