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SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE THROAT DISTEMPER

In 1754, the town was again visited by the malignant throat distemper, the same disease that had made such fearful ravages eighteen years before. Whatever hopes may have been at first entertained, it soon appeared that the disease had lost none of its virulence. Two cases in which it proved fatal had occurred in the preceding autumn, and a few others in the spring; but it was not till the month of June, that it excited much alarm. At that time it attacked several members of the family of Mr. Elisha Towle, and three of his children between three and seven years of age died in the course of five days, the first on the third, and the last on the seventh day of the month.

Mr. Amos Towle, a cousin of Elisha, having lost a daughter by this disease, a few months before, now became very much alarmed, lest he himself should fall a victim to it; and in order to avoid all contact with it, he shut himself up in his own house. But it was of no avail. The dread disease again entered his dwelling, and on the 13th of July, one of his children -- a son nearly ten years old -- died. Mr. Towle himself died three days afterward. Deaths now occurred in rapid succession. Before the middle of October, that is, in less than four months and a half, thirty-two persons had died. After that time only five cases proved fatal til the next May; but during that month six others fell; so that there were forty-three deaths from this disease alone, and with fourteen from other causes, the alarming total swelled to fifty-seven-seven in the space of twelve months.

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