USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Orange > History of the Oranges, in Essex County, N.J., from 1666 to 1806 > Part 21
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Benjamin MUR_
bought of Benjamin Munn, on the west side of the Main Street, at the East Orange junction. Here he carried on the business for a number of years. At a later time, he removed to his paternal acres, and occu- pied the house of his father, opposite the Munn Ave- nue Presbyterian Church, where he resided during all the remaining years of his prolonged life. His market was New York, to which city he carried his manufac- tured stock on his back, crossing the Passaic and Hackensack on flat-boats, and returning in the same
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Hats.
way, bearing his sack filled with pelts. From these he scraped the fur with his own hands. His purchases of pelts were made from John Jacob Astor, of whom Mr. Jones always said : "He was a very fair man to deal with." Mr. Astor advised him what kind of purchases to make, and the stock so obtained generally brought a good profit.
Mr. Jones had several apprentices, of whom were his son Viner Van Zant Jones, Israel Hedden, Samuel W. Tichenor and Lewis Williams, a nephew. All of them afterwards became managers of their own shops and won success. 1
The modest business ventures of Cyrus Jones, and of those whom he had trained to follow the art, re- sulted, during the first decade of the century, in a great increase in the hat manufacture. There was, at first, a large group of hatters on the lots sold by the parish on both sides of the Common, and its vicinity. William Pierson, a son of Dr. Matthias, had his shops in the rear and to the southeast of the Central Presby- terian Church. Allen Dodd occupied the two lots which he bought of the parish, on the north side of the Common. Samuel Ward Tichenor was on the same side, and east of Allen Dodd. Lewis Williams was in the rear of the Park House. Job Willians had extensive shops on the present site of the Baptist Church. Parrow Brook, on the south side of the bridge, where it crosses the Main Street, was then open, and on its east side was a large flat rock. To this rock all the hatters of the vicinity repaired, to wash the stock which had gone through their dye- tubs. As the years advanced, the business increased, till all the running streams of the Orange region were discolored with hat-dyes.
I. R. G. Williams' Newspaper Sketch.
CHAPTER XIII.
DISEASE AND PESTILENCE.
IN the first years of the settlements in America, 1 fevers and intermittent agues afflicted the inhabi- tants. Gov. Carteret writes to the Proprietors in Eng- land, in 1682, that the town of Newark had the rep- utation abroad of being a very unhealthy place, on account of these forms of disease. The low grounds, around which the settlers located, denuded of their dense undergrowth, together with the up-turning of the virgin soil in the processes of cultivation, were sufficient causes of miasm.
A more distressful and a destructive pestilential scourge, which was equally common to Europe and America, was the small pox. It wasted the Indian tribes just before our fathers landed at Plymouth. On their arrival, they found the bones of those who had perished, in many places unburied. 1
How it was dreaded, a century afterwards, in other parts as well as in New Jersey and New York, not only as a personal scourge, but as a disturbing element
I. Cotton Mather, when writing of the arrival of the Pilgrims, in 1620, says: "The Indians in these parts (Cape Cod and vicinity,) had newly, even about a year or two before, been visited with such a prodigious pesti- lence as carried away, not a Tenth, but Nine Parts out of ten ; (yea, 'tis said Nineteen out of twenty,) among them. So that the woods were almost cleared of those pernicious creatures, to make room for a better growth." -- Magnalia, I., p. 7.
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Disease and Pestilence.
in the progress of affairs, may be inferred from some notices of the time.
The New York Gazette, of January 18, 1732, says : "The Small Pox spreads very much in the province, and in New Jersey at Amboy, New Brunswick and there away." The Burlington session of the seventh Assembly of New Jersey, in 1716, was held in a neighboring town, on account of the small pox being prevalent at Burlington.
New York, deriving its trade from the country, and therefore careful to maintain its reputation for salu- brity, issued a circular, October 14, 1745, through its medical men as follows :
City of " We, whose names are hereunto subscribed New York. ss : Practitioners in Physick in the said city of New York, Do hereby certifie and make known to all to whom these presents may come and may concern, that the FEVER, that this city was lately visited with, is very greatly abated and that there are but few persons at present sick in the city : AND we do further certifie that we do not know of any person, or persons, whatso- ever in this city that has the Distemper called the Small Pox.
In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our names this 10th day of October, 1745."1 (Here follow the names of thir- teen physicians.)
The following advertisement appeared in a news- paper, on October 30, 1738 :
" THIS IS TO GIVE NOTICE
That Joseph Sacket of the city of New York hath hired a Room at some distance from where he now lives, and lias inoculated those of his family there which had not the small pox before, with a design to keep his house and goods clear from the infection of that Distemper : and any Person or Persons that wants Goods may have them without infection from Joseph Sacket."2
I. Ib., p. 742.
2. See Valentine's Manual of the City of New York for 1865, p. 788.
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History of the Oranges.
Inoculation for small pox was introduced into Bos- ton by Rev. Cotton Mather. He had met with an ac- count in the Philosophical Transactions, printed in Lon- don, of the success of the process in Turkey. He called the attention of the physicians of Boston to the meas- ure, but the suggestion was treated with contempt- uous indifference. Through his personal efforts and the agency of his friend, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, whose favorable interest in the method he had enlisted, a series of experiments were made. Dr. Boylston, in January, 1721, first inoculated his only son, thirteen years of age, and two negro servants. The successful issue of these cases confirmed his purpose. During that year, two hundred and eighty-six persons were treated. Six only of these died. During the same period, 5,759 took the natural disease, with a fatality of 844. The opposition to the practice of inoculation was intense. The physicians, the newspapers, and the people were bitterly hostile. The clergy alone sup- ported the new measure, and the popular feeling against them was such that they were exposed to injury, and some suffered in their persons and prop- erty. They were not safe in their own houses. One clergyman, at least, took the popular side. It is re- lated of him that he preached from the text: "So, Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." From this he drew the lesson that Job had the small pox, and that Satan was the first inoculator. Cotton Mather wrote and preached in favor of the practice. Among the physicians of Boston, Dr. Boylston alone supported it. It conquered opposition in the end, and vindicated its claims as a valuable protective agent. As such it was accepted, and came into general use, being employed till 1796,
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Disease and Pestilence.
when Jenner published his discovery of vaccination. Public hospitals were opened in Boston in 1764, and later in other cities, for inoculating all who desired to undergo the operation. 1
It was the custom in New Jersey and the other Provinces, to appoint houses in secluded places as tem- porary pest-houses, in which those who were to be oper- ated upon should be lodged and carried through the disease. That this was the method at the Newark Mountains, appears from a note in the diary of Jemima Cundict. We give it in her own words : "February 5, 1775, Was my Cousins Knockalated, & I am apt to think they will repent there undertaking before they Done with it, for I am Shure tis a great venter. But, Sence they are gone, I wish them Sucses." Her good wishes were realized, as a subsequent note says : "They have Had good Luck So far, for they have all got home Alive."
A fearful pestilence appeared in New Jersey in 1735. First, it visited New Hampshire in the month of May, during a cold, wet season, at Kingston, an inland town. It was chiefly confined to children, and was terribly fatal. From the description of its symptoms, by observers at the time, it cannot be questioned that it was identical with the diphtheria of our own day. Its first victim was a child, who died in three days. Soon after, three children in one family, four miles distant, were seized, and died in three days. It soon became epidemic. Of the first forty cases none recov- ered. It extended its ravages through that year and the next, gradually spreading southward, almost strip- ping the country of children. The disease was infec-
I. See History of Medicine and Medical Men in New Jersey, by the author of this volume, p. 29.
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History of the Oranges.
tious, but its spread was independent of contagion. Those in the more sequestered places, and without the possibility of exposure by contact, were victims of its deadly power. Its fatality was not uniform. Country hamlets suffered more than larger towns. There was not at that date, Boston alone excepted, a town or city in America which had a population of seven thousand.
The pestilence extended its ravages through Con- necticut, and reached New York and the surrounding country. At Crosswicks, in the Province of New Jersey, it was very fatal.
The sad, silent records, in the old parish graveyard at Orange, tell of the bereaved and stricken hearts of a century and a half ago.
On one stone we find :
" Mary Decd April ye 7, aged 9 years. Sarah Decd April ye 9, aged 11 years. John Decd April ye 13, aged 6 years.
1735 Ye children of Swain and Mary Ogden."
Samuel Wheeler, in March, 1735, preserves the mem- ory of three children, aged one, two and ten years, respectively.
Sylvanus Hedden loses two children during the same year ; one on July 25th, aged 9 years ; and another on August 7th, aged 2 years.
Benjamin Perry, on March 16th, of the same year, loses one child, aged 9 years.
Abraham Harrison, on June 1st following, loses a child, aged 5 years.
Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, who practiced the healing art and acquired distinction therein, visited the sick in the country surrounding Elizabethtown, where he was pastor. He wrote a paper on the disease, which
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Disease and Pestilence.
is one of the earliest contributions on medicine in America. He says :
" This distemper first began in these parts in February, 1734-5. The long continuance and universal spread of it among us has given me abundant opportunity to be acquainted with it in all its forms. The first assault was in a family about ten miles from me, which proved fatal to eight children. Being called to visit the distressed family, I found upon my arrival one of the children newly dead, which gave me the advantage of a dissection, and thereby a better acquaintance with the nature of the disease than I otherwise could have had."1
There was no physician in the Newark Mountains at this period. We have little doubt that Mr. Dickin- son rendered medical service here. The intercommu- nication between the towns which were contiguous, was easy and frequent. 2
Dysentery in the last century was not an infrequent scourge, and at times was very prevalent and fatal. It was not confined to the younger class, as was the case in a great degree with the throat distemper, but invaded those of every age. From 1773 to 1777, the pestilence was terribly fatal over all the Colonies. In 1776, at Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, of
I. His paper, which is an extremely rare one, exhibits great intelligence in his observations upon the progress of the malady in its varied phases. We know of no writing prior to this in America, in which its author has drawn his observations of disease from examinations post mortem .. Dissec- tion was not a part of medical teaching till 1750. Its title is as follows :
"Observations | on that terrible Disease | vulgarly called | The Throat Distemper | with | advices as to the | Method of Cure | In a letter to a Friend | By J. Dickinson, A. M.
" Boston. Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, in Queen street, over against the Prison. 1749."
2. He married (2) Mary, widow of Elihu Crane, living at the Moun- tain. She died August 30, 1762, aged 67. Her remains were laid in the burial ground of the First Presbyterian Church, Newark. Hatfield s History of Elizabethtown, p. 354.
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History of the Oranges.
13,000 American troops, it is said that one-half were unfit for duty. That it did not originate in the army would appear from the fact, that, in 1773, two years before the war, it was more pervading and more ma- lignant than in any year thereafter. Cumberland County, N. J., was greviously afflicted by it. Elmer, in his History of that County, quotes from the jour- nal of a visitor to Virginia, who says under the date of July 4, 1774: "With us in Jersey, wet weather, about this time, * * almost never fails being a forerunner of agues. fall fever, fluxes and horse dis- tempers." Under the date of August 9, 1775, when in Western Maryland, he makes the following record : "News from below that many disorders, chiefly the flux, (dysentery) are now raging in the lower counties. I pray God, Delaware may be a bar, and stop that painful and deadly disorder. Enough has it ravaged our poor Cohansians ; enough are we in Cohansey, every autumn, enfeebled and wasted with fever and ague." Jemima Cundict, in her private journal, makes the following entry: "July 23d, 1776, Did that Dis- tressing Disorder the Blody flux Begin to rage in this neighborhood. Rubin Harrison lost his Son, Adoni- jah, the 29, he was the 2nd he had lost of that Name." From this date to October 21, she records thirty-seven deaths, some times two in a family.1 She had good reason for writing : "What a time is this ; A Sickly time, & a very Dieing time."
When we consider that, in the early times of which we have spoken, when the dysentery and the throat distemper were pestilential, the country was sparsely settled, the intercommunication everywhere imperfect,
I. In 1816, after a summer so dry that no crops were harvested, and the salt meadows were sunburnt and dusty, the dysentery was so mortal in Orange that, as an old resident says, "it filled the graveyard."
Physicians at Newark Mountains. 289
the free air untainted by the unhealthy influences incident to crowded centres from various forms of deadly miasm, we are driven to look for causes other than these. Terrestrial and cosmic conditions gener- ating pestilence are among the secrets of nature yet to be discovered.
THE FIRST PHYSICIANS AT NEWARK MOUNTAINS.
At the period of which we are writing, the medical aid required by the inhabitants of the Mountain set- tlement was sought for in Newark and in Elizabeth- town. Doctors John Deancey, William Turner and - Pigot, in the former place, with Ichabod Burnet and Mr. Dickinson in the latter, were their chief medical advisers. Samuel Harrison's account-book refers to Dr. Deancey thus :
" March 13, 1744. Then I paid Doctor John Deancy the sum of five pounds thirteen shillings and five pence in a ful Balance of all a compts from the Beginning of the world to this day. £5. 13. 5."
From the emphatic manner in which he discharged the account, we infer that he afterwards sought the services of Dr. Turner, whom he credits with a bill of attendance, and in 1752, "by a visit to (his) wife's arm." The first is paid by charge of cash, £20, 15, 0. He subsequently charges the Doctor for produce, work done, and for pasturing and doctoring his horse.
Dr. William Turner was a vestryman of Trinity Church, and a man of some prominence in Newark. He died in 1754, aged 42. Dr. Pigot lived on the north line of Newark, near the Second River.
Ichabod Burnet was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, and, probably, thence received his med- ical degree. He settled first at Lyons Farms, and af- terwards at Elizabethtown, where he became one of its distinguished men. He was born at South Hampton,
19
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History of the Oranges.
L. I., in 1684, came to New Jersey about 1700, and was an associate of Elizabethtown in 1729. He died there July 13, 1774, aged 90 years.
The following is a copy of a bill, preserved among the manuscripts in the library of the New Jersey His- torical Society :
AMOS WILLIAMS, 1 Dttr March 29, 1742. s
To one visit to See his Son Dttr £o0. 7.00
April 2 to one visit to See his Son £o0. 7.00 To five ounces of Ungdr Dealthea £,00. 10. 00 To Twealve Dos Pill Mathea Dttr £00. 05. 00
April ye 7 to one Visit To his Son £00. 07. 00
To Eighteen Doses of Ant. Diap £00. 08 00
April ye II To one visit To Joseph Riggs £00. 06.00
Contra Credit by Medson brought back .
£00. 06.00
On the back of the same bill we read :
"New Jersey Septye 19 day ano. Don. 1743
" Then received of Mr Samuel Allen the sum of one pound fifteen shillings on the Account of Mr. Amos Williams, I say Received in full of accts from from me to this day
ICHABOD BURNET."
DR. MATTHIAS PIERSON.
The first resident physician at the Newark Moun- tains was a native of its soil, and Matthias Pierson by name. His great-grandfather was Thomas, supposed
Maths Pierson
to be a brother of Rev. Abraham Pierson, who came to Newark in 1666. Thomas had a son, Samuel, who
I. Amos Williams was the eldest son of Matthew, the first settler at the Mountain. His brothers were Matthew, (2d,) Gershom, Thomas. He was the father of Benjamin, Enos, Sarah (Dod), Samuel, Nathaniel, James. Amos died 1754, aged 63.
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Dr. Matthias Pierson.
removed to the Mountain. The latter had Samuel, (2d) who was born here, and who lived on the western de- scent of the First Mountain, on Northfield Avenue. He had seven children, of whom Matthias was the third son, born June 20, 1734.1 We infer that, in his youth, his education was limited by the instruction received at the little school house in the Second Val- ley, at the base of the Second Mountain. At the age of twenty-five years, inspired with an ambition to study, and to fit himself for a position in life of a broader scope than that of tilling the Mountain acres, he entered, in 1759, as a pupil, the grammar school of Rev. Caleb Smith, to be fitted there for college. He remained in this school for two years, and, in 1761, entered Princeton College, but is not named in its cat- alogue as having taken a full course, and graduated with its honors. Among those of that class were the second Jonathan Edwards, John Bacon, Samuel Finlay, David Ramsay, Jacob Rush, and twenty-six others, many of whom became distinguished. He, probably, remained there a year, when he studied medicine and commenced its practice in 1764. At that time, the writings of Sydenham, Boerhaave and Van Sweiten were the text-books in medicine. Latin was the lan- guage of science, and a knowledge of it was necessary to properly furnish an aspirant to honors and success in the art of healing. There is neither record nor tra- dition, indicating who became the medical instructor of our Mountain student. There were no schools of instruction in medicine at that day. An apprentice- ship to some old practitioner, to compound his mix- tures, make his pills, stir his unguents, break down into powder the dry roots and drugs of the shop, and,
I. Pierson Genealogies, by Lizzie B. Pierson ; Albany, Joel Munsell, 1875.
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History of the Oranges.
perhaps, groom the horse and other menial service, was a necessary part of the discipline to be under- gone ; while the student, by his reading and the obser- vations of disease afforded by his preceptor, sought to store his mind with medical lore.
Dr. Ichabod Burnet, of Elizabethtown, was, in 1762, the best educated physician in this region. He was well known at the Mountain. Matthias Pierson was twenty-eight years old when he began medical study, mature enough, certainly, to make a judicious selec- tion of an instructor.
As he married in Elizabethtown, in 1764, Phebe, daughter of Isaac Nutman, and in the same year com- menced his professional career, we are disposed to infer that his choice of a medical teacher, and con- sequent residence in that place, became the occasion of his choice of her who should share with him the joys and sorrows of a long and useful life, and whose "earnest piety and ability" became to her numerous posterity a cherished memorial.
There were at that time no medical laws requiring licensure, or governing practice. Any one who had confidence in himself, or presumption, it may be, could ask for the confidence of others. Dr. Pierson was too well known not to be successful. His circuit of med- ical service embraced the whole of the out-lying town- ship of Newark, and extended into Morris County. His mode of travel was on horseback. · We do not know that he did not own, and sometimes use, a chair, as did his pastor Mr. Smith ; for it appears by a credit in the accounts of the latter with Jeremiah Baldwin, January, 1758, that he had a vehicle which required "mending from time to time." It was a contrivance on two wheels, with a chair on a platform over the axletree, and adapted to rough, imperfect highways
Dr. Matthias Pierson. 293
and paths, though affording a very uncomfortable method of locomotion to its rider.
Instruction in the practice of obstetrics, now deemed so important and of such scientific value, was first commenced in Edinburgh, in 1726. In this country a chair of midwifery was not established in our schools till the present century, and, for three-quar- ters of the last century, students obtained their very imperfect knowledge by reading the writings of Eng- lish authors upon the subject. To the middle of the last century, in Europe, midwifery was hardly re- garded as belonging to the regular duties of the med- ical practitioner. Dr. Smellie, who afterwards con- tributed so much to improve and perfect it, at the com- mencement of his career "united the occupation of cloth merchant and practitioner of midwifery at Lan- ark." The practice of this branch of medical service, when Dr. Pierson entered upon his profession, was in the hands of the more experienced matrons of the neighborhood. The records of one midwife at the Mountain, which have been discovered within the last twenty years, and which this writer has examined, show an obstetric practice quite remarkable. These records are on sheets of foolscap paper, and give her charges from 1773 to 1776. They seem to be a frag- ment of a more extended record. The entries are made thus :
" A child born to John Jones, Aug. 8."
" A child born to John Doe, Aug. 20."
They follow each other with no details of sex, res- idence of parent, or charge for service. From August, 1773, to August, 1774, are forty-two cases ; from Au- gust, 1774, to August, 1775, are thirty-one cases ; from August, 1775, to 1776, when the records cease, there are forty cases. Seven additional cases are recorded,
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History of the Oranges.
making a total of one hundred and twenty-four. In some months she had four and occasionally five cases. She lived in Orange, on the Valley Road, corner of Lakeside Avenue. She was called, as the names of her patrons indicate, to Bloomfield, Cald- well, South Orange, and other parts of the township.
A tradition in the family, quite authentic, repre- sents that in the prosecution of her professional ser- vices, she contracted a disease, the constitutional effects of which appeared in her being "covered with bad sores."
Her name was Martha Harrison, and she was, proba- bly, a daughter of Samuel Dod. 1 She married Matthew Harrison, who died March 3, 1767, aged 40. By this union she had Abijah, (among whose papers her rec-
Abyjah Harrison
ords were found,) Aaron, Amos (Deacon), Adonijah and Rev. Matthew. She married (2d) Daniel Dod. There was no issue from this union. Her death occurred October 6, 1792, aged 60.
That Dr. Pierson identified himself with public affairs, throughout his life of threescore and fifteen years, appears in the progress of our history. He died May 9, 1809. His wife survived him seventeen years, departing this life in 1826. Their remains were laid in the parish burial place. After the opening of Rosedale Cemetery, they were removed to a family vault in the same, built by his grandson, Dr. William Pierson, Senior, one of the corporators of the cemetery.
I. Dodd Genealogies, p. 185.
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295
Dr. John Condit.
DR. JOHN CONDIT
Was born on the western line of the First Orange Mountain, in the year 1755, being the eldest son of Samuel (2) and Mary Smith. We have no record of his preliminary or professional education. He began to practice medicine at an early age, as at twenty-one he was commissioned "Surgeon, Essex : Surgeon, Col. Van Cortland's battalion, Heardy brigade, June 29th, 1776."1 He was present at the battle of Long Island ; soon after which he resigned his commission, and re- turned to his home to practice his profession.
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