In previous tips over the years, I have listed epidemics that raged over the world as well as in Kentucky that could have cost the lives of many of your ancestral family members. Many times, deaths were so tremendous that records were not able to be kept by the city, county or state officials. The following list will be repetitious in some places but gives a good summary of what diseases raged in the early days. This is courtesy of Roots Cellar Preserves, Volume 28, p. 9. Remember that before arriving in Kentucky our ancestors lived in other states and they also moved elsewhere.

1657 Boston Measles
1687 Boston Measles
1690 New York Yellow Fever
1713 Boston Measles
1729 Boston Measles
1732-1733 Worldwide Influenza
1738 South Carolina Smallpox
1739-1740 Boston Measles
1747 CT, NY, PA, SC Measles
1759 All North America Measles
1761 NA & West Indies Measles
1772 All North America Measles
1775 All North America –
especially northeast Unknown Epidemic
1775-1776 Worldwide Influenza
1783 Dover, DE Bilious Disorder
1788 Philadelphia & NY Measles
1793 VT Influenza & Putrid fever
1793 Virginia Influenza
1793 Philadelphia Yellow fever
1793 Harrisburg PA Unknown
1793 Middletown PA Unknown
1794 Philadelphia PA Yellow fever
1796-1797 Philadelphia PA Yellow fever
1798 Philadelphia PA Yellow fever
1803 NY Yellow fever
1820-1823 Nationwide “Fever”
1831-1832 Nationwide-brought by
English Immigrants Asiatic Cholera
1832 NY & other major
Cities Cholera
1833 Columbus OH Cholera
1833-1834 Kentucky Cholera
1834 NYC, NY Cholera
1837 Philadelphia PA Typhus
1841 Nationwide-especially
in the south Yellow fever
1847 New Orleans Yellow fever.

Note: many Kentuckians flat boated timber to New Orleans and other produce

1847-1848 Worldwide Influenza
1848-1849 North America Cholera
1849 NY Cholera
1850 Nationwide Yellow fever
1850-1851 North America Influenza
1851 Coles Co IL, Great
Plains & MO Cholera
1852 Nationwide, especially
New Orleans, 8000
died Yellow fever
1855 Nationwide Yellow fever
1857-1859 Worldwide Influenza – one of
the largest epidemics
1860-1861 PA Smallpox
1865-1873 PA, NYC, Boston
New Orleans, Baltimore,
Memphis, Washington
DC Smallpox, cholera,
scarlet fever,
yellow fever,
influenza
1873-1875 NA & Europe Influenza
1878 New Orleans Yellow fever
1885 Plymouth PA Typhoid
1886 Jacksonville FL Yellow fever
1918 Worldwide Influenza or Spanish Flu

© Copyright 14 June 2007, Sandra K. Gorin