Pioneer Profiles – November 2021 – Published online-only

It’s November and flu season is upon us!  We’re fortunate that our annual flu shots help protect us against such virulent strains as the “Spanish Influenza” that beset the local populace during the winter of 1918-19.  Jacksonville was not as hard hit as the rest of the Valley because by that time the town’s population was less than 1,000.

However, during the late 1800s when Jacksonville was the commercial, governmental, and social hub of Southern Oregon, it saw more than its share of epidemics.  Typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, cholera, and scarlet fever decimated the population at regular intervals.  The young and the old were particularly susceptible.

No one understood how these diseases arose or how to control them. Sickness had long been thought caused by “bad air” or miasma, a poisonous vapor or mist filled with particles from decomposed matter and identifiable by its foul smell.  Illness was also associated with immorality.  Health was achieved through “maintaining a body’s equilibrium”; sinful living was a way to lose this balance.

It was not until late in the 19th Century that investigators such as Louis Pasteur and surgeon Joseph Lister theorized that microscopic particles called “germs” were how disease was transmitted.  Only then was the importance of sanitation embraced and researchers began seeking methods to contain, counter, and prevent deadly diseases.

Gabriel and Anderville Plymale, father and son, are the earliest recorded deaths in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.  Having survived the 2,000-mile trek across the Oregon Trail, they arrived in Jacksonville in October of 1852.  Gabriel died within the month from “swamp fever,” more commonly known as typhoid fever.  Anderville died three weeks later from the same disease.  Their deaths are now attributed to water they drank at one of their last stops prior to their arrival.

The Oregon Trail is known as the longest graveyard in the country with a burial about every 10 to 15 miles.  Death was every wagon train’s traveling companion; one in ten people did not make it.  Although accidents and dysentery claimed their toll, the most prolific killer was cholera.  And those who survived the trail also brought the disease with them.  It frequently resurfaced.  Tin merchant John Bilger, one of the richest men in town at the time, was one of the individuals who died in the cholera epidemic of 1877.

In 1873, a measles epidemic infected many Jacksonville children.  All three of the Cornelius Beekman children were stricken.  Both Ben and Carrie, the older two, recovered, but the youngest, Lydia, developed complications and died on October 22, three weeks shy of her sixth birthday.

James W. Robinson lost his oldest two children, Leah and Willie, in one of Jacksonville’s diphtheria epidemics.  Even though he was the town’s leading doctor, there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Scarlet fever struck Jacksonville in 1869, and members of both the John Orth and the J.F. Miller families succumbed to this disease.

John Love, one of Jacksonville’s leading citizens and the individual who plotted the town’s cemetery, died from tuberculosis in 1867, as did his son John at age 22.  Love’s wife Sophie and their daughter Maggie died within days of each other in the smallpox epidemic of 1868-69.  In fact, that smallpox epidemic may have been the deadliest epidemic that Jacksonville experienced.

In December of 1868, the dreaded smallpox made its appearance in Southern Oregon.  The disease broke out in the poorer section of the community.  The doctor, who was summoned to attend a small child suffering from high fever, violent aching, and eruptions, diagnosed the disease as chicken pox.  By the time the mistake was discovered, the disease had spread throughout town.  Within six weeks there were 75 cases in Jacksonville.  Many residents abandoned the area, sometimes leaving stricken relatives in the care of others.

It was believed that smoke would kill the germs, and great fires of pitch pine were set blazing in the streets.  People gathered around these fires day and night. The smoke only added to the gloom and brought neither hope nor relief.

Too late, schools, churches, and public gatherings were suspended.  Urgent pleas for all available vaccine were sent to neighboring towns.  For two months, all business activity came to a virtual standstill.  Jacksonville was quarantined and people from the county were forbidden to communicate with the town.  Fear and fright overtook the populace. A local newspaperman wrote, “Terror seized the townsmen, and there were few who dared nurse the sick and bury the dead.”

Outstanding exceptions to this were Father Blanchet and the four Sisters at St. Mary’s, the convent school.  Father Blanchet had had the disease and the sisters had been vaccinated against it.  They immediately proffered their services since the school had been closed and the students sent home.  At first the Board of Health declined their offer, but as the smallpox cases increased, the aid of the sisterhood was gratefully accepted.

The St. Mary’s nuns were Sisters Mary Francis of Assisium, Mary Edward, Mary Francis Xavier, and Mary Genevieve. The first two became the fearless volunteers to nurse the victims, while the other two stayed at the convent and provided for the nurses by placing food and clothing in an outbuilding at the school.

For eight weeks the two nuns passed from one home of contagion to the next, alone with the sick and dying. Whenever they appeared on the streets, people fled from them in terror.  Father Blanchet helped the Sisters as much as he could and, when death sealed the fate of some hapless victim, he administered the sacraments and assisted in the burial.

The victims were interred at night, the daily trip up Cemetery Hill usually made after midnight.  Apparently, people thought the dead were not so contagious in the dark or else it was less alarming to carry such grisly freight through town after late night idlers had gone to bed.  In the light of torches, the cemetery Sexton and Father Blanchet buried the dead with the priest saying a few words over the new graves.  The town could find only one man, an Italian immigrant, who would occasionally help.

At least forty citizens fell victim to the plague.  In addition to Sophie and Maggie Love, another prominent victim was William T’Vault, the first Attorney General and first Postmaster General of the Oregon Territory; a representative in the Oregon State Legislature and Speaker of the House; a lawyer, editor, frontiersman and trail blazer.  But when he died only Father Blanchet attended him, gave him the last rites and helped shovel the dirt into the grave over the wooden box containing his last remains. The editor of the Oregon Sentinel wrote, “It is painful to reflect that, after a busy life and prominent service, he should be struck down by so dreadful a malady that not a single mourner dared follow him to the grave.”

The smallpox finally ran its course, and the weary Sisters returned to their convent. The Jacksonville press printed eulogies about the heroism of the nuns and Father Blanchet. One of the local papers that had not been particularly supportive of the Catholics now complimented them on their charity and added that it was a worthy religion which inspired such heroism and virtues.

Soon afterwards the four Sisters were relieved of their duties in Southern Oregon.  They returned to Portland “crowned with the benediction of people whom they had so heroically served.”

Featured image: Anna Sophia Harris Love, smallpox victim – SOHS 4690.

Pioneer Profiles is a project of Historic Jacksonville, Inc., a non-profit whose mission is to preserve Jacksonville’s Historic Landmark District by bringing it to life through programs and activities.  Follow us on Facebook (historicjville) and Instagram (historicjacksonville) and visit us at www.historicjacksonville.org for virtual tours, blogs, upcoming events, and more Jacksonville history.