Southwick, Massachusetts, 1803

Southwick is a small town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, right on (and as of 1804, jutting into) the border with Connecticut. In 1803, it was home to around 900 residents including Rev. Isaac Clinton and his wife Charity Welles and their six children, ranging in age from 1 to 14. In August, however, tragedy struck—an epidemic of dysentery ravaged the area and took the lives of five of their six children within the space of a week. Poulson's Daily Advertiser of Philadelphia included this notice on 22 September.

At Southwick, of the dysentery, five children of the Rev. Mr. Clinton, all within the space of five days; the three children of Saul Fowler, Esq, three children of Mr. Bill; two children of Shubael Stiles; a child of Mr. Root; a child of Mr. Timothy Noble; a child of Mr. Samuel Owen; a child of Mr. Thomas Hanchett; a child of Mr. Ezra Kent, jun; Mrs. Huir, aged 85; Mrs. Kent, wife of Mr. Ezra Kent We are informed that upwards of thirty persons have died of the dysentery in the small town of Southwick, within a few weeks.

Residents of the town of Southwick were not alone in their grief that summer. The 30 August 1803 issue of the Hudson N.Y. Bee reported “In Wilbraham Ms. the dysentery rages. Of five children of Mr. John McCray, of that place, four died in less than a week.” The Northampton Hive reported on the same day at Greenwich, Connecticut, the death of “a child of Mr. Jesse Snow, and [five days later] his wife and two sons, of the dysentery, making his whole family; they were all buried in one grave.”

The bloody flux

Thanks to advances in medicine, we now know that dysentery (or “bloody flux,” as it was also known) has bacterial or parasitic origins. In 1803, though, its origins were unclear, its consequences could be deadly especially for children, and any “cures” less than successful. “Doctor Usher of Connecticut” proposed this “recipe” for dysentery in the 26 October issue of the Alexandria Daily Advertiser

Dissolve in keen vinegar as much common table salt as will, when put in an open bottle, ferment and work itself clear. The bottle should be nearly full, that it may discharge the foam; this done bottle it for use, let the person affected, take a large spoonful of the vinegar in about a gill of boiling water, or at least as hot as he can drink it, until he finds relief. It will effectually remove the cause in either case, although the patient may be so far relaxed as to die with weakness.

Another suggested cure from contemporary newspapers involved a pint of “good bottled cider” and a teaspoon of pearlash (pearl ash or refined potash) shaken together with “good Molasses,” taken at the first signs of the malady. The author of this one assured his readers that although he was not a physician, he had been “witness to its good effects.”

Maria's memorial

One can only imagine the grief of the remaining Clinton family members, but like many a nineteenth-century schoolgirl, Maria processed her grief through art. Similar to silk needlework mourning samplers produced at elite schools for girls in this time frame, Maria’s watercolor features all of the hallmarks of 19th century mourning art: weeping willows, the line of headstones, the grieving survivors among the stones, Reverend Clinton pointing toward the heavens, Maria and her mother Charity with handkerchiefs in their hands. Each stone is engraved with the name of a sibling: Sophia, age 1; James, age 4; Caroline, age 6; George, age 9; and David, age 14. Maria was born in 1791 and was around age 12 when she lost her siblings to the epidemic in 1803. It is unknown where or exactly when Maria worked her watercolor, but the level of her skill is high and her feeling towards her siblings palpable.

The Clinton Taft connection

Maria’s family was a prominent one. Her father Isaac was a cousin of New York politician DeWitt Clinton and her mother Charity a descendant of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut. In 1807, the surviving Clintons and two sons, Isaac and Samuel (born in 1804 and 1806), moved to Lowville, N.Y., where Isaac was a minister and the principal of the Lowville Academy. There, in 1811, Maria married Ela Collins, an accomplished local lawyer, with whom she had 11 children. These included daughter Harriet, who married James Herron of Cincinnati, and whose daughter Helen, known as “Nellie,” would become First Lady of the United States in 1909 as the wife of William Howard Taft.