Scott County, Missouri
Information on Epidemics
The information below is contributed by Janeth Hargis. This information may not be copied or used in any publication or for any other purpose without the contributor's written consent.
If you ever wondered why a large number of your ancestors seemed to disappear during a certain period in history, it may have been due to an epidemic. Epidemics have always had a great influence on people and therefore the genealogists trying to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records can be attributed to people dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the major epidemics in the United States are listed below.
| 1657 | Boston: Measles |
| 1687 | Boston: Measles |
| 1690 | New York: Yellow Fever |
| 1713 | Boston: Measles |
| 1729 | Boston: Measles |
| 1732-33 | Worldwide: Influenza |
| 1738 | South Carolina: Smallpox |
| 1739-40 | Boston: Measles |
| 1747 | Conn, NY, PA & SC: Measles |
| 1759 | North America (areas inhabited by white people): Measles |
| 1761 | North America & West Indies: Influenza |
| 1772 | North America (especially hard in New England): Epidemic (Unknown) |
| 1775-76 | Worldwide: Influenza (one of worst flu epidemics) |
| 1788 | Philadelphia & NY: Measles |
| 1793 | Vermont: Influenza and a "putrid fever" |
| 1793 | Virginia: Influenza (killed 500 people in 5 counties in 4 weeks |
| 1793 | Philadelphia: Yellow Fever (one of worst) |
| 1783* | Delaware (Dover) "extremely fatal" bilious disorder |
| 1793 | Pennsylvania (Harrisburg & Middletown) many unexplained deaths |
| 1794 | Philadelphia: Yellow Fever |
| 1796-97 | Philadelphia: Yellow Fever |
| 1798 | Philadelphia: Yellow Fever (One of worst) |
| 1803 | New York: Yellow Fever |
| 1820-23 | Nationwide "fever" (starts on Schuylkill River, PA & spreads) |
| 1831-32 | Nationwide: Asiatic Cholera (brought by English emigrants) |
| 1832 | New York & other major cities: Cholera |
| 1837 | Philadelphia: Typhus |
| 1841 | Nationwide: Yellow Fever (especially severe in South) |
| 1847 | New Orleans: Yellow Fever |
| 1847-48 | Worldwide: Influenza |
| 1848-49 | North America: Cholera |
| 1850 | Nationwide: Yellow Fever |
| 1850-51 | North America: Influenza |
| 1852 | Nationwide: Yellow Fever (New Orleans 8,000 die in summer) |
| 1855 | Nationwide (many parts) Yellow Fever |
| 1857-59 | Worldwide: Influenza (one of disease's greatest epidemics) |
| 1860-61 | Pennsylvania: smallpox |
| 1865-73 | Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis & Washington DC: a series of recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever & Yellow Fever |
| 1873-75 | North America & Europe: Influenza |
| 1878 | New Orleans: Yellow Fever (last great epidemic of disease) |
| 1885 | Plymouth, PA: Typhoid |
| 1886 | Jacksonville, FL: Yellow Fever |
| 1918 | Worldwide: Influenza (High point year) More people hospitalized in World War I from influenza than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps- with 80% death rate in some camps. |
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