Chambers County A Pictorial History by Margaret Henson and
Kevin Ladd
Perhaps the greatest personal loss came to
sixty-six-year-old Mary Middleton Chism. She lost all four of her
children—David Middleton, Mary Jane Middleton (the wife of Benjamin Barrow,
Sr.), Sarah Ann Middleton (the wife of Benjamin Franklin Barrow), and Annie
Chism (the wife of Fritz Hankamer)—a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, and four of
her nine grandchildren. The terrific blow no doubt contributed to her death one-year
later.
In 1877 smallpox epidemic swept the various communities in Chambers
County. Although Dr. Labadie carried out vaccinations in the 1830s, the
practice had given way to less reliable folk remedies. The journal of James
Jackson, for instance, lists zinc sulphate, digitalis, and sugar as an internal
treatment.
Once the disease appeared in Double Bayou, Jackson went to
Galveston to find some of the vaccine for his family and ranch hands. After
administering the vaccine to everyone on his ranch, Jackson rode from house to
house in the area urging his neighbors to be inoculated. Many of them feared
the procedure. Others already were suffering the first effects of smallpox.
Jackson’s journal
chronicles the fatal nature of the illness:
Jan. 2 Charles Wilborn [sic] died from Small Pox and
the disease commenced spreading, it having been brought here by Capt. Turner
from New Orleans in the latter part of December.
Jan. 5 - J. P. Wilborn died of Small
Pox
Jan. 17 - Andrew Wilborn
Jan 22 - Lottie Jackson and
Jan
25 - Alice Patrick
Jan
28 – G.W. Mayes
Jan
28 - Sarah E. Moss
Feb. 4 - David Middleton and Ralph Barrow
Feb 5 - Nellie Mitchell, E. L. Barrow, the last of
poor
Dee’s children, and at this time there is 9 of Mr.
Moss’s family all down.
Feb. 6 Buried
two Negroes—Nelson Carter and Barge Rivers.
Feb. 7 Mr.
Benjamin Barrow Sr. died. 2 of Wm Hankamer’s children died and Annie Hankamer
about to die.
Feb. 10 Jake Brown
died.
Feb. 12 Edgar Moss died at 2:30 in the morning.
Mary Jane Barrow died last Saturday
10th inst.
Feb. 14 Cloudy in the
forenoon, the sun coming out in the evening. Mollie Middleton died
this morning at 5 O.C.
Feb. 15 Moss family all better and none of my
family went up last night to sit up.
Feb. 16 Alice Mitchell died this morning. Moss
family improving.”
Dr. E. P. Angell, the son of a prominent Galveston physician,
provided additional details about the epidemic through his letters back home
from Double Bayou, thereby amplifying and corroborating the Jackson
journal. A January 25 letter from the
young doctor to his father reported that no vaccine was available. The cases
and deaths reported in the letter were:
Ten cases and three
deaths at the Charles Wilborn home
Five cases at the Joseph
home
Two at Casper and Ellen
Mitchell’s
Five at Solomon and
Decandia (Jackson) Barrow’s
Two cases and two deaths at James Jackson’s
(the deaths being Lottie Jackson and George W. “Bud” Mayes)
Two to four cases at the Erastus Moss home. At
the home of Benjamin Franklin “Little
Ben” Barrow
Six cases were reported, and the illness had
already claimed the lives of his wife Sarah Ann (Middleton) Barrow, plus his
son Jett. Alice (Edgar) Patrick was dead.
Three or four blacks were being treated.
Dr.
Fielden at Wallisville had worked tirelessly treating victims of the disease,
only to die on January 23.
Dr. Angell reported
four cases at John Jackson’s place in Smith Point.
Captain Turner, who
brought the disease to Double Bayou, had managed to recover.
Another physician, Dr.
Hamilton, arrived from Galveston on January 31 to help fight the epidemic. Many
families fled from the vicinity in fright, but the disease eventually ran its
course.