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What a day!  The cornet band was making straitlaced Congregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists tap their toes – almost in spite of themselves.  On the final note, a politician speechified about the war to defeat the Rebs.  And then the tearful goodbyes — mixing pride, apprehension, and longing – to some 50 men and boys about to join the Union Army.

Watching the enlistees march away, no one could predict the trials that awaited Grinnell. 

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Like most epidemics, it started small.  On the seventh day of March, 19-year-old Rollin W. Ford came down with chills, followed by severe pain in the head, neck, and back.  His legs became rigid, and he couldn’t speak or swallow.  In nine days, he was dead.  Doctors later identified it as Grinnell’s first case of spotted fever, a highly contagious cerebro-spinal meningitis.

In late April, Sarah C. Worthington and then her live-in maid, Ellen Malvina Sears, contracted spotted fever.  They had no muscular stiffness.  Three doctors – Holyoke, Ephraim Sears (no relation), and William Patton — came to their house to treat them.  They found Worthington “rolling and tossing on the bed, wild and crazy … No medicine or nourishment could be administered to her.” 

There were two types of spotted fever.  Worthington seemingly had the first type:  fever, and then a slight chill, followed by vomiting “ejected matter to a considerable distance.”  Her maid, Sears, was “attacked suddenly” with the less common fever.   It caused dark purple, elevated spots of ½ inch in diameter, all over the body – and death in as little as 8 hours. 

Worthington and Sears died on Sunday, April 27.  Two doctors performed a post-mortem exam the same day.  A dentist, Dr. George S. Pulsifer, dropped in to assist.  He “pricked his flesh under the nail with his scissors.” 

The women’s bodies laid in open caskets prior to burial in Hazelwood Cemetery on Monday, April 28.  Sears’s body was black from widespread spotting. 

The town fathers worried that Sears’s gruesome corpse would scare townspeople, so they decided to bury bodies as soon as “the graves and coffin could be gotten ready.”  The doctors debated the cause of death.  Three of them said, “malignant typhoid.”

In the afternoon of the burial, Dr. Pulsifer ran in to Dr. Ephraim Harris’s house, sat down, and started shaking violently.  Harris, who had attended Worthington and Sears, was distracted because his wife had a mild case of spotted fever.  He took Pulsifer upstairs to the room next to his sick wife. 

That evening, Dr. Harris visited the home of a feverish 9-year-old boy.  The boy’s mother had spots all over her face and body.  The next morning, both mother and son were dead.  By noon, so was Dr. Pulsifer.

All hands on deck

The following day, Wednesday, April 30, five doctors tended patients.  One doctor, Thomas Holyoke, was upset because two of his family members showed early symptoms of the disease.  Holyoke and Harris pored over medical books, trying to identify the disease.  They found a similar case in New Hampshire in 1812 and borrowed its name, spotted fever. 

The Rev. D.E. Jones, a visiting Congregational pastor from Newton, wrote, “The school is well-nigh broken up, & the whole town is highly excited [alarmed].”  Several boarders at Mrs. Bailey’s hotel fled to Brooklyn.  The Rev. Jones prayed, “The Lord have mercy upon the people of Grinnell.”

On May 4, Dr. William Patton from Jasper County, the third of the original attending physicians, infected his son with spotted fever, and they both died.  New cases were still being identified in Grinnell. 

Abrupt stop

About a week later, May 13, 1862, the spotted fever mini-epidemic was over.  The brunt of it occurred during three weeks.  In all, 13 of about 1,000 residents died.  At least three women survived the disease but suffered recurring weakness for years. 

The Rev. Jones concluded with a benediction:  “I bless the Lord, on your behalf & on behalf of the people of Grinnell, that the malignant disease … has disappeared from among you.”

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