Enoch Bassett descends from #3B Thomas Bassett of Connecticut as follows:
Thomas Bassett (b. 1598) and wife Joanna Beardsley
Thomas Bassett (b. 1650) and wife Sarah Baldwin
Thomas Bassett (b. 1699) and wife Sarah Pearson
Joel Bassett (b. 1734) and wife Grace Livingston
Enoch Bassett (b. 1760) and wife Esther Bristol
The following letter is from a father to his daughter during an epidemic in Vermont during 1813. Very timely given the circumstances around the world today.
From Vermontgenealogy.com, I found the following:
This entire section of New England, if not a much larger area, during the spring seasons of 1812 and 1813, was scourged by a fearful epidemic, called at first “spotted fever” and later “malignant fever.” So great were its ravages, that the deaths in Vermont reached 6,000 by this disease alone, or about one death in 40 inhabitants. The disease is supposed to be the same as that now called cerebro-spinal-meningitis, and was not then considered contagious. During the time the epidemic raged, there were 70 deaths at Bennington; Pomfret and Reading each had 44; and Shrewsbury about 30. In the month of March 1813, seven persons died in the town of Walpole in as many days and great excitement and fear prevailed in all this section of the Connecticut Valley. In the town of Rockingham, the most prominent physician was Dr. Joshua Ripley Webb, who lived in the small dwelling east of the old Rockingham meeting house, now occupied by his descendants. He was one of the victims of this terrible disease. He was attacked suddenly, while on his daily rounds among the afflicted ones, and became unconscious while in his buggy. His faithful horse continued upon its way, and brought the stricken doctor to the door of his own home, where he survived only a few hours. He was son of Joshua Webb, one of the earliest and most prominent men of the town.
Steve Butz has sent me a copy of a letter written in April of 1813 in Vermont about one family’s dealing with the epidemic.
