Cavendish & Vermont Flu Pandemic 1918

In the midst of Covid-19, we’ve been asked about what Cavendish went through during the 1918 flu pandemic. While there are certainly parallels between 1918 and 2020, at the moment, with the Stay at Home order in place, we can’t access town records, particularly death certificates.

According to Bruce McEnaney, Cavendish Historical Society (CHS) board members and town sexton, who has looked through 1918 records, he said a number of people had “Spanish flu,” influenza or “l’grippe” listed as the cause of death.

We will update this article once we are able to check town records.

Just as in January 2020, the media was obsessed with presidential impeachment hearings, so too was the focus directed elsewhere in 1918. In the midst of World War I (WWI) the first case appears to have been reported in Kansas at Fort Riley in March of 1918. In three weeks, over 1,100 of 56,000 troops were admitted to the hospital and 38 of them died.

Because Spain was not involved in the WWI, their media was free to report heavily on the flu, which is why it became known as the “Spanish” flu.

On Sept. 21, 1918, Charles Dalton, secretary of the Vermont State Board of Health, ordered local health officers to report any influenza cases. While the state’s newspapers carried his warning that the epidemic would reach Vermont in the coming days or weeks, the flu was already here. At the same time the papers posted Dalton’s warnings, they were also including that 40 students at Middlebury and 60 at Norwich University were already sick from it.  More than 50,000 Vermonters would contract the flu and more than 2,100 would die.

UVM Gym converted to care for flu patients.

As we have seen Vermont’s government struggle with closing down schools during the Covid-19 epidemic, their predecessors had the same fears. The Governor of Vermont in 1918, was Horace Graham. He wrote to Dalton on Sept. 26, “Do you not think some general action ought to be taken by the Board with reference to this epidemic. If it is contagious what about permitting all these conventions and meetings(?)” The Governor had other issues to consider as he was worried what effect banning gatherings would have on the sale of Liberty Bonds to fund the war in Europe.

While we see similar masks today, not exactly 6 ft apart.

Dalton issued an order to local health officials stating they had the right to close schools, churches, and other places of public assembly. Note that the state was leaving this in the hands of the local health officers. Dalton also stated, “Health officers should make it plain to all persons that the disease is spread by coughing and sneezing in public or around other people.”

Funerals were allowed, though if you were sick you weren’t allowed to attend. The massive numbers of deaths took precedence over war news.

Finally, on Oct. 4, Dalton ordered the type of “stay at home” order we are now experiencing, as he ordered all schools, churches and theaters closed, and prohibited all public gathers. The ban was lifted on Oct. 31.

Just as scammers are quite active during Covid-19, the charlatans of their day promoted Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills to “ease the stress of families of the ill. A clothier in Barre insisted everyone needed a raincoat as dampness was linked to illness. Vick’s VapoRub was another cure all being promoted.

Global travel as we know it today, did not exist then. However, because of WWI, the troops brought it with them and it quickly spread throughout the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.

The flu came in three waves with the first in the early months of 1918, the second in the fall of 1918 and the third in early 1919. Of the three phases, the most-deadly was the second wave. 

According to the Vermont Historical Society, First noted in reports coming from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where American troops were assembled for transport to Europe to fight in World War I, the disease quickly spread into Vermont through the transportation centers of St. Johnsbury, St. Albans, White River Junction, Rutland, in the more densely populated communities of Burlington and its neighboring towns, and—most severely hit of all—Barre and Montpelier.

The disease typically ran its course in three weeks, but could kill victims in three days or less. Without the aid of antibiotics or antiviral medicines, physicians were unable to treat cases of flu or its complications, most frequently pneumonia. They were therefore reduced to making diagnoses, treating symptoms, and recording the cause of death. Newspapers carried advertisements for patent medicines, none of which was truly effective in preventing or curing the flu. Makeshift clinics were assembled in churches, libraries, and other buildings. The hospitals in Barre and Montpelier hastily constructed new wings or added a floor to accommodate the flood of patients. In Burlington, the mayor took the unusual and controversial step of opening a dispensary where flu victims with signed notes from their doctors could acquire carefully measured quantities of alcoholic beverages, thought to be a preventative medicine. A critical shortage of doctors, nurses, and medical facilities developed by mid-September, so that Vermont Governor Horace F. Graham turned down the desperate call of Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Calvin Coolidge for doctors from Vermont. The senior class of medical students at the University of Vermont was pressed into field service; newspapers called on healthy and capable women to take on nursing duties.

By the end of September and into early October, town medical officers began exercising their authority to close all public meeting places—schools, churches, places of entertainment—and a statewide ban on public meetings went into effect on October 4. The Vermont Supreme Court, after postponing its October term several times, finally cancelled it altogether. Middlebury College was quarantined, and the University of Vermont postponed opening its autumn term.

The flu subsided in November—just as World War I came to an end—but scattered and less severe outbreaks persisted into February 1919. Statistics reported by the Board of Health for 1918 show the devastation. In a state with a population of 355,956 in the 1910 census, there were 43,735 cases of influenza in 1918, resulting in 1,772 deaths. The disease thus attacked 13 percent of the population and accounted for 25 percent of deaths for the year. These were approximate figures only, and do not include cases and deaths from pneumonia.

The epidemic had devastating effects on social and family life in Vermont. Because the Spanish flu had the peculiar pattern of fatally attacking people in the middle years, many children were left with one or no parents and were sent off to live with relatives elsewhere. In hard-hit communities, the deaths came so rapidly, in such great number, and under the stress of quarantine, that funeral ceremonies and interments were frequently performed unattended by mourners.

Cavendish was impacted by the flu, just as much as the rest of the state and country. Of the four Cavendish men who died in WWI, three died from flu. As Barbara Kingsbury noted in her book Chubb Hill Farm and Cavendish Vermont,  “The Civilian population was hit hard by Spanish influenza, too, though it spread the quickest in the crowded Army barracks and camps. The epidemic caused much more suffering on the “home front” than any fuel and food shortages."

To get a better idea of how many people in Cavendish may have died from the flu, we’ve used “Find a Grave” to determine how many people died  Sept-November in 1918. There were 19 burials in the Cavendish High Street Cemetery for that year. Of those with month of death, nine people died during that time frame. Hillcrest Cemetry in Proctorsville 11 deaths but few had the months listed, so it is difficult to determine what might have been flu deaths. However, this cemetery only had 4 burials the previous year, so it is expected a number of them were flu related.  

Do your part. Stay Home or 6 feet apart wearing a cloth mask or scarf.