In the heart of Asylum Hill, 49 smallpox victims were buried in 1872 on what was the Town Farm. Those who were poor and receiving any kind of assistance in the city were required to live at this almshouse and work on the farm. This property on Sigourney Street also had a hospital.
Those who died during that outbreak were buried beneath what is now Sigourney Square Park.
Smallpox has been since eradicated, thanks to vaccines.
Donna S Swarr
hmmm. that is a downer. except, well, now most folks choose to vaccinate.
Kerri
Most…but there are those who seem to think that their “research” using sources lacking in all credibility somehow trumps the data collected and vetted by the medical community. And I guess this would be fine if they were all living in isolation from the rest of society.
Donna S Swarr
I really thought it was named after Lydia, as she was such a big hit with her poetry. Have you read any? She would do readings at many of the Colt parties, and wrote a special poem when Sam died. It was 9 stanzas long. Bereavement was her favorite theme.
Death of an Infant
BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY
Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow,
And dash’d it out. – There was a tint of rose
O’er cheek and lip; – he touch’d the veins with ice,
And the rose faded. – Forth from those blue eyes
There spake a wistful tenderness, – a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence
Alone can wear. – With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of their curtaining lids
Forever. – There had been a murmuring sound
With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear,
Charming her even to tears. – The spoiler set
His seal of silence. – But there beam’d a smile,
So fix’d and holy from that marble brow, –
Death gazed and left it there; – he dared not steal
The signet-ring of Heaven.