Essex hospital

The Essex Hospital was a privately built smallpox inoculation hospital on Cat Island (now Children's Island) where many people were effectively inoculated against smallpox in 1773–1774. About a year after it opened, it was burned to the ground by paranoid and angry townspeople of Marblehead, Massachusetts.

In June, 1773, Marblehead was stricken by an epidemic of smallpox. The typical response to an outbreak was undertaken by town officials, including daily surveillance of the inhabitants by a Committee of Inspection, fencing off of infected areas, moving infected people to pesthouses, inspecting cargo arriving into the town, and limiting out of town visitors. Some forward-thinking townspeople argued in favor of inoculation of the disease; diluted, contaminated material (pus) from a person with mild disease would be injected into a healthy person who would, with hope, develop a very mild case of the disease, fully recover, and then be immune. However, most people at the time were terrified of and vehemently opposed to the practice.

On August 9, 1773, a Town Meeting in Marblehead was held to debate the construction of a public inoculation hospital on one of the nearby islands. The proposal was rejected, but the majority did agree to allow a private funding of a hospital as long as the Marblehead Selectmen could regulate it. On August 17 a petition to build a private inoculation hospital on an island was sent to Governor Hutchinson who approved the measure. The owners of the future Essex Hospital were four popular Marblehead political figures: John Glover, Jonathan Glover (John Glover's brother), Azor Orne, and Elbridge Gerry; they purchased Children's Island (Catt Island) on September 2, 1773. Despite having received permission from the town, their decision to inoculate remained contentious. Many Marbleheaders feared that the inoculation process would cause new outbreaks of the disease and that the hospital itself would scare off merchant ships arriving at Marblehead and Salem Harbors. Some opponents of the hospital also denigrated the plan as a get-rich scheme by the proprietors. In response to the fear the town selectmen prescribed strict rules to which the proprietors agreed. On October 5 to help alleviate some concerns "The Rules and Regulations of the Essex Hospital on Catt Island" were published in the local newspaper, The Essex Gazette. These rules required guards to be posted on the island to ensure no one would come ashore without a permit and no one would leave the island without a health clearance from a physician. No boat other than the hospitals' were to approach the island, and once returned to Marblehead were to dock only at approved locations within the harbor. People on the island were not to approach the island landing and a fence and trench would separate areas where supplies were dropped off from areas used by people on the island.

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