Constable: Elgin has a history of enduring other plagues

As the death rate from COVID-19 continues to rise, and soar in some areas, it's easy to think we've never seen anything like this in the suburbs.

But we have endured similar diseases, fear, finger-pointing, and sheltering in the past, say local historians Elizabeth Marston, director of the Elgin History Museum, and Jerry Turnquist, who writes a history column for the Daily Herald. For her blog that she plans to post as soon as today, Marston went through extensive research done decades ago by historian and former Elgin Mayor E.C. “Mike” Alft, and historian Barbara Schock, and found “frequent epidemics that came with suffering and sorrow.”

In 1916, a local typhoid epidemic killed 26 factory workers and their family members at Elgin National Watch Company, including 17 in the month of September. But the idea of shutting down the city started in the 19th century with the arrival of bilious fever in 1845. Also known as ague, the disease swept through Elgin, causing fevers and chills similar to malaria. So many residents were too sick to get out of bed or left town that one man had trouble finding enough people to bury his wife, Marston says.

In the 1860s, African Americans freed from slavery and called “contraband” came to Elgin.

“Children have been swept away as with a pestilence,” reported the weekly Elgin Gazette. Marston says research shows 16 African American children died, mainly of smallpox, after leaving a crowded refugee camp and traveling for two days in unheated boxcars. An equal number of white kids died of scarlet fever and diphtheria.

“Different diseases, but the blame fell on the new war refugees,” Marston says.

Elgin founder James Gifford died when cholera swept through the city in 1854, and the disease struck again in 1866. Diphtheria also proved deadly. In an account of the diphtheria outbreak of 1883, siblings Lottie Magden, 13, brother Eddie, 3, and sister Lizzie, 15, died in one five-day span. Similar outbreaks in 1895, '96 and '97 killed 42 residents of Elgin.

In 1906, tuberculosis was the scourge, responsible for 25% of all hospital deaths, including three doctors. A tent hospital was set up to isolate TB patients, and within a few years, private sanitariums took care of those patients.

The typhoid epidemic began in July 1916, which was the hottest month on record at the time. The first typhoid fever death was July 5, when eight others were sick from the disease. Smallpox was also reported.

“Quarantine signs were posted outside of homes with sickness, warning neighbors not to visit and milkmen to not pick up empty bottles,” Marston writes.

As the deaths were mounting, finger-pointing began. Turnquist passed along a newspaper article published July 12, 1916, in which city health officials and some Elgin doctors said the deadly outbreak was the fault of those pesky new automobiles.

“Hundreds of Elgin people are motoring into the country hereabout and to various pleasure resorts in this section all the time, refreshing themselves at springs and wayside pumps,” the article read. “The water they drink in their jaunts is believed by the health authorities to be the cause of many cases of typhoid.”

Dr. Alban Mann, the city of Elgin physician, eventually traced the contamination to a leaky valve where water from the Fox River leaked into the watch factory's reservoir and mixed with drinking water. More than 200 people became infected, including caregivers. The factory, which paid financial compensation to the victims' families and remained in operation until 1964, instituted mandatory vaccinations for typhoid. And the last typhoid victim in the factory died in December 1916.

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed 70 people in Elgin, fewer than the 236 killed in Joliet or the 125 who died in Aurora. Polio and AIDS also infected people in Elgin during the 20th century, Marston reports.

COVID-19 could cause illness and death until doctors develop treatment, vaccines and maybe a cure. In the meantime, we need to follow the sheltering practiced by our ancestors. Or, as Marston writes, “Medical scientists, public health workers, and improved sanitation have eliminated the fears of an earlier day, but the coronavirus is a reminder that the battle against contagious disease is not yet won.”