History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY..

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the swamps continued to be inhaled or absorbed from day to day
until the whole body became charged with it as with electrnicity,
and then the shock came. This was a regular slhake,-a terrific
shake, with a fixed beginning and ending, coming on eachl day or
alternate day, with an appalling regularity. After the shake came
the fever, and this last state was even more dreaded than the first.
It was a burning, hot fever, lasting for hours. WhTen you had the
chill you could not get warm, and when you had the fever you
could not get cool. It was a change of extremes.
This disease was despotic in every respect. If a wedding
occurred in the family circle, it was sure to attack a few if not all
those participating in the festivities. The funeral processionists
shook as they marched onward to some sequestered spot where
the body of their departed friend was to be laid. The ague
proper had no respect for Sundays or holidays. Whether they
were engaged in the sacred, the profane, or the ridiculous, it
came forward to the attack, and generally prostrated its victims.
After the fever subsided, you felt as if you were some months in
such a prison as Andersonville, or Libby, and, in come cases, as if
you had come in collision with a wandering planet,-not killed outright, but so demoralized that you could enjoy nothing. A feeling
of languor, stupidity and soreness took possession of the body,
the soul was sad, and the sufferer was forced to ask himself that
criminal question, What did God send me here for anyway?
Your back was out of fix, and your appetite was crazy. Your
head ached, and your eyes glared. You did not care a straw for
yourself or other people, or even for the dogs, who looked at you
sympathetically. The sun did not shine as it used to,-it looked
too sickly by half,-and the moon, bless your soul! the sufferer
never ventured to look at it. In fine, you heartily wished that
Mother Shipton's prophecy would be fulfilled and this portion of
our planet, at least, dissolved.
It was no wonder, after all, that the American Fur Company's
officers looked most unfavorably upon the country, and cautioned
all against coming here.
The detachment of the 3d U. S. Infantry garrisoning the Saginaw Fort in 1822-'3, realized what chills and fever really meant.
It was here that Baker, Allen, and a half-dozen soldiers fell victims to it. It was from it that Major Baker and his troops fled,
and, owing to it, the settlement of Saginaw was retarded fully six
years.
THE REIGN OF SMALL-POX.
In referring to the settlement of James McCormick on the
Flint river, it has been stated that his kindness alone to the
Indians saved many bands from death by starvation. Later, about
the year 1837, the dreadful scourge known as small-pox spread
through the villages of the Saginaw and claimed, as its victims almost
two-thirds of the Indian inhabitants, sparing the white settlers in