Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

SHAPLEY'S ISLAND. 263
sminll pox in the natural way, were vaccinated for it, and
withdrew for tiree or four weeks from intercourse with the
world. We have before us a letter in the hand-writing of
Doctor Hall Jackson, dated at the Essex Hospital, Dec. 17,
1773, at which time he was a small pox patient It was on
his return that arrangements were;made for " a general inocculation in Portsmouth.' From that time up to 1797,
Shapleigl's Island, in this harbor, was used as the " Pest
Island," and every few years parties went there to have tlle
small pox.
These smaill-pox parties were firequently made social gatherings-there were more who spent a summer month il
this way than at the watering places; they had one advantage over the latter amusement, for as they could but once
be of such a party, it remained a novelty through life.
We have before us a letter froIn Joseph Barrell, a merchant of Boston, dated July 8, 1776, addressed to Col.
Joshua Wentwort.h, of Portsmouth, in which is this postscript:"\'r Storer has invited Mrs. Martinl to tike the small pox athis house: if Mrs WVent —
worth desires to get rl o,f her fears in the same way we will aer'ommodat, her in the Ilst
way we can. I've several friends tLhat I've invited, and none ofthemn will be more \velcuma
han Mrs. W."
What a subject for so courteous an invitation! We will
adopt for this Ramible the following interesting communication fiom Mr. Bowles on this subject.
There is a passage in thehistory of Portsmouth, at the
close of the last century, to which I have never seen any
allusion in print, that is, I think, worth preservation from
being entirely forgotten; at least so far as it may be done
in the columns of a newspaper. I'refer to the time when
in the months of May and June, 1797, the young ladies and
young gentlemen wrent to Shapleigh's Island to receive
vaccination for the small-pox. There are but few living,
who, from personal recollection can recall the event, but
others, of a later generation, still retain much that was related to them in former years, by those who were participants in it.