Grief Debate

Chapter Title: A Tale of Two Cities: Epidemics and the Rituals of Death in Eighteenth- Century Boston and Philadelphia

Chapter Author(s): Robert V. Wells Book Title: Mortal Remains

Book Subtitle: Death in Early America

Book Editor(s): NANCY ISENBERG and ANDREW BURSTEIN

Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fj0p5.7

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Chapter 3

A Tale of Two Cities: Epidemics and the Rituals of Death in Eighteenth-Century Boston and Philadelphia

Robert V. Wells

What occurrence [is] so common as death ?

—Elizabeth Drinker (February 25, 1798)

In a meditation written in seventeenth-century England, John Donne ob- served, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. . . . Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in all mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."1 These words remind us of the importance of the social aspects of death rituals, that indeed, no man or woman is an island when it comes time to confront the last great passage. Historically, as well as today, rituals have provided both direction and comfort for the dying and their sur- vivors, setting forth a script to be acted out with clearly defined roles and dialogue. Moreover, commonly accepted rituals link bereaved family and friends at a time when isolation is likely to be the least desirable of conditions.2

However clear and useful the rituals of death may be under normal cir- cumstances, authors as varied as Thucydides, Edgar Allan Poe, and Albert Camus have reminded readers that during epidemics, rituals may become distorted or abandoned in the face of fears induced by unfamiliar and often loathsome forms of death.3 Although the rituals of death in early America were well defined, epidemics occurred which not only under- mined the power of rituals to comfort and direct, but even forced their temporary abandonment.4 Two individuals who lived through such terrify- ing episodes were Puritan minister Cotton Mather, whose experiences with measles in 1713 and smallpox in 1721 illuminate tensions in his commu- nity, and Elizabeth Drinker, the wife of a Quaker merchant, who suffered

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A Tale of Two Cities 57

through social collapse during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793.5

Before observing how epidemics distorted the rituals of death, we must establish some sense of what normal practice involved. In his survey of colonial American culture patterns, David H. Fischer argues for the exis- tence of four culturally and regionally distinct "deathways."6 Here I will emphasize instead three broad sets of rituals, encompassing common ex- pectations and their social contexts—because differences in the response to death were as often the result of personal circumstances as regional culture.7

The first set of rituals began at the moment when death was immi- nent, when one prepared to die—preferably with resignation to God's will. While obviously a personal if not spiritual exercise, preparation for death was most often accomplished amid family and friends. The second set of rituals involved separation beginning with the moment of actual death, ex- tending through the preparing of the body and ultimately its interment. The deceased was literally and symbolically transferred from the world of the living to that of the dead, while survivors were consoled by various ac- quaintances. The final set of rituals emphasized the restoration of grieving survivors to a normal place in society and efforts to preserve the memory of the deceased.

The diary of Elizabeth Drinker (discussed at greater length below) goes far in helping us establish a sense of the normal rituals of death. An old friend and neighbor, Rebecca Wain, died in April 1798, after suffering a re- lapse for having "ventured out too soon after her late illness." During Wain's last days, Drinker and her sister attended this old friend, who had grown "insensible to light and noise." As Drinker prepared for a follow-up visit, Wain's servant girl arrived in tears with news that Elizabeth's old friend had died. Drinker "went over and stayed with the afflicted children 'till their other friends and relations arrived." She remained until a woman arrived to lay Wain out, at which time Drinker left, not wanting to be pres- ent when "that awful business commenced." Two days later, on the morn- ing of the funeral, she went back "to take a last look at my old friend." Wain's family had prepared two rooms for company, but an ill-timed rain- storm kept many away. Only a handful accompanied the corpse to the bur- ial ground. Although Drinker herself did not go, she almost shuddered when she wrote that this was "one of the longest days I have known."8

One of the most poignant episodes in Drinker's diary is her reaction to the death of her first-born child, Sally Drinker Downing, who died in Sep- tember 1807, at the age of forty-six. Despite the mother's evident grief and personal loss, she was demonstrably appreciative of the support provided by a wide circle of acquaintances. While Sally lay ill for a number of days in September, her mother and family members remained at her side. On the twenty-fourth, Drinker alluded to her declining hopes for her daughter,

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a

and acknowledged her own weariness. Although Sally died around dawn on the twenty-fifth, Drinker did not write again until the twenty-eighth, noting only that she could not "recollect" the intervening days "in any or- der." When she was able to resume writing, Sally was "already in her grave." By then, Drinker was able to take pleasure in the fact that Sally had died well, "very quiet . . . without any struggle, sigh, or groan." Her body had been kept "till an apparent change took place"—assurance that the de- ceased was not merely in a coma. Elizabeth judged that such caution "al- ways should be the case." She and two of her other children were the only ones "of our house" who accompanied the body to "the place of fixedness." Family and friends joined the procession, one of whom gave "a short testi- mony at the grave" regarding "a sense of well-being of the deceased." Af- ter the funeral, Drinker reported "great numbers" calling on the family, though she admitted a willingness to see but a few. Two days later she gratefully noted that an obituary had appeared in one of the local papers.9

One more example from Drinker's diary will suffice to familarize us with the details of ordinary death rituals. Dolly Salter, a friend of the family, had died outside of town, but was to be buried in Philadelphia. The Drinkers offered their house as a staging area from which the funeral would com- mence. On the morning of April 28, 1781, the body arrived and was trans- ferred into a coffin obtained that day. The top was immediately screwed down, according to the family's wishes. Drinker admitted not seeing the body, commenting that her sister had, and thought that Dolly "appeared much like herself, considering what she had suffered." Family and friends arrived over the course of that day, perhaps in response to direct invitation, as was often the case in the Drinkers' world. At 6 P.M., the body was brought to the burying ground. After the interment, fifteen to twenty members of the funeral party returned to the Drinkers' for tea.10

From Drinker's extended comments, we see both the rituals of death at various stages—from preparation through separation to restoration—and the central role that family and friends played in insuring that neither the dying nor survivors faced this momentous passage alone. It is the collapse of this network of social support that becomes strikingly apparent in the distorted state of affairs brought on during epidemics.

It takes only a brief perusal of the diaries of Cotton Mather to realize how central death was to the life of this Puritan pastor. He was, of course, deeply concerned with the state of his own soul and how he might best pre- pare for death. His family was large and subject to the unhealthy condi- tions all faced in the American colonies. By the time Mather died in 1728, he had outlived two of his three wives and all but three of his fifteen chil- dren. His pastoral duties frequently required that he deliver comfort, counsel, and consolation as death approached, followed regularly by direct participation in funerary rituals. As he contemplated ways to improve on

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A Tale of Two Cities 59

the management of death, Mather devised useful lessons which he con- veyed in his funeral sermons; these in turn offered him opportunities to publish his ideas for the benefit of the community.

Our focus is on his responses to two different epidemics. The first was an outbreak of measles in the fall of 1713, during which he lost his second wife, newborn twins, a two-year-old daughter, and a maidservant. Despite his personal catastrophe, he remained cognizant of his pastoral duties to console those who suffered and provide an example of proper behavior in the face of imminent death. His ties to the community were never broken. The second epidemic was quite different. In 1721, Boston was visited by smallpox, a killer justly feared because of both fatality rates and disfiguring symptoms. Mather had recently become aware that inoculation was used in Africa and Turkey to inhibit the worst effects of the disease, and he vigor- ously proposed its adoption in Boston. Because inoculation meant deliber- ately giving a healthy person a live dose of smallpox and Mather had little proof that this treatment would work, many Bostonians attacked him, both in body and in reputation, as a threat to public safety.11

The first mention of the 1713 measles epidemic brought forth Mather's pastoral instincts. On October 18, he observed, "The measles coming into the town, it is likely to be a time of sickness, and much trouble in the fami- lies of the neighborhood. I would, by my public sermons and prayers, en- deavor to prepare the neighbors for the trouble which their families are likely to meet withal." But the next day, his concern shifted to protecting his own family. On that day he expressed "apprehension of a very deep share, that my family may expect in the common calamity of the spreading measles." His strategy for prevention at home included augmenting "ex- pressions of piety, in the daily sacrifices of my family," as well as awakening "piety, and preparation for Death, in the souls of the children."12

Within a week, his fears had been realized. On October 24, his son In- crease was taken with what "appeared to be the measles." Three days later, a "desirable daughter," Nibby, was afflicted. But it was not until the thirti- eth that he revealed one of his deepest fears. On that day, his wife deliv- ered twins early, in an unexpected labor. He admitted "much distress" over her attendance on their sick children, believing that measles was almost universally fatal to pregnant women. But her safe delivery left him sensible to the "numberless favors of God." Even witnessing another child contract measles did not depress him.13

Amid growing concerns for his own family, Mather nevertheless was mindful of the community and his own almost Mosaic responsibility for its safety. On the twenty-seventh, he believed the presence of a "very sensible calamity" in the town required him to prepare a lecture on how all might succeed in "getting the blood of the great Passover sprinkled on our houses." Over the next two days, he reflected on how the epidemic was bound to intensify the kind of misery that winter ordinarily inflicted on his

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60 Robert V.Weils

poverty-stricken New England neighbors. He vowed that he should act to "animate . . . charity . . . and . . . compassion." On November 4, he consid- ered publishing a "little sheet" of advice for the sick and their families, but worried that he might not find the time.14

This was, of course, understandable. His wife, three more children, and his maid were all afflicted with measles. On November 7, uncertain over what "cup" God might ask him to drink, and struggling for a "patient sub- mission unto the will of God," Mather decided to undertake a personal fast, humbling and sacrificing himself before God, so that "His wrath may be turned away from me, and from my family; and that the Destroyer might not have a commission to inflict any deadly stroke upon us." The next day, the Sabbath, Mather instructed his flock of the need for "patient submission to what ever cup our Heavenly Father shall order for us." He must have struggled with these words, for his wife just then had "the sur- prising symptoms of death upon her," a calamity he had feared since first hearing of the "venomous measles invading the country." The burden he as- sumed in trying to protect both family and flock was no doubt oppressive.15

Over the next two weeks, Mather grieved. His wife died on the ninth, and while Mather was pleased that God had "extinguished in her the fear of death," his own acceptance of loss was more difficult. Despite several desperately sick children, Mather arranged for publication of the sermon he preached at his wife's burial: "What Should be the Behavior of a Chris- tian at a Funeral." He also contemplated a newspaper article recommend- ing care for the sick. On the fourteenth, the epidemic proved stronger than the regimen of health he practiced at home, as his maidservant suc- cumbed. Mather paused, and digressed in his personal journal, and seized on the consolation that this "wild, vain, airy girl" had become disposed to "serious religion" under his care.16

The minister's trial continued. While contemplating the need to pre- pare for his own death, and reflecting on "how a family visited with so much death, may become an example of uncommon piety," he was called upon to resign himself to the loss of his three youngest children. When the twins died one after the other, on November 18 and 20, Mather had little to say; they had been in his life a scarce three weeks. But the loss of Jerusha (aged two years, seven months) was another matter. On the day of the sec- ond twin's death, he "begged that such a bitter cup, as the death of that lovely child" might elude him. But as soon as he had buried the twins, he was forced to accept God's will "with the most submissive resignation" he could muster. From her deathbed, Jerusha roused long enough to ask her father to pray with her and expressed confidence that she "would go to Je- sus Christ." Despite the toddler's optimism, Mather despairingly wrote: "Lord I am oppressed; undertake for me!"17

His resiliency in the face of so much personal tragedy is remarkable. On November 22, the day after Jerusha died, his pastoral instincts revived, as

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A Tale of Two Cities 61

he observed: "It will be a great service unto my flock, for me to exemplify a patient submission to the will of God." Mindful that his family now had no living child under the age of seven, Mather turned his thoughts to how he might "with most exquisite contrivance and all the assiduity imaginable . . . cultivate my children, with a most excellent education." He calculated that the best thing he could do for his afflicted town was to provide "an exam- ple of bearing adversity after a suitable manner," believing the "eyes of the people are much upon me." He resolved that the best solution to his own anguish was to "die daily, and become a man dead unto this world; cruci- fied unto all worldly enjoyments and impressions." Mather became so en- amored of this daily preparation for death as a means of dealing with separation and loss, but still so attached to the world and mindful of his role in it, that he proposed to publish a sermon on the topic for the edifi- cation of his neighbors.18

As the epidemic subsided, and Mather recovered from "a month which devoured" his family, his thoughts stayed more regularly on how he and the town might benefit from such affliction. He resumed his common practice of fasting and prayer, still faulting himself for "the sins that have procured such a desolation . . . such as exhibits me to all the country, for an example of suffering affliction."19 Calm acceptance of God's will, he be- lieved, would both protect his family in the future and induce his neigh- bors to behave with a similar sense of humility. He found satisfaction on December 17, the public day of prayer in Boston, when a "liberal collec- tion" for the poor and hungry was conducted. And by the twenty-third, he prepared a letter for circulation to the countryside on managing the measles. Local doctors had already declined his request to prepare such a document, and so, while anticipating "some invectives," he performed what he thought a necessary service. Thereafter, he was silent on the measles, although his diary ends with a list of the names of his children, with the note "Of 15, Dead 9, Living 6."20

If Mather anticipated "some invectives" for publishing recommenda- tions on how to treat the measles, he perhaps should not have been sur- prised at the public reaction to his suggestion that smallpox might best be countered by deliberately infecting the well with this loathsome disease. Whereas he never lost sight of his connection to the people of Boston in 1713, the 1721 smallpox epidemic reduced the controversial minister to an island in a sea of angry neighbors.

At the time smallpox was first mentioned in the Boston public records, May 12, 1721, Mather was preparing a pamphlet advising women who were facing their "hour of travail" (childbirth) to prepare for death. And he was offering counsel to a black man scheduled for execution. There was also, at that moment, a tone of disaffection among certain members of his con- gregation, and he was losing parishioners. When Mather first noted in his diary on May 26 that "The grievous calamity of the small pox has now

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62 Robert V.Weils

entered the town," he was already acquainted with the practice of inocula- tion, and wondered "how many lives might be saved by it." He decided to "lay the matter before the local physicians."21

Over the next nine months, the diarist wrote about many aspects of the epidemic, though he began his ruminations with a typical sense of self- importance by reminding himself of the need for humility lest God punish him for vanity. He recalled a sermon he had preached some months before warning Boston of the "speedy approach of the destroying Angel." Once again juggling his concern for the safety of his own children with the dic- tum that he must submit to God's will, Mather resolved to take action. Preparation and resignation, in his view, were not the same as fatalism. He was keenly aware, too, that his own life would be in danger, because his pas- toral duties required exposure to the "horrid venom of the sick chambers."22

He prepared a history of inoculation for the local doctors on June 6, al- though he thought his essay on "the new discovery" might "save the lives . . . and die souls of many people," he expressed uncertainty about submitting it to the booksellers, "waiting for Direction." In spite of these words, he did not delay before sending a letter to doctors urging inoculation. His pas- toral instincts surfaced, as he recognized the need to attend to "miserables neglected and perishing in sickness."23

The tone of Mather's discussion of smallpox changed dramatically in mid July, when he admitted that many citizens of Boston were angry over his proposed plan to infect the healthy to prevent death. He reassured himself that he was right to take "unspeakable consolation" in advancing methods that would "infallibly" save lives. The people, however, were un- convinced. As Dr. Zabdiel Bolyston began to follow Mather's advice and in- oculate, the minister was surprised and obviously felt betrayed by the public's "furious obloquies and invectives." The depth of his anger is evi- dent: "They rave, they rail, they blaspheme; they talk not only like idiots but also like fanatics." To Mather, "The Destroyer, being enraged at the proposal of anything that may rescue the lives of our poor people from him, has taken a strange possession of the people on this occasion."24

His confidence in the propriety of his actions was unshaken, though he was alarmed for his family. On July 18, he admitted that "the cursed clamor of a people strangely and fiercely possessed of the devil, will probably pre- vent my saving the lives of my two children" by inoculation. The contradic- tion is intriguing: he harbored no doubts as to the efficacy of inoculation, and wished to set an example for all of Boston; yet he recorded at this mo- ment that his family's safety depended solely on prayer. Perhaps he was less sure of inoculation than he admitted, or perhaps he feared physical attacks on his children. In any case, the minister delayed until August 15 before in- oculating his son Samuel.25

Between July 16 and September 4, Mather explicitly recorded Boston's hostility toward him a total of eleven times. He claimed that the town was

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A Tale of Two Cities 63

engaged in a "monstrous and crying wickedness," in "epidemical follies," and revealingly referred to himself as one who was being "crucified." On August 22, when Samuel exhibited an unexpectedly severe reaction to his inoculation, Mather worried that if the son died, the father might "suffer a prodigious clamor and hatred from an infuriated mob." Two days later, as Samuel was recovering, Mather angrily observed, "The town is become al- most an Hell upon earth, a city full of lies, and murders, and blasphemies." He felt that "Satan seems to have taken a strange possession of it, in the epidemic rage, against the notable and powerful and successful way of sav- ing the lives of the people." After one last reference on September 4 to "a rage of wickedness among us," amidst "the arrows of Death," Mather aban- doned his critique of the town.26

One reason for ignoring Boston may have concerned, once again, the suffering in his own family. In early September, he had reason to fear for the life of his daughter Nancy, who eventually recovered. But on the nineteenth of that month, daughter Abigail, who had recently given birth, went into de- cline, though not from smallpox. On the twenty-fourth, when Mather ex- pected to baptize his new grandchild—to be named Resigned—he learned after morning service that the child had died. Mother followed daughter into the arms of death only two days later, but not before Mather had lamented, "To strengthen a dear child in the agonies of death is a sad work." Faced with this double loss, he reverted to his old familiar rituals, re- minding himself of the need to serve as an example to his flock and to hum- ble himself before his God.27

What is remarkable, given the antagonisms of the summer, is that Mather seems to have been gradually reunited with the community in Oc- tober. He regularly noted the increasing demands on him to deliver prayers for the sick. As the epidemic proceeded, Bostonians began to post notices to this effect at the Old North Church. There were 202 such re- quests on October 7, and 322 on the fifteenth, all of which left him "ex- ceedingly tired." Still, he resolved to make his prayers "as pertinent and pathetic as ever I can." He recognized that an epidemic was no time to fall short in the requisite rituals, no matter how great the demand on his time and energy. On October 28, recovering from a brief bout of illness himself, Mather commented, "Still objects of compassion enough."28

The peace between minister and town was soon to be broken. At the end of October, several relatives approached Mather, asking for assistance in warding off the pox as Dr. Boylston undertook more extensive inocula- tion.29 Whether it was this that elicited renewed public criticism of Mather is unclear, but on October 29 he once again referred to attacks by "absurd and wicked people," confessing that he had not always preserved a proper "meekness" in his remarks on "the folly and baseness" around him. He did not let up in ministering to the numerous ill and needy, yet feeling "this abominable town treats me in a most malicious and murderous manner."30

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64 Robert V.Weils

This last metaphor proved something more, when just before dawn on No- vember 14, an unknown person "threw a fired granado into the chamber" of his home, where a recently inoculated relative slept. Fortunately, for Mather and company, the fuse was knocked out as the bomb came through the window. A paper attached to the bomb read, "Cotton Mather, you dog, damn you: I'll inoculate you with this, with a pox to you." It is hard to imag- ine a more powerful message expressing the community's anger over his experiments in the face of death. Yet Mather did not want to admit this publicly: when he wrote a news account of the bomb-throwing incident sev- eral days later, he suggested that the offender was simply a disaffected member of his congregation.31

Nor was Mather intimidated by this attack. On November 19, he wrote in his diary, at some length, that all he was guilty of was "communicating] a never-failing and a most allowable method of preventing death." He es- poused "unutterable joy at the prospect of my approaching martyrdom." The depth of his passion and conviction is further evident in his elabo- ration: "when I think on my suffering Death for saving the lives of dying people, it ravishes me with a joy unspeakable and full of glory." In this in- stance, his powerful sense of righteousness is truly exceptional.32

Mather continued to promote inoculation, but he never approached martyrdom again. He prepared pamphlets and circulated them to the un- informed in Boston, across Massachusetts, and as far as Europe.33 He re- minded himself of the need to control "any tendency toward the least wish of evil" toward his opponents, finding a moment on December 6 to pray for the person who threw the bomb. At the same time, however, he bitterly promised "warnings . . . to be given unto the wicked printer" whom he blamed for fomenting community hostility toward him.34

As the epidemic wound down, Mather found himself ministering only to those who had accepted inoculation and were recovering from their mild cases. So strong was his attachment to his supporters that he referred to them as "my patients," adding that he would even "consider them as my relatives" whose piety and favor with God he would thus seek to improve. When time came for a ritual thanksgiving, he invited only those of his flock "who have had the benefit of the smallpox inoculated," gathering them at his home and not at the church.35

Seven decades later, Elizabeth Drinker chronicled the collapse of the ritu- als of death in Philadelphia in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Yellow fever is frequently a relatively mild infection with high rates of recovery, but when it is fatal it produces not only a yellowish tinge in many of its vic- tims, but also external and internal hemorrhages. The latter produces the "black vomit," which led to its popular name.

Yellow fever had been present intermittently in Philadelphia from 1699 to 1762 before disappearing for thirty years.36 In 1762, Drinker made brief

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A Tale of Two Cities 65

note of "a sickly time in Philadelphia [with] many persons taken down with something very like the yellow fever."37 But having moved out of town for the summer, occupied with a new husband and even newer baby (Sally), she expressed little interest and no concern over what was happening. Her reactions thirty years later were greatly different. Over the summer and fall of 1793, perhaps as many as five thousand perished in the epidemic, while half of the fifty thousand inhabitants fled to the surrounding countryside. Despite the presence of many other deadly killers, including tuberculosis (which probably killed more Philadelphians in the 1790s than yellow fever), this particular form of death proved especially alarming because of its un- familiarity in 1793 and its disagreeable manifestation.38

On July 8, 1793, Drinker and her family made their annual escape from the heat and smells of a Philadelphia summer, taking up residence in nearby Germantown. As she began a new volume of her diary, she did not realize that this particular summer was to be so exceptionally fatal that she would later add "Book of Mortality" to the cover.39

During a fairly uneventful month in Germantown, Drinker peppered her diary with references to everyday concerns over health, and she rather laconically observed on August 16, " 'tis a sickly time now in Philadelphia, and there has been an unusual number of funerals lately here." Thereafter, she found the epidemic unavoidable, a constant theme until the end of November. Her initial offhand reference was soon succeeded by an anx- ious and even despairing attention to the general disaster. Two days later she noted the first of over four hundred deaths that she would record, naming either the victim or his or her family connections. Faced with an al- most unimaginable scale of mortality, and gradually aware that several thousands of her fellow Philadelphians had died, Drinker may have recorded the many names both as an act of memory and to give a human dimension to what was a social catastrophe.40

After speculating on the causes of the epidemic, Drinker began to report evidence of the breakdown of social order in Philadelphia.41 On Septem- ber 1, she mentioned that a man was found dead in the road and that the body had been left several days. This was the first of many instances in which normal expectations of aid and comfort were denied. On Septem- ber 4, she recorded the "sad story" of a young woman who had been serv- ing as a nurse, but when she herself took sick, neighbors sent her off. Eventually a magistrate arranged for a cart to take her to the hospital, and there she was denied admittance, only to be found dead in the cart the next morning. The story of Robert Broker was further evidence of social disarray. The night Broker died of yellow fever, his wife went into labor. She called out her window for help, but no one responded until the follow- ing morning, when she, too, was found dead, though the newborn was alive. Given Drinker's own eagerness to care for her family and friends, this violation of social duty must have appalled her.42

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66 Robert V. Wells

Early in September, the Pennsylvania assembly resolved to abandon its business. Drinker's Philadelphia neighborhood was by now nearly "de- populated by death and flight," prompted by reports of several hundred Irish immigrants arriving with the fever. Most spectacular were the rumors: that several hundred French soldiers were marching on Philadelphia from New York, and that "5 Negroes" had been "taken up for poisoning the pumps." Drinker wisely judged these stories to be "flying reports, and most likely to be false." In late September, she heard of efforts in New York to cut off communication with Philadelphia.43

Perhaps most shocking of all was the mounting evidence that long famil- iar death rituals were being abandoned in the fevered yellow face of the "King of Terrors." Among the first rituals to go were funeral processions. On September 4, Drinker observed, " 'tis said many are buried after night, and taken in carts to their graves." Two days later she reported, "the doors of houses where the infection is are ordered to be marked to prevent any but those absolutely necessary from entering." Moreover, "the ringing of Bells for the dead" was already forbidden. The normal pattern of laying out bodies and keeping them at home for several days was also abandoned. Josiah Elfrith was "buried as many others are in 2 or 3 hours after his departure." And again, "the dead are put in their coffins just as they die without changing their clothes or laying out, are buried in an hour or two after their disease [decease?]." Owing to the frequency and suddenness of death, "graves are dug before they are spoke for, to be ready." But the de- gree to which rituals were distorted by fear may have reached its worst when "two or three dead bodies were thrown into Friends burying ground over the wall." By the end of the month, reports came from the city that "coffins were kept in ready piles" and trenches were dug in the potter's field for the poor.44

The custom of family and friends' par