The tempers of the citizens of Marblehead, Massachusetts were about to boil over.

By the 1770s, the town was home to 5,000 people, making it one of the largest and richest

fishing ports in the colonies. But a stark economic divide had appeared between those who owned fishing boats

and those who worked on them. Things only got worse after a fisherman's wife fell ill after

washing his clothes. At the time, some thought that she had been poisoned, but after the rest of the

household started to show the same symptoms, folks started to fearfully whisper about the potential

real cause, smallpox. And soon, more rumors spread, as did the infection. The town officials

move quickly, creating an inspection committee and limiting the movement to from and around the town.

Houses where disease appeared were guarded guarded and those who got sick were taken

away for quarantine. And in a fit of truly paranoid behavior, all dogs in town were ordered

to be killed for fear that they might be responsible for spreading the disease.

The first five people to succumb to smallpox were buried across the harbor on a spit of land

known as Marblehead Neck, but soon there were too many to be safely and efficiently

transported.

Town officials were looking for answers.

Decades earlier, a smallpox inoculation had been developed.

It was proposed that a private inoculation hospital could be built on nearby Cat Island.

There, people would be inoculated and remain during their infectious post-inoculation quarantine

period.

And while this seemed to be a promising solution, in reality it was far from perfect.

The price of treatment was often beyond the reach of many in the colonies, including most

of these fishermen and their families.

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