I was noticing that there were some families that had many deaths in the same year – so checked on various epidemics in Quebec. There were many. I found these.
1732-1733 Influenza Epidemic
1755-1757 Smallpox epidemic, the worst epidemic in French Canada occurred between 1755 and 1757 and spread to New England.
1759 – Measles Epidemic
1761 Influenza Epidemic
1772 Measles Epidemic
1775-1776 Influenza Epidemic
August 21, 2011 at 7:48 pm |
I found this while researching Marie-Renée Marsan, wife of Jean-Baptiste Dufresne, who lost three babies and her husband in a month’s time in the summer of 1703. First to go was three and a half year old Marie-Anne on July 3. Next, on July 18 was her husband of nine years, Jean Baptiste, aged a little over 30 years. On July 21, only one week after his second birthday, little François died. On August 6, five and a half year old Antoine passed away leaving his mother with a five month old baby sister, a seven year old brother and a nine year old sister.
The chronicles of the Ursulines provide us with opportunity to do the precise research necessary to understand the history of these plagues. “In the winter of 1700-1701, there was an illness among the people of Québec which had some strange symptoms. The sickness came on with a bad cold, soon augmented by a high fever followed by pains in the sides, after which it carried the people away in a few days … By the end of November (1702-03), the sickness began in the city. It had been brought here by a savage from the frontier. It was a kind of measles, accompanied by facial marks, and in less than two months, more than 1500 were ill and between 300 and 400 died.” It seems that this epidemic struck down a fourth of the population of Quebec.
Demographic aspects of the 1702-1703 smallpox epidemic in the St-Lawrence valley (p. 49-67): Data compiled by the “Programme de recherche en démographie historique” of the Université de Montréal were used to number and characterize deaths within the population of European extraction from the 1702-1703 smallpox epidemic in the St-Lawrence valley. Between 6% and 6.5% of the settled population in the late fall of 1702 was eliminated by the disease; adding the death of an extra 25% of newborns, the epidemic’s toll reached some 1,300. A significant proportion of adults died among the Canadian-born population, surpassing 10% for women of childbearing ages in particular.