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Cholera At Bishop Hill

In 1849 the 6 th party under Jonas Nylund had just arrived. Cholera had broken out among them on the trip to America and they brought it to the colony. It began to spread July 22 and raged until the middle of September sometimes killing as many as twelve a day. People who woke up healthy were dying or dead by sunset. People were dying at such an alarming rate there was no time to build coffins, they were wrapped in sheets. In all 140 colonists died.

Janson claimed that their lack of faith was the reason for the deaths and his lack of action caught the attention of some residents of the surrounding area. After being threatened with reporting him, he allowed a doctor to come in. Dr. Foster, who boasted he could cure 99% out of %100, could not save a single life.The profit himself now proved lacking in that firm faith which he had demanded of his followers by fleeing the colony to LaGrange. After a short stay he ordered those still immune to come there to LaGrange but those settlers that came brought the disease with them and another 70 people died there.

No longer safe in LaGrange, Erik Janson took his family and several women to a fishery camp he had established on Rock Island on the Mississippi but there cholera would strike again and killed his wife and two of his children. In spite of his incompetence Dr. Foster still enjoyed Erik Janson’s full confidence and was permitted to accompany Janson to Rock Island.

As an instance of blind faith he had in this imposter, Dr. Foster and Janson’s cool indifference in the midst of this terrible misfortune, it is stated that while Janson’s wife lie in the death throes which in a few hours put an end to her suffering, Eric Janson offered to wager $10,000 with certain physicians of Rock Island that Dr. Foster would save her.Mrs. Janson and her two children are buried on Rock Island.

The victims of the disease were buried in a mass grave apart from the formal Bishop Hill Cemetery. There is a marker there where they are buried.

From:Swedes in Illinois

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Illinois Ancestors