11 The Winter of Illness and Death

11

THE WINTER OF ILLNESS AND DEATH

before the wAr of 1812, only 6 to 7 percent of royAl nAvy deaths were from enemy action, while 78 to 82 percent were because of illness or accident.1 Disease was a well-known threat and typically caused more death in war than combat. It was well understood in the navy that the health of sailors could decide victory or defeat. Commodore Yeo, barely 30 years old, was often sick, as was his U.S. counterpart, Commodore Chauncey. With the cold and confinement of winter, illness became more prevalent.

The Royal Navy took care to protect the health of sailors and marines within the limits of their understanding of science and infectious disease. It was generally thought that illness was due to the quality of the air. “Miasma,” the name for stagnant, malodorous air, was believed to cause most disease. To avoid miasma, hospitals were built where breezes and open air were readily available. Cleanliness, including the appearance of cleanliness by whitewashing buildings inside and out, was thought to prevent illness. Germ theory was still unknown, and the full implications of dumping fecal waste near potable water were not appreciated.

Medical diagnosis and treatments were crude. Sickness was thought to result from imbalances in various fluids within the body, such as blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Treatments were aimed at restoring those imbalances, usually by removing one fluid or another. Depending

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Fig. 11.1: The

hospital complex today. The arrow shows the outline of the foundations of the Royal Navy hospital built in 1814. The surgeon’s house was within today’s Commandant’s Residence, the large building in the lower right centre. The smaller building on the upper right is the hospital cookhouse. on which fluid was eliminated, treatments could include forced sweating, urination, vomiting, or blood loss through several means. “Medications” were administered to cause vomiting, for example. Poisons such as mercury were used to treat conditions such as gonorrhea. A common procedure of bleeding the patient involved employing a lancet to open a vein, a method sometimes repeated if the patient did not respond. A safer, more controlled technique involved attaching leeches to the skin to remove blood. In many cases, it is difficult to know if the patient died of a disease or the treatment.2

Anaesthetics were unknown and antibiotics undiscovered. Signs of infection, like swelling, redness, or pus, were known to be dangerous and signalled a worsening condition. Without antibiotics, amputation above the infection was often the only means to save a life. Surviving an amputation without anaesthetic depended on the surgeon’s skill and the speed in cutting and closing to minimize blood loss. The very best surgeons could complete a leg amputation “skin-to-skin” in 30 seconds. Amputation was so common a procedure that the medical chests of all naval surgeons were well equipped with saws, knives, forceps, probes, and needles. Many are unchanged in design today.3

All Royal Navy hospitals were staffed with at least one naval surgeon, as well as assistant surgeons, nurses, orderlies, and labourers. With his appointment as the naval surgeon of the hospital in October 1813, Thomas Lewis assumed the roles of both surgeon and agent, meaning he was acting as a surgeon and administrator. In his capacity as agent, it was probably Lewis who chose the building site for the naval hospital. The location was the best available on Point Frederick, according to the practices of the time. Placed on the highest plateau of a low peninsula, the site received fresh breezes off

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Fig. 11.2: A

painting circa 1911 of the “old” naval hospital in Kingston, built by John Cummings in 1810 and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1814 for use as a temporary hospital.

the lake and avoided proximity to the stagnant waters near the latrines and around the shipbuilding. Stripped of trees, the spot was pastoral and close to fields for grazing cattle, horse, and oxen. Lewis must have visited the hospital site often during planning and construction. Its foundation outlines may still be seen today, after dry weather, near the RMC Commandant’s Residence (see Fig. 11.1).

Before the completion of the Point Frederick hospital, surgeon Lewis’s patients were found in different places. While most probably stayed at the temporary hospital in Kingston (see Fig. 11.2), others were on board the Duke of Kent in Navy Bay. In the absence of other ships’ surgeons, Lewis may have also attended patients on their assigned vessels. There are references to patients who remained on their vessels when ill but drew victuals from the hospital. With the temporary hospital in Kingston, it made sense for Lewis to live in town.

Construction of the new hospital finally started during the winter of 1813–14. Carpenters and labourers were in short supply, since they were also needed to build ships, a higher priority. Lewis made frequent requests for

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Fig. 11.3: An 1839

easterly view of the Point Frederick naval hospital (centre building), built in 1814. The house with the red roof was the surgeon’s dwelling, built in 1817. It remains within the structure of the RMC Commandant’s Residence.

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more men to complete the work. Framing the hospital was delayed throughout the winter, but progress began in the spring. The rectangular shape of the stone foundations was aligned on the north-south grid, measuring 64 by 39 feet.4 It was built with two storeys, a substantial shingled hip roof, and four large stone corner chimneys. By June 1814, the building was roofed in and receiving patients, although still not finished.5 The Kingston Gazette edition of June 2, 1814, announced that the new hospital was located at Point Frederick. Tenders were requested for fencing around the hospital and jobs were offered to carpenters, an indication that inside completion was ongoing.

An image of the Point Frederick naval hospital as it appeared in 1839 is shown in Fig. 11.3. There is a west-facing door centred on six ground-floor and seven upper-floor windows. Later images reveal three dormer window casements on the roof. During the War of 1812, the building was prominent enough to be used as a sighting reference by ships on the lake.6

The Point Frederick naval hospital patient muster records commenced after May 1, 1814, coinciding with the creation of the new Royal Navy organizational framework. The first patients arrived soon after. Each patient was assigned a number, starting with 1 and continuing sequentially. Patient number 1 was Sergeant James Blundell of HMS Niagara (Royal George) who, in common with patient number 2, Corporal John Bax, received wounds in

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the fighting at Oswego.7,8 They were probably transferred to Point Frederick from Kingston Naval Hospital.

Both patients were admitted on May 20, 1814. Blundell and Bax remained in hospital for the rest of the year. Like others, they recovered and stayed to help with the construction. The last patient admitted to the hospital in 1814 was number 145, Seaman John Bignele of HMS Star, who arrived with “fever”9 on December 31. Later, there were other casualties from the Oswego raid. This probably indicates that the wounded were first admitted to the naval hospital in Kingston, then transferred to the Point Frederick naval hospital as it became more functional and as their injuries allowed.

The hospital records do not document any of the officers wounded at Oswego, like Captain William Mulcaster, who was shot, or Lieutenant James Richardson, who lost an arm. They may have preferred to take their chances with private care in quarters, private lodgings, or on board a ship rather than being too near the surgeon, who they may have feared.

Because of the shortage of carpenters and labourers, Yeo encouraged surgeon Lewis to employ patients and convalescents to build the hospital. Besides Blundell, others were added to the muster roll through 1814, even though they had recovered. The status of some who started as patients was changed to “labourer in hospital” as time went on. The high numbers on the muster rolls were corrected on December 31, 1814, when more than 50 were discharged, indicating the hospital was substantially completed and fully operational during the final quarter of 1814.10

By that time, Lewis had given up his responsibilities as agent but remained the naval hospital surgeon. The hospital staff grew to include the new victualling agent, Arthur Gifford, four assistant surgeons, a clerk, a steward, and eight nurses.11 The nurses were women, some from Kingston, and among the very few women employed by the Royal Navy on Point Frederick. There were also at least 18 women working in the yard as cooks.12

Of those patients admitted to the hospital in 1814, 12 died. The known causes of death were listed as dysentery (two), debility (two), consumption, pneumonia, and fever. In the cases where no cause of death was given, it was probably unknown. Most of the beds were occupied by the end of 1814. By all signs, the hospital was a busy operation.

The hospital stayed in operation until late 1817. Of the several hundred patients who were admitted, most suffered from infectious diseases. Common

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diagnoses that are documented in the records included rheumatism (pain in the joints), pneumonia, dysentery (diarrhea), consumption (tuberculosis), fever, abscess, debility (weakness), phthisis (tuberculosis), ague (malaria), and pleurisy. Records of dockyard workers are few, although more appear later when the hospital was not busy. But there is no doubt that the physically difficult work, poorly developed ideas of work safety, environmental hazards, and hard outdoor working conditions caused many to be ill, injured, or killed. One shipwright wrote that he “took the fever and ague: and one day” attended “as was customary the Hospital on the hill….”13 And while there is sparse mention of families, there is no doubt they were present and that some quietly suffered illness and death, perhaps without medical care.

There were many opportunities to acquire infections, especially given the locations of the privies at the shorelines. There were no fewer than three separate facilities along the shoreline surrounding the battery on the south end, two more on either side of the dockyard area, and another in Navy Bay Inlet. Most were over shallow water, sometimes stagnant areas. When the yard was busiest, hundreds of workers, sailors, and soldiers used these privies daily, placing human excrement into the surrounding waters. Crews on vessels moored nearby also contributed. Given the notion of miasma, the design of the facilities might have made more sense if there had been strong currents to carry human waste far away. Rather, the flow to the east was languid. When surface currents were generated by westerly winds, a common occurrence, the water curled around Point Frederick and into the bay. There, eddies transported the sediments deep along the east shore and dockyard waters, producing the clay-sand shorelines and the Navy Bay spit.

In addition to human waste, there was the industrial pollution of shipbuilding. Lethal chemicals and hard waste spilled into the water, either through ground runoff from the work sites or directly from the activities on the docks and wharves. The spills of tars, paints, grease, tallow, gunpowder, lead, and fine sawdust powder were only a few of the myriad pollutants that mixed with the products from latrines. While workers were directly exposed, so, too, were those utilizing bay water for bathing, drinking, and cooking.

By 1814, the privies were in everyday use by a yard population that may have reached 1,500 to 2,000,14 enough to spill large volumes of human waste into the shallow waters. It is easy to imagine raw effluent turning Navy Bay into a fetid cesspool, along with rotting garbage of rancid meat and vegetable

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refuse. While the miasma was striking on hot, calm days, the real problem was not the air. It was the water. Physical signs of diarrhea, weakness, loss of function, coarse cough with bloody sputum, chest infection, and fever might today be explained by waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera, salmonella, shigella, and Escherichia coli (E. coli), to name a few.

Although not a patient of the hospital, an example of what illness entailed in 1814 Kingston was described by Lieutenant Le Couteur in his journal. He wrote of his violent attack of “rheumatism” that started on November 16. Within four days, he was confined to his room in Kingston. A week later, he experienced dysentery and fever. He remained weak and unable to walk on December 11. The dysentery returned the next day, and a subsequent improvement soon gave way to another relapse when he again experienced dysentery on New Year’s Day. He continued to suffer through the following week. Outside, there were heavy rains and then freezing and snow. It was not until January 12, with the ice frozen to Wolfe Island, that he was well enough to get out. He celebrated by skating out and around the ships in Navy Bay. Le Couteur wrote that “surgeons attribute the prevalence of dysentery to the changeable state of the weather.”15

Surgeon Lewis was aided by assistant surgeon Joseph Scott and no fewer than eight nurses. By the end of 1814, Lewis had built and developed a busy navy hospital that was soon dramatically challenged. The increase in the number of admissions started during the last quarter of 1814 and was associated with the return of the fleet. There were many complaints of fever and dysentery. Conditions were certainly right for illness in the closed, confined spaces of the wooden warships frozen in the bay. Heated by small smoky stoves, the crews ate food cooked in the polluted and diseased water of the bay and also drank it. As winter set in, ships’ surgeons referred increasing numbers to the new hospital. Victualler agent Gifford’s quarterly books show the hospital population in 1814–15 increased to full capacity by January.16

This was a winter epidemic, an outbreak17 commencing in November that killed more men than enemy action. Twelve died by December 31, 1814. In January, 16 more bodies were carried from the wards. Fifteen more died in February. These numbers reflect a death rate of about 15 percent per month.

The workload for a medical staff of one physician, four male assistants, eight female nurses, and one labourer would have been extreme. Consider the basics of just one patient, Seaman William Tiptaft, who suffered for 105 days

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Fig. 11.4: A.T.E.

Vidal, W.F. Owen, H.L. Renny, and H.W. Bayfield 1816 depiction of a burial ground. The routing of the back road was then parallel with the east shore. with dysentery before finally succumbing on December 14, 1814. In constant pain and with continuous bouts of diarrhea for months, there was a constant need to keep him eating, hydrated, and cleaned while administering treatments, including bleeding. Aside from treating, feeding, and cleaning the patients, there was the necessity to keep wood fires going in each of the eight great fireplaces (four on each floor). All patients required feeding, laundry had to be done, floors had to be washed, and with deaths occurring frequently, bodies had to be removed and stored until burial.

While there is almost no available information about burials, there are clear records of patient admission dates, discharge dates, and meals taken. No doubt the cold and frozen ground delayed or prevented burials. If the hospital included a mortuary room or outbuilding suitable for the storage of bodies, it would likely have soon reached capacity. It is possible that the bodies were moved to Kingston by boat, scow ferry, or sleigh on the ice, then buried in the town. But a search for the names in the Kingston records of those who died on Point Frederick suggests they were not. The bodies probably remained at Point Frederick.

For the Royal Navy, a simple solution was to bury the bodies on-site. This was the usual practice among Royal Navy dockyards. It was stated that: “No overseas base was to be complete without its hospital and well-filled naval cemetery.”18 Faced with the many deaths during the winter of 1814–15, the dead were probably buried nearby within an area shown on a single 1816 map labelled “Burying Ground.” It was probably Sir Robert Hall, the new commissioner, who ordered land put aside for the burials. He had the burial ground laid out on rising ground at the head of Navy Bay (see Fig. 11.4). The ground was an irregular five-sided lot, with the northern boundary on the Front Road and the east perimeter next to the back road. The burial ground was probably fenced, with an entrance that opened east onto the first back

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Fig. 11.5: This circa 1870 panorama appears to show grave markers on the downslope of the hill at the head of Navy Bay. This would be the closest approach to the burial ground from the early route of the back road.

road. The back road was later rerouted, and today is on the west side of the burial ground, paralleling the western boundary. But in 1814 it crossed on the east as shown in Fig. 11.4. Traces of the earlier road can be seen in details of the 1870 photograph of Point Frederick in Fig. 11.5. The entrance to the cemetery would have been close to the road near the arrow in Fig. 11.5. The blow-up image in the photograph reveals object shapes that appear to be grave markers.

There was a total of 66 hospital deaths among marines, soldiers, and shipwrights between June 10, 1814, and August 7, 1816. Most or all were likely buried on Point Frederick. Aside from the suggestion of grave markers, there is other evidence that supports the existence of the burial ground. While in England, Hall wrote on July 7, 1816, to the Admiralty, advising that the “Burial ground [was] to be consecrated.”19 His note surely refers to the area marked in Fig. 11.4, since there were no other burial grounds on Point Frederick before 1834.

In 2008, it was confirmed that burials were conducted on-site when human remains were discovered near the burial ground’s west border, close to today’s Verite Avenue. Each of the three individuals had been positioned in a row aligned north-south, with their heads oriented to the west. Cut nails, likely associated with coffins, were found under the human remains that provided a basis for dating the burials. The subsurface features suggested a mass burial after 1810.20

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Yeo’s detachment of May 1813 included a naval chaplain, who may have conducted his services in the mould loft, presumably in space put aside. With the many deaths that occurred in 1814 and 1815, funeral processions would have made their way from the dockyard, through the gate, and along the back road next to Navy Bay. Passing the hospital on the left, these processions would have finished on the shallow slope facing east. Here, during the sharp days of winter, sailors far from home were laid to rest.