Dry weather brings an unknown sickness.
The plant that causes the milk sickness is common along the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries. These early settlers had no idea of what caused the milk sickness, but they noticed that cattle got sick at the same time people did and began to suspect that humans got the disease from drinking milk.
Cattle did not care for white snake-root. They ate it only when there wasn't
enough grass for forage. Around 1815, a twenty-year period of dry weather
caused insufficient grass to be produced
in the farmer's fields. Cattle began to eat the less desirable white snake-root and the milk sickness would soon
become a major problem.
The milk sickness was known to kill half of the
people in many settlements. The worst case recorded was the epidemic of 1818 in
Pigeon Creek, Indiana. Almost all of the residents died.
In 1821, the Tennessee legislature passed an act requiring fences to be made to
keep cattle away from some unknown vegetable in the woods that caused the
disease. In 1830 the Kentucky General assembly offered a $600 reward to anyone
discovering its cause.
In 1838, an Ohio farmer named John Rowe believed
that the white snake-root plant might be
the cause. He fed some of his cows the leaves of the white snake-root and they developed the disease. John
Rowe published his find in the local newspapers.
Symptoms of the poison began with a feeling of
weakness and lassitude. Soon the legs would become painful and tremble. Later
the appetite would become impaired followed by severe stomach pain when eating.
These symptoms could last for two weeks and many would die.
Death
comes to the Lincoln family.
In 1817, Elizabeth and Thomas Sparrow along with
their wards, Dennis Hanks and Sophie Hanks, moved next to the Lincoln family at
Pigeon Creek. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln had finished their cabin and moved out
of their lean-to, also called a half-faced camp. The Sparrows were given the
lean-to to live in while they built their cabin. Shortly after the Sparrows
arrived, Nancy bought six cows to provide milk for the two families. Cows don't
give milk without calves. Probably, those six cows consisted of three mother
cows and their calves.
In the fall of 1818, a neighbor told Nancy and
Elizabeth about a sickness in the area. She called it the milk-sick and told
them that people were dying from drinking milk. To be safe Nancy and Elizabeth
stopped the children from drinking milk. Thomas Lincoln didn't drink milk. He
preferred whiskey.
Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow had been drinking
the milk for over a year and believed it safe. They continued to drink the milk
rather than dump it out. A short time later, Thomas and Elizabeth became sick.
Maybe they had the milk-sick and maybe they didn't. Nancy decided to drink some
of the milk to see if it were safe. It wasn't. She and the Sparrows died of the
milk-sick.
Why would Nancy test the
milk by drinking it? To
understand her decision, you must comprehend the extreme hardship of her life.
Nancy Lincoln's suicide
Twenty-two year old Nancy became pregnant by one
of the farmers she worked for. Elizabeth Sparrow raised Nancy and she wanted
the baby to have a name. So, she arranged a marriage. She gave a man five
gallons of whiskey to marry Nancy.
His name was Thomas Lincoln. He was a drunk. At ten-years-old, he developed genital bumps and
had to be castrated. He never attended school a day in his life and he could
only count to ten. As an adult, he had no ambition or desire to improve
himself. He married Nancy, but he did not love her and Nancy did not love him.
He owned land near Elizabethtown but made no attempt to build a home there. He moved
his new bride into a shed located in an alley of Elizabethtown. Nancy had no
furniture, only straw to make her bed. On a bed of straw, she gave birth to a baby girl. Because Nancy was married,
the baby had a last name, Lincoln. Sarah Lincoln was born on a bed of straw,
inside a shed, located in an alley.
A year later, Nancy met a man and fell in
love. She became pregnant by him. Thomas knew that the baby was not his. To
appease Thomas, Nancy's lover gave Thomas a cabin at Nolin Creek. Thomas and
Nancy moved there. It was at this time that Nancy had the highest standard of
living she would ever have. Two years after Sarah's birth, Nancy had a baby
boy. He was named Abraham Lincoln.
ooooooooo
Troy Cowan, author of Lincoln, Davis, and Booth: Family secrets
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