In 1994, after years of searching, my crew located the elusive 1757 smallpox hospital on Rogers' Island. Somehow much of it had miraculously survived centuries of flooding by the Hudson and attacks by treasure hunters with power equipment. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, the story of the discovery of the smallpox hospital is fascinating in itself. The summer it was discovered, the days of the week fell exactly with the days of the summer of 1757, the year it was constructed. Almost magically, the diary of a young soldier who helped to build it led us the its discovery. The story follows below..... with many photographs never before published!

Fort Edward, May 31st 1757- 

I was ordered To Go with 20 Men & Build a Hospital on the Lower End of the Island To Put those that Had the Small Pox Into--

-diary of Jabez Fitch

The Excavation of a Smallpox Hospital from the French and Indian War, 1757

...the key to the Hospital of Death...

Note: Matthew A. Rozell teaches history at Hudson Falls Senior High School. He is a member of the Adirondack Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Society, and a board member for the Rogers Island Heritage Development Alliance.

 Fort Edward, Rogers Island-Summer, 1757 

    The dying young man lay on the straw covered earth of the crudely built and dimly lit hospital ill with the smallpox, his emaciated and feverish body  in the last throes of the terrible disease. His face was swollen and he was covered with thousands of broken and oozing pustules. Before losing consciousness, he gave a feeble cry for water.

    Having volunteered to help in the hospital, the Dutch girl, a milkmaid on the island, carefully stepped toward her charge to spoon feed him some broth and allow him some water drawn from the river nearby. With pewter spoon in hand, she crouched beside him, cradling his head. He was no longer breathing. She sighed, and then turned to serve the man next to him. She then passed down the corridor of the narrow hospital, ever mindful of stepping too closely to the sick and dying on either side of her. I don't know if any one of them will survive, she thought to herself above the din of the misery and the sound of men landing axe heads into solid logs outside.

    As she emerged in the morning light, she saw that a party of soldiers sent over from the fort had begun to erect the pointed logs that would make up the ten foot high palisade fence to enclose the hospital grounds. Two soldiers posted to stand watch over this area looked up from the bricks they had placed together for a campfire. They paid her little mind as they kindled the fire in the haze of the rising heat of a July morning. Smoke would help to mask the horrible stench that hung over this place of death.

    Informing them that the man had expired, she turned to discard the beef bones from her serving bucket over the east bank of the rise of land that this hospital had been hastily constructed on. Passing now through the newly built palisade gateway and toward her simple dwelling, she could see other men being helped down the path to take their places in the smallpox hospital. She paused one last time to wipe her brow, and wondered: how many more are going to die this horrible death, miles from home and away from loved ones who will not learn of their fate until weeks after they are lowered into the ground? Is this palisade being constructed to keep the threat of savage hostility at bay, or is it to separate the living from the dying? She lowered her arm and wiped her hands. She did not notice that her brass ring  had slipped from her finger. 

    She just wanted to get away from this place.   

ROGERS ISLAND

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 1994

     This day began when I arrived at the archaeological site with Hans Jensen, a student at South Glens Falls High and my right hand man all summer long. We kindled our campfire and sat down to plan the last official day of the 1994 field season. Most of the day would be spent covering our excavations with black plastic and laboriously backfilling over it. The one area we would continue to excavate would be where we supposed the gateway to the palisade fence to have been. At 8:30 am we were excited to find an intact iron key where a door had probably once existed.

    Midway through the day, John Kosek (a Saratoga Springs restaurateur and four year veteran of the island digs) finished excavating around the rest of the doorway and called me over.

    In the palm of his hand he held a broken brass ring with a cheap blue glass inlay. What was it doing here? Were women in the hospital? Was it lost by a soldier constructing the fence? Or was it simply discarded into a convenient trench because its band had already been broken?

    The dig officially ended when the last hole was filled near 5:00 pm. Now the job of piecing it all together begins.