Life and Death in the Republic
By Maggie Boyd, Archivist
In 1785, the Ƶ undertook one of the earliest large-scale, systematic public health surveys in the United States. At its 22nd meeting, held on August 24, 1785, members voted “that a Committee be appointed to devise a plan for a Bill of mortality, to be dispersed through the several towns in this Commonwealth, to be reported at the next Meeting.” With origins in sixteenth-century plague tallies and demographer John Graunt’s seventeenth-century system for tracking demographic statistics, Bills of Mortality recorded basic vital statistics, but sometimes also unusual phenomena, such as cosmological and meteorological events. The committee drafted a “Formula,” or form approved by the Ƶ, to be printed and distributed to ministers, doctors, and town clerks throughout New England.
The Bills of Mortality received by the Ƶ document patterns of life, death, and population growth in the early American Republic. One Bill, submitted by geographer Jedediah Morse in 1798, includes a table of causes of death in Charlestown between 1789 and 1797. Among the recorded causes were “Worms” (4 deaths), “Dentition” (2 deaths), and “Overlaid” (1 death), referring to a fatal accident. Another table shows a growing community in Charlestown, with nearly twice as many births in 1797 as in 1789.
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