Patient Number One wasn't the first...

During lunch today, I stopped at the city archives and gleaned a few tidbits about Patient Number One, George S. Barrows, from Providence's death records. The S. is for Sprague, his mother and stepmother's maiden name. He was single at the time of his death. He died of "tuberculosis of lungs and brain."

I also looked up his older brother, Frank Perry Barrows, who died eight years earlier, at the age of 26. Frank died Jan. 3, 1899, in the Homeopathic Hospital of "acute miliary tuberculosis."

So, George was not the first in his family to die of tuberculosis. He must have had a particular sense of foreboding as he made his journey to the lake.

I still have to check out George and Frank's mother's death record.

The picture above shows the ledger book that records George's death. The city archives is a visually rich place with an archivist who looks straight out of central casting, complete with a bow tie.

-Paul Parker