By Sharon Lakey
In March, when the Covid-19 pandemic was first announced, I was reminded of a grouping of tombstones in the Danville Green Cemetery that my husband and I noticed on one of our walks through the Green. There are seven stones near the water fountain, lined shoulder to shoulder, all bearing the surname Alexander. One of the inscriptions has intrigued me throughout my years in Danville. It identifies the grave’s underlying citizen as Dr. Eldad Alexander. Below the name is inscribed “A Martyr to His Profession.” His stone is dated February 11, 1859 and further notes “36 years the beloved physician.”
The stones are located in the Danville Green Cemetery on Brainerd Street in Danville. They are on the second street in from the center on Danville, near the flagpole.
I have known of Dr. Alexander since the summer of 1979. Our family first moved to Hill Street in Danville in the fall of ‘78, and that next summer we made the acquaintance of our new neighbor across the street. He introduced himself as Dr. Martin Paulsen and told us he only summered in his house now. I marvelled aloud at the size of the house, and he shared that another doctor had preceded him in the same space. There were other options for housing his family and office, he told me, but when he moved to Danville in 1917, fresh out of UVM medical school, he liked the idea of setting up his practice in the same place in which the former one practiced. He purchased it and practiced from that same home office for 56 additional years. The two men were responsible for 92 years of doctoring from this Hill Street location.
The Alexander stones range from 1850 to 1886 with 11 deaths recorded there in all. Ten out of 11, however, were snuffed out in a period of 16 years, beginning with young Frank at age 8 in 1850 and ending with Henry W. at age 27 in 1866. The last remaining family member in Danville was Dorcas (Hall) Alexander, Eldad’s wife, who lived to the ripe old age of 86, passing twenty years later in 1886.
There is no mention on the stones of the disease that overtook them, because at the time the cause was unknown. It was simply called consumption. Looking through newspapers during that period, there were many advertisements for remedies promising to heal the dreaded disease. And, before the cause and spread of the disease was understood, bizarre conspiracy theories were bandied about. The strangest such theory gave rise to the New England Vampire Panic. Because entire families were wiped out as the disease moved from one family member to another, it was conjectured that the corpse of the first to die would rise out of the grave and come back into the home to suck the life out of living family members. This theory was so vivid in some people’s imagination, it spurred grave digging, exhuming of bodies, and removal of organs to be burned in order to destroy the vampire and thus save the remaining members of the family. When Bram Stocker, the English creator and writer of Count Dracula, died, newspaper clippings from the New England vampire case of Mercy Brown were found among his belongings. Happily, there are no known historical records of crazed graveyard activities in Danville.
The cause was finally discovered on “March 24, 1882, when Dr. Robert Koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB). During this time, TB killed one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe.” (CDC) Tuberculosis is an an ancient disease that can attack any part of the body. In the case of Dr. Alexander, it attacked the lungs and was identified as pulmonary consumption. It is a slow moving bacterium, that can take years to kill its victim, gradually wasting them away. And, like our present pandemic, even though it is bacterium rather than a virus, it is spread through the air by droplets from a cough or sneeze. Dr. Koch also found live bacteria could live long in sputum and, interestingly, there was a public health drive and posters encouraging people to cover their coughs and to quit spitting. Women began to shorten their skirts to avoid dragging hemlines through such spit.
Eldad’s obituary is telling. The author of the obituary is not credited, but I feel Dorcas must have had much to do with it:
Obituary of Eldad Alexander
North Star, Feb 19, 1859
“Death of Dr. Alexander
Death has taken from us one of our esteemed physicians and surgeons–one who has long been a resident of our village. We allude to Doct. Eldad Alexander, who died last week
Friday forenoon at his family residence. His age was 60 years; his disease pulmonary consumption, which for some five or six months past has slowly but surely executed its fatal work. At the time of the first attack, and during the earlier part of his illness, every effort was made for his restoration that medical care could devise. Yet, from the first the deceased seemed conscious of his critical situation often declaring that he should never recover. Aware of the fatal result, like a wise man, he “set his house in order,” and thus prepared, he waited the final summons. He died calm and resigned; and last Sabbath was gathered at the Congregational Church, a large concourse of relatives and friends, to pay him their last tribute of respect.
The deceased leaves, of his immediate family relations, a wife and four children – three of them sons, and residents of California and a Southern state; also a married daughter, residing in this Village. Four sons, who died before they were 22 years of age, he has followed to the grave, and now, that the parental tie is forever sundered, the general reader can imagine perhaps, but cannot truly realize, the deep sorrow which must pervade the bereaved household. We are sure, however, that all hearts will sympathize with a family who has this often been called to mourn.
Dr. Alexander was a graduate of Yale Medical College. He came to this village nearly 36 years ago, and commenced practicing as a physician. Several years since, he has attained a high rank in his profession and up to the time of his last illness had an extensive practice. He had become especially imminent as a surgeon, and probably was regarded as the most skillful in surgery, of anyone in this whole section of country. His services were in recognition far and near, and his reputation as a surgeon had become so well-known, that in all cases occurring in this vicinity he was invariably sent for. Even when his health and strength were failing, his advice was sought, and assistance cheerfully rendered. He was much attached to his profession, making it the main business of his life, and being a profound thinker and reader, added to his acquired knowledge a thorough practical experience in medical and surgical science. Personally, he was highly respected, ever maintaining the character of a good citizen, a kind neighbor, an obliging friend, and died in full hope of realizing the Christian’s reward. His loss may justly be regarded as a public one; and it is for this reason that we have deemed it appropriate thus briefly to notice his death — a tribute, which we are confident, all who knew the deceased, will join with us in rendering.”
After the loss of her husband, Dorcas was not spared more heartache. Of the remaining children mentioned–three sons, two in California and one in a Southern state, and a married daughter, residing in Danville–all would die of consumption. The last to perish was the eldest son, Elijah Eldad Alexander, who died on March 21 of 1866 and is buried in Pickens, South Carolina. He is the only one of the family to be buried elsewhere, and his name is absent from the family stones. In Dorcas’s family Hall genealogy, he is identified as a clerk in Boston in 1836 before his move South. According to the death notice in the Pickens Courier, he was an “esteemed” member of the community.
Perhaps the most notable of the couple’s children was Marcus Tullius Cicero Alexander. After attending Phillips Academy, he attended Dartmouth College but “left the class his sophomore year. In California until 1857. Read law with Hon. Bliss N. Davis, but never practiced. Represented Danville in the Legislature, 1862. Contributed to Mrs. Hemenway’s Gazetteer, of Vermont, the chapter on Danville. Married, 1860, Julia, daughter of James Guile, of Danville. One child, died in infancy. Died of consumption, 1863, July 23.”
According to the North Star, October 2, 1883, Dorcas held an auction of her household furniture. Three years later, the St. Johnsbury Caledonian on April 15, 1886, wrote that she “died last Saturday after a lingering illness, She was the oldest member of the Congregational church and much beloved by all who knew her.”
The estate itself, including the house, was sold under the guidance of Luther Porter, her son-in-law, in 1887.
For more information about the history of Tuberculosis, I recommend The Forgotten Plague available to rent at PBS. Its description is “By the dawn of the 19th century, the deadliest killer in human history, tuberculosis, had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived. The disease struck America with a vengeance, ravaging communities and touching the lives of almost every family,”
The former Alexander house is located on the left side of Hill Street near the top of the hill. Toby Balivet dated the house ca 1808. The Lakeys bought the house after Dr. Paulsen’s death and lived there for 24 years. It is now the home of Eric Bach and Tim Sanborn.
