MFDJ 01/19/24: The Russell Family Suffers in the Heat

Today’s Prostrated Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

During the New York City heat wave of August, 1896, the Russell family of Huron Street in Brooklyn particularly suffered.  On the day of August 12th, 1896, Patrick Russell, seventy-three years old and a retired merchant, visited his eldest daughter in Manhattan on one of the hottest days of the year, returned home, and died. His youngest daughter, Mary, was prostrated in the city and taken to Presbyterian Hospital, where she later died. Finally, Russell’s son, Patrick Russell Jr., a clerk in Brooklyn’s Hall of Records, stayed home from work to attend to his family and to funeral arrangements. His wife become prostrated, and after fetching a doctor for her, Patrick himself succumbed to the heat and died. His wife was not expected to recover, which would make four deaths from heat in one family within twenty-four hours. It is quite possible that as a clerk in the hall of Records, Russell had been exceedingly busy with filing death certificates. The day before he died, Brooklyn recorded 178 deaths, more than twice the number of deaths on August 8, and nearly three times the more normal number of 64 deaths recorded on August 4. Now the Russell family death certificates would be among the 147 filed that day.


Cooling down in NYC

Culled from: Hot Time in the Old Town

Post-Mortem Photo Du Jour!


MOTHER HOLDING DEAD CHILD
Anonymous
2 3/4″ x 3 3/4″ Daguerreotype & Ambrotype
Circa 1845-1855

Culled from: Sleeping Beauty I

 

Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!

This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).

Here’s today’s entry:

October 8th. The weather changed suddenly in the night, and to-day is clear and cold. Lost another night’s sleep from teethache. Many poor fellows are sinking, and dying from exposure to this hard weather.

Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost

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