The Life Of George Holcomb – 1815 – A Year of Ill-Health

by Alex Brooks
As spring comes on in 1815, the 23 year old George is developing some commercial schemes, but is greatly hampered by ill-health. After spending three days in early March pruning his apple trees, he finds himself “lame with a boil” and is unable to get much work done for the next week. But on March 16 he begins “a journey to the Eastward,” on foot. He doesn’t say the purpose of the journey, but he seems to have a commercial purpose in mind. He does a bit of trading along the way, buying and selling strings of beads and “moraco shoes”  Before leaving, he had spent most of a day going to Canaan to inquire about the price of “moracco shoes.”
He stopped at Uncle Levi Pease’s farm in Shrewsbury, but that did not seem to be the destination, as he soon continued on farther east.  He settled on Lynn, Mass. as a destination, probably because of the shoe industry there, which got started by about 1635 and became by the time of the Revolutionary war the largest supplier of footwear to the Continental Army. But George never made it there, stopping in Concord due to ill-health.  “I found that I could not travel, for my health will not admit of it…now the roads are so bad and I am somewhat out of health, I will not go to Lynn, but make my best way home.”  He walked straight home, a journey that took a little over four days.  Upon his return home, he was unable to work, and for three days the journal entries say only, “I am unwell.”
The following day he went to Doctor Main’s and got some “billius pills for to cleanse my stomach.”  The following day, Sunday, he notes that he is “taking Physic, for I am quite unwell.”  Monday he reports feeling better.
In mid-April he starts ploughing and planting again.
April 23 he went to Albany, where he sold four barrels of cider for $18.50.  He bought $9 worth of iron “for a wagon tire.”  He also bought salt at 88 cents per bushel, green tea at $1.37 a pound, brown sugar at 19 cents a pound, and various other items.
Building The Still
After several inquiries about stills over the past half year, on June 27 and 28 of 1815, he plowed and scraped a place to set the still house and over the next three days they cut and raised the frame of the still house.  In July he continues to pursue construction of the still house, procuring boards and shingles, but July 13 he fell ill again, with swelling at the jaw.  He continued unwell all the rest of the month, with fevers, stomach disorders and pains in his ear, jaw and throat.
In August, severe illness continues: “today our people are holding green frogs to my mouth, I do begin to have quite a pain in my ear.
Friday: Today I remain as yesterday, I try frogs to my mouth.
Saturday: We tried frogs, but they do not answer.
Monday his father carried him to Richmond to see a different doctor, who had just about the same advice as Doc Main.  He worked not at all during August, being constantly sick.  In September he says in the journal that he is about the same as last month, and his old complaint continues, but he is up and about more.  During this period his cousin Sylvester continues to work on the still house.  At the beginning of October, there is a crisis with very bad swelling on his jaw, below his ear.  The Doctor lanced it twice, and soon he is feeling better.  By mid-October references to the illness cease.