The "milk-sick" came to the Lincoln family

[Liz Rosenthal]

(09-19-2013 06:02 PM)Troy Cowan Wrote:  

(08-09-2012 01:52 PM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Truly a horrible time for the Lincoln family. I've often wondered why others in the family didn't get the sickness? If it was contracted from drinking the milk, then why Nancy-but not Thomas, Abraham, and Sarah? You say they didn't drink the milk? But even that seems odd. Why did Nancy drink the milk in the household but not the others? Do others ponder these things?

In 1817, Elizabeth and Thomas Sparrow along with their wards, Dennis Hanks and Sophie Hanks, moved in with the Lincoln family at Pidgin Creek. Thomas and Nancy had just finished their cabin and move out of their lean-to. Also called a half-faced camp. The Sparrows were given the lean-to to live in while they built their cabin. Shortly after the Sparrows arrived, Nancy bought six milk cows to provide milk for the two families.

In the fall of 1818, a neighbor told Nancy and Elizabeth about the sickness that was in the area. She called it the milk-sick and told them about people dying from drinking milk. To be safe Nancy and Elizabeth stopped the children from drinking milk. Thomas didn't have a problem with the milk, he preferred whiskey. Thomas, Elizabeth, and Nancy had been drinking the milk for almost two years and believed it safe. They continued to drink the milk.

Thomas and Elizabeth became sick. Maybe they had the milk-sick and maybe they didn't. Nancy decided to drink the milk to see if it were safe. It wasn't. She and the Sparrows died of the milk-sick.

Six cows for six people? Sounds like an awful lot of cows. As far as I know, when Abe Lincoln and wife Mary lived with sons Robert, Willie and Tad in the Springfield of the 1850s, they only had one cow, and they were a family of five, not to mention much better off financially than were the Lincolns of Pigeon Creek, Indiana.