NEW KENT ACADEMY.

THIS School will be continued next year at St. Peter's Church, New Kent. The first term will commence on the 3d day of January. Tuition as heretofore, 35 dollars per year for the higher branches, and 35 dollars per year for English studies, due at the close of each term. Boarding 80 dollars per year, beds excepted The superior qualifications of my Assistant Instructor will enable me to present to the youth who attend my school, advantages for literary and scientific improvement, which flatter myself are not exceeded in any Academy in Virginia:- and parents may rest assured that the morals and deportment of the youth who attend the school, will claim our particular regard. To recommend my school to public patronage, I depend on the improvement of those who enjoy its advantages.                                                JON SILLIMAN.
New Kent, Dec. 18                                                    69-4t

-Richmond Enquirer, 21 December 1824

Jonathan Silliman was born in Chester, Conn, July 22, 1793, and died in Cornwall, N.Y., May 13, 1885, aged nearly 92 years. He was the son of Deacon Thomas and Huldah (Dunk) Silliman and the grandson of the Rev. Robert Silliman (Y.C. 1737.) 

He studied theology in Andover Seminary, teaching meantime for one year in Phillips Academy and finishing his professional studies in 1821. He soon went South and labored as a home missionary in eastern Virginia, being ordained on October 8, 1823. In 1830 he was settled over the Presbyterian Church in New Kent, Va., and on September 5, 1832, he married Anna, daughter of the late Rev. Dr Amzi Armstrong of Perth Amboy, N.J., and widow of Mr. Jared Mead; she was a woman of remarkable intelligence. As both his own and his wife's health suffered from the Virginia climate, they returned to the North in 1835, and in the same year he was installed over the Canterbury Presbyterian Church in Cornwall, Orange County, N.Y., where he labored in the ministry until his voluntary retirement in 1862. He continued his residence among his former people, and his benign presence was felt as a benediction. 

His wife died January 24, 1882. Their only child a colonel, in the Union army, died at Beaufort, S.C., in 1864.

-Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University ... Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Alumni 1880

Virus and Response 1856 Pt, VII- the End and Peticolas

Some more information on the rather interesting Dr. Arthur Edward Peticolas (1824- Nov 27 1868) He was the grandson of Phillipe Abraham Peticolas born March 1760 Meziers, France came to American by way of Santo Domingo. His parents were Edward F. Peticolas(b 1793 Pa) and Jane Pitfield Braddick, both of artistic leanings, Edward F. Peticolas being one of the most well known painters of the Virginia of the time; young Arthur E. Peticolas displayed some canvases himself as a young man before turning to medicine.*

The below is from his obituary in the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal of February 1869.

He received his medical education in the Medical Department of Hampden-Sidney College, (now the Medical College of Virginia), where he graduated in March, 1849. 

. . . 

In the autumn of 1854, the professor of anatomy, Dr. Johnson, having met his death by the loss of the steamer Arctic, on which he was returning from Europe, Dr. Peticolas was appointed by the faculty to deliver the lectures in that department, during the ensuing winter course, and in the following March, he was duly elected by the board of visitors to the vacant professorship. 

. . .

At the commencement of the war, he received a commission as surgeon in the army of the Confederate States, and was soon after assigned to duty as a member of the board established at Richmond for the examination of surgeons and assistant surgeons, in which position he remained until the termination of hostilities. 

The increasing inroads of his relentless disease upon his strength and spirits drove him at length to seek relief in a change of climate, and, with this view, he accepted, in the summer of 1867, the offer of the chair of anatomy in the New Orleans School of Medicine, and bade adieu to the Institution with which, in various relations, he had been so long connected. His hopes of amendment, however, were doomed to disappointment, and he resigned his position in New Orleans at the close of his first course. Returning to Richmond, he resumed the practice of his profession, and about one year ago, without solicitation on his part, he was elected superintendent of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, at Williamsburg.

. . .

While bodily suffering and mental anxiety threw a tinge of melancholy over his character and imparted to his manners a habitual reserve which was unattractive to the stranger, the sincerity and real kindliness of his nature won for him the cordial esteem and affection of those who knew him most intimately.

The article below is rather more . . . direct  . . . about the end of Dr. Peticolas.

Dr Arthur E Peticolas.

Dr Arthur E Peticolas, Superintendent the Eastern Lunatic Asylum at Williamsburg, committed suicide there on the morning of Nov. 28th, by leaping from a window of the building, and dashing out his brains. He was a distinguished physician, and formerly a professor the medical college at Richmond. His mind been unsettled for some time past. 

-The Medical and Surgical Reporter, Philadelphia, Oct. 17, 1868



*"Talented Virginians: The Peticolas Family"-L. Moody Simms, Jr.
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan., 1977),

Virus and Response 1856 Pt VII- Names and Places

Some of the people affected in the 1856 small Pox outbreak, either infected "naturally" or who may have been infected by the "live" vaccine from the full text of the report to the General Assembly.

1) "Thomas Breeden" "Mrs Breeden the wife of the deceased, her son Lloyd, Joseph Robbins a boy of 12 years of age living in the family"

2) "George W. Mitchell the head of the family, his wife, and infant daughter"

3) "Pryor a free negro lad aged about 18 years"

4)"Peter an old man aged about 70 years the property of John G. Mitchell."

5)Ellen Richardson and George Richardson, the children of Dr. W. Pryor Richardson

6) Leroy Williams

7) Elizabeth a black girl about 14

8) "four negroes" Jack, George, Lizzy, Drusilla,

9) "Mr. (Thomas) Boswell's son and daughter aged about 17 and 13 years and a young man in the family named Lewellin Crowdis"

10) William O. Hockaday- "17 members of family" and Charles, Dick, and George Lewis Washington

11) Mrs Sally Hockaday at her residence, " A colored man named Washington Scott"

12) Thomas M. Timberlake-"14 members of family"

Below a map of the chief area of infection- you will notice some of the family names from the report, such as Digges(orDiggs), Hockaday, Timbelake, Mitchel, Williams, Boswell, and Lacy.

Below is a map of the area near Tabernacle Church showing the residence (actually residences) of Dr. Richardson as well as a Mitchel property on Weir Creek that seems a likely place for the Smallpox hospital mentioned.

Virus and Response 1856 Pt VI--- -"Report of the Special Committee of the House of Delegates"

Dr. John Henry Claiborne, Del- Petersburg

Art II. Report of the Special Committee of the House of Delegates on the Vaccine Agency. By J. Herbert Claiborne M.D. Delegate from Petersburg and Chairman of the Committee.*

 The committee to whom was referred the communication of the governor of this commonwealth relative to the conduct of the vaccine agent have had the same under consideration and have examined the documents appertaining to the subject the letters of certain persons in the county of New Kent complaining that the agent had distributed among them the matter of small pox instead of vaccine matter together with the communication of Dr. Patteson who was dispatched by the governor to New Kent to enquire(sic) into the case and other papers in the possession of the house germane to the whole and beg leave to submit the following report.

The committee have found it to be well established that Dr. A.E. Peticolas has been the unfortunate agent of dispensing to sundry persons in the county of New Kent matter which by inoculation has produced variola and varioloid instead of the vaccine disease Of this fact the agent himself is convinced and avers it in his candid and impartial communication to the governor. It remains then for the committee to enquire into the motives of the agent whether the distribution of this noxious matter was intentional on his part and into his official conduct whether it has been marked by sufficient carefulness and by intelligent precaution. 

In the total absence of any reason why the agent a state officer of high character and unimpeached integrity should intentionally lend himself to the fiendish act of spreading a fatal and loathsome disease among the people of this commonwealth the committee cannot conceive it possible that his motives should be impugned by any one. They deem it unnecessary to say more on this point. 

 In reference to the official conduct of the agent the committee believe that he has exercised as much caution and sagacity in the procurement of the matter which he distributed to the citizens of New Kent as he has done in all other cases when called on for matter And that he has in all other cases acted with care and prudence will appear from the fact that in a term of five year’s service in which he has supplied many thousand people with virus he has never before been accused of sending improper matter And moreover it will appear on an investigation of the mode in which Dr. Peticolas procures the vaccine scab that no man can do more to obtain and transmit that which is genuine.

- as reported in The Stethoscope and Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal Combined , April 1856



*This is different than the previous committee mentioned which was from the Virginia Senate.

Virus and Response 1856 Pt V- Dr. Patteson's Report

Below find more than one would ever likely want to know about epidemic disease and its treatment in antebellum New Kent County . . . probably.  From the pages of the The Stethoscope and Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal Combined of April 1856 we Dr. Patteson's report to General Assembly about the Smallpox outbreak. The first paragraph is from the Journal article followed by the report itself.

During the month of February last various communications were received by Dr. A.E. Peticolas the vaccine agent in Richmond charging him with having transmitted small pox instead of vaccine virus to several persons who had made application to him, the result of which was that many persons had been inoculated with small pox matter. During the same month a petition was forwarded to the governor from New Kent county desiring him to remove the vaccine agent from office on account of neglect of duty in as much as forty or fifty persons had been afflicted with serious disease resulting from the use of matter received from the agent purporting to be vaccine virus. Dr. Peticolas at once submitted these papers to the governor who with commendable alacrity directed Dr. Patteson to visit the county of New Kent and report to him on the condition of the sufferers in that locality and also to ascertain whether the agent was chargeable with any culpable mismanagement or neglect of duty. In pursuance of the order of the executive Dr. Patteson submitted the interesting report which we now lay before our readers.- Editor

Art I. A Report on the Eruptive Disease lately prevailing in New Kent County. Submitted to the Hon. Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia. By William A. Patteson M.D. Richmond.
                                                                                Richmond, March 1, 1856 

Dear Sir,
Having received from the secretary of the commonwealth an executive order dated 25th February 1856 referring certain letters and papers received from the county of New Kent and the letter of Dr. Arthur E Peticolas to me and directing me to repair to the county of New Kent and ascertain whether the cases reported to be varioloid or small pox in that locality are such and also to enquire whether they have been occasioned by any neglect or mismanagement of the vaccine agent and report thereupon to the governor. I have now the honor to say that I have duly executed the order as will more fully and at large appear by the following detailed account.

On Tuesday the 26th February 1856 I repaired to the said county and was kindly and professionally met by Drs Robert S. Apperson, Vernon P. Jones, Wm Pryor Richardson, A.J.E. Jennings and some other citizens of the vicinity of Barhamsville.

I learned from them that the small pox appeared in the county of New Kent some time about the second week in January last in the person of a white man named Thomas Breeden about 21 years of age who was a trader to Richmond. He sickened with chill and fever and was visited by Dr. Vernon Jones and Dr. James Richardson. After a few days an eruption appeared on his body which was at first thought to be measles. In a very short time it was ascertained to be small pox of a dangerous kind and he died on the 28th day of January. There then sickened at and about the same time in this house George W. Mitchell the head of the family, his wife, and infant daughter, Mrs Breeden the wife of the deceased, her son Lloyd, Joseph Robbins a boy of 12 years of age living in the family, Pryor a free negro lad aged about 18 years, and Peter an old man aged about 70 years the property of John G. Mitchell.

Of these Pryor, Lloyd Robbins, and old Peter had smallpox. The rest had varioloid of a mild form having been previously protected by vaccine except the child which also had varioloid. These were all inmates of this house.

After these occurrences a hospital was established by the magistracy of the county on the 4th day of February and Drs. Vernon Jones and Wm Pryor Richardson appointed physicians thereto. Mitchell's house was constituted said hospital. Dr. Wm P. Richardson had not visited it before this date. It is said to be about five miles from Barhamsville not on the public road but in an out of the way place and the communication with it and the surrounding country was interdicted. Interdiction with it had been established by common consent some time before it was constituted the hospital almost directly after the eruption appeared on Breeden. Thus much as to circumstances and facts attending the origin of small pox in New Kent on the information of others communicated to me.

. . . (wherein is contained a lengthy account of medical examinations of New Kent residents both free and enslaved) . . .

Having now sir duly discharged the trust committed to my charge by your executive precept of the 25th February, 1856, having examined the letters and papers from the county of New Kent and the letter of Dr. Arthur E. Peticolas to you dated 23rd February, 1856, and having as you will see visited and carefully examined the families and cases aforesaid and noted the facts as they were presented to me I have come to the following conclusions:

  "That small pox appeared naturally in New Kent about the second week in January.

"From close and particular enquiry(sic) I believe that those families reported on have had no intercourse with the first subjects of small pox in New Kent. They not only forbade all communication with them but the places of residence and infantile ages of many of those now sick forbid the idea that their sickness has been produced by any connection with those first subjects.

"In reasoning from consequences to causes it is clear that these cases are all to be traced back to the use of matter received by Dr. A.J.E. Jennings and Dr. Vernon Jones and the four small packages covered under the envelop to Dr. Robert S. Apperson for himself, Richardson, Turner, and Hockaday from the vaccine agent. 

"Its use has produced small pox varioloid and apparent vaccine the sickness of all being the direct sequitur of the use of the virus about the usual time and in the usual manner. 

"I suspect and have but little doubt that it was a vaccine crust cropped from the arm of some patient who had been exposed to the contagion of small pox in whose blood smallpox was incubating when vaccined and sufficiently matured to modify it. Such crusts are not distinguishable from genuine crusts by any known law except trial. 

"The agent must have become possessed of some crusts of modified virus from his sources of supply other than his own rearing. 

"His frank letter to you clearly shows the impossibility of answering the public demand for virus in time of panic from croppings under his personal observation alone and therefore the possibility of mistake.

"There are no other modes of supply known than those to which he has had recourse in times of panic.

"I do not see that he has been guilty of any neglect or mismanagement in the discharge of his public duty.

"Very respectfully,

                                 W.A. PATTESON M.D. "

Hon. H.A. Wise, Governor of Virginia 

Virus and Response 1856 Pt IV - "Are you fully aware of the import of your accusation?"

Below is the rather lengthy reply of Dr. Peticolas to the letter of Dr. Richardson. They both appeared in the March 4 issue of the Richmond Examiner one over top of the other.

REPLY OF THE VACCINE AGENT TO DR. WM. P. RICHARDSON OF BARHAMSVILLE, NEW KENT COUNTY, Va. 

Richmond, March 1, 1856. 

Sir: I last night had an interview with Dr. Patteson commissioned by the Governor to report on the apparent origin of Small Pox in your neighborhood. It grieves me sorely to learn the sad suffering of many of your people, caused undoubtedly by virus obtained from me, supposed to be vaccine virus. I know full well that regrets of mine can afford you no relief, and that nothing I can now say or do will remedy the evil you have been subjected to. While, however, I respect your afflictions you must pardon me for saying that neither you nor your fellow sufferers have acted justly in conceiving for one moment that your visitation has been due to neglect of mine. I am aware that an excited people does not reason logically. The maledictions of the ignorant I might reasonably count on, but I am surprised that those whose profession and education should teach them coolness and prudence, have joined in the general outcry; ascribing fault where none is to be found. I am still more surprised to see that you, a member of the medical profession, should attempt to make public issue of a medical question. Whatever your object, your quiet reflections will show that the only ends to be thus attained arc needless alarm of the public mind, incalculable injury to one who could never have voluntarily harmed you or yours, and, I worse than all, loss of confidence in the operation of vaccination. 

I am told that your child is ill with small-pox, that its disease was produced by virus obtained from me, that perhaps the result may prove fatal. I am myself a father, and can appreciate your sorrow, and those of your neighbors who may be similarly situated.- I But, sir, if our positions were reversed. l would not only refrain from public or private expression calculated to excite against you the prejudices of your fellow-men, but would earnestly use every effort in my power to enlighten those who would ignorantly make like attempt. What in the thing of which you complain? Analyze it. Why, Simply this: that my earnest endeavor to shield you and your people, has, under the direction of the great Governor of the Universe, failed; that I extended the malady it was my wish to prevent; that you called on me for assistance; that I responded to the call, and that my caution, my skill, my judgment, were alike in vain,-  Pray, sir, have you lived a practicing physician these many years, and never been guilty of a like offence. Have you never yet seen the case where all your art and all your science has failed to save the patient from the grasp of death? Have you never yet seen the man, woman or child who might, in all human probability, have lived longer but for your professional interference! Lives there the doctor of even limited experience, who esteems his own sagacity an unerring guide! Yet, what would you think, if the friends of one of these unfortunate sufferers were to reward your thought and toil In his behalf by & well-directed effort to destroy or weaken your moral or professional influence? Would you not severely censure so unfair a course? And, yet, are you willing to commit yourself to a like procedure?

It is useless to pursue this question; your reasoning, if admitted, lends not alone to the conclusion that I should resign my vaccine agency, and that the Legislature should abolish the office, but that you and I and all men, should cease to occupy any position involving the exercise of judgment or of faith. Are you fully aware of the import of your accusation? It is that my intelligence is not superhuman; that I am not infallible; that I am not always able to discern the invisible forces of a piece of scab. In short, my great crime is that I am an erring mortal like yourself! I am willing to confess, sir, that I do not pretend to any preeminent qualities of head or heart, but I do feel sure that I have exerted the utmost care in the administration of my office; that I have done even more than might be considered my duty; that I have often uselessly expanded my own funds rather than risk injury to others, and I am conscious of distributing, at no time, any virus which I would not have fearlessly used on my own family. Would you do as much?  Can any man do more? With such faith before your eyes, will you now persist in seeking my injury? Can you find no other explanation of the difficulties and dangers of the past month but by ascribing them to my misconduct? It In wisely intimated in your letter that I must expect imposition if I send to Philadelphia.- But the reason why I send to this or any other city, it is not attempted to explain. The truth is, sir, you and your professional brethren throughout the State, force me to adapt the method you are so prompt to condemn, and if lives are thus lost, you are responsible, and you alone! Instead of protecting every infant as soon after birth a practicable; instead of inculcating and practicing the  re-vaccination of your people at stated periods; instead of urging the importance of these considerations on the notice of your patients, you seldom think of virus, except under immediate fear of infection: and when the agent sends you good matter, having reaped its advantages, you fail to make any return. The consequence is obvious, more virus is needed at one time than the agent can procure by his own unassisted endeavors. Opprobrium is heaped upon him by applicants mad with fear; and, deserted by those from whom he might naturally expect aid, he is compelled to seek the assistance of those whom you term "the picayune cormorants of Northern cities." There is no leisure for trial, the only test of virus. All must be vaccinated at once. If the matter chance to be I good, not even thanks are returned. If, on the other hand, as has now occurred, it proves bad, all must suffer- some may die, and the cry is still against the agent. The agent is sagaciously expected to remedy all the evils resulting from the carelessness and negligence of 2,000 practicing physicians and a million of people.

To resolve these difficulties, you say "abolish the office." Similar argument might be directed against all the articles of your materia medica, of worth, or of power. Some have suffered, others have died, because of their use; and the extension of the principle would terminate in the suppression of your own art. Suppose the agency abolished, where should you get virus! The reply is plain: by sending either directly or indirectly to the North. The fact is, air, in thinking of this question, you must balance the evil against the good. Don't imagine that, because one or two hundred people in New Kent, or elsewhere, have suffered from the only accident which has occurred for fifteen years, that therefore, many thousands have not received benefit, many thousand who might otherwise have shared your fate.

The fault is not in the agent, but in the law. The present law expects miracles at the hands of the agent, and rewards him with so much of $500, as is saved from payments of postage and purchases of virus.- To earn this magnificent remainder, he must suffer himself to be set up a mark for the ill-conceived rage of dissatisfied citizens. The greater the work, the less the pay: the more doubtful the encomiums is passed upon his labors. But with all its imperfections and its impossible requirements the vaccine agency has done and will yet do much service, unless the Legislature, inflamed by your exciting appeal, acts without reflection. But if the present law has obtained good results, one may be framed far preferable and more protective in all its provisions. If your intentions have not for their end the gratification of private malice or the manufacture of political capital at my expense- if you are truly patriotic in your desire, do not waste precious time in accusing me of faults of which you must be conscious I am innocent; but exert your energy to procure a just vaccine law, which shall protect both the people and the agent; forcing the latter to assume no more than his true share of responsibility and affording him reasonable remuneration for the fulfillment of its requisitions.

Under the circumstances, be it understood that no expression in this epistle is intended to bear other than a kind and courteous interpretation. I am attacked; I must defend myself; but I do so coolly and dispassionately, with both the hope and the belief that the time which shall terminate your apprehensions for the safety of your family and friends will enable you to recognise(sic) the truth of my remarks.

 A.E. PETICOLAS, Vaccine Agent.

Dr. Arthur Edward Peticolas, 32, a charter member of the Medical Society of Virginia, was at this time Professor of Anatomy at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.

Virus and Response 1856 Pt III- "Our community has, for the the last two weeks, been in the highest degree of excitement"

     From the Richmond Enquirer of March 4, 1856




                    BARHAMSVILLE NEW KENT  COUNTY, Va.,
                              February 27th, 1856-

 To the Vaccine Agent of the State of Virginia:

Sir: Our community has, for the the last two weeks, been in the  highest degree of excitement, on account of the sudden and unexpected introduction of small pox virus procured from you. Some four or five weeks since, a young man in the vicinity of this place, was attacked with that most loathsome and alarming disease, small pox, of which he died. From twelve to fourteen days afterwards, the whole family of which he was an inmate, consisting of nine persons and some four or five others who visited him during his illness, fell sick of the same disease. A hospital was immediately opened for the treatment of the cases, and for the better protection of the community. I was summoned as consulting physician to that Hospital and, responded to the call. Before, however, entering upon my official duties or to any way exposing myself to various contagion, I procured a small portion of what was denominated vaccine virus from you. It was endorsed genuine vaccine matter. I immediately inserted it into the arms of three persons, one of whom had been previously vaccinated. Nine days from that time, the vaccine disease, as was supposed, commenced in the two unprotected individuals, though with much more violence, and persistence than is usual. I was informed by the parent and mistress of the patients that the disease was running unusually high, characterized by violent pains in the head and  trunk, sick stomach and intensely high fever. I flattered myself without seeing the patients, or having any communication whatever with them. from the description given, that it might be the vaccine disease. Three days from the time these premonitory symptoms commenced, an eruption appeared upon the face, neck and forearms of both patients. I Was called at once to visit them, and to my great surprise and astonishment found it to be genuine inoculation, and so pronounced it. I proclaimed it, wherever I went, that the community might be protected against the insertion of any more virus obtained from you. Mr. Agent, you little know the great injury you nave indicted upon this people, to say nothing of the disease consequent upon the innoculation(sic), a death blow has been given to the business operations of our community. Would you think, sir, that there have been, and are now, in our midst some eighty persons, suffering under small pox, taken alone by innoculation from your small pox virus?-- Sir, there can be no doubt about it. I have seen, and am treating some forty cases of inoculation myself in all these cases, there was not the slightest communication between them and those who contracted the disease, in the natural way. You may suppose that innocolation modifies the disease to some extent, and I grant it does when patients are prepared for it. But there has been no preparation in these cases, and I am now treating cases whose recovery is exceeding doubtful. They have assumed the most confluent form incident to the disease. Are you not now satisfied of the genuineness of your innoculations? If not, If not I respectfully invite you to visit our county and satisfy yourself. I will see to it that you shall not be harmed, although the indignation of the people is superlatively high. You have placed yourself, as Vaccine Agent of the State of Virginia, in a position to be imposed upon by every picayune cormorant of Northern cities. It is said when you are pressed for vaccine virus, you procure it in Philadelphia, it so you are liable to be imposed upon at all times for the most obvious reasons. I would, therefore, most respectfully suggest to you the propriety of resigning your office at once, I and to the Legislature of the State, the greater propriety of abolishing the agency altogether. I think the community would be better protected by such a course.

                      Respectfully, W.R. RICHARDSON, M.D.



The name is wrong. The letter is from William Pryor Richardson, a 39 year old doctor living with his family near Tabernacle Church. The doctor in 1852 had had a report of his use of ergot for convulsion published in The Stethoscope and Virginia Medical Gazette of Richmond.

The Vaccine Agent to to which this letter is addressed was Dr. Arthur Edward Peticolas, Assistant Professor of Anatomy at the Medical College of Virginia.

Next, Dr. Peticolas responds.