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Only Robert Taylor's group and 14 other families greeted the New Year of 1859 in the settlement near Table Rock, Nebraska Territory, refusing to be defeated by misfortune. During the previous year and a half, 150 families had come to Table Rock, but 90% were so overwhelmed by challenges that they opted for departure, most returning back to the East. Table Rock and Pawnee had struggled to get their fledgling commercial businesses established, and both communities would do much better as time went on. Evidently, William Wishart had formerly been living at Curlew, Union county, KY, and had taken Eliza as his wife; the couple were coincidentally claiming names which were the same as his parents in Scotland. They were staying near DuQuoin in Perry county, IL, occupying a two-room accommodation inside Mrs. Hunter's boarding house at St. Johns, where William was suffering from that unfortunate Southern scourge, chills and fever. As winter approached, not many were afflicted with the dreaded chills and fever around Birmingham, IA, but the local folks had been dealing with other sicknesses, such as "degestive gils." Sometime earlier, James and Mary Taylor's only son had died at the early age of 21 months. They were raising three daughters, and the whole family was currently healthy on their Iowa farm. About mid-December, Mary gave birth to another baby girl, expanding the household census to an even half-dozen Taylors. From Birmingham they described that sickness as "degestive gils" but surely meant "congestive chills" -- another contemporary name for malaria. So perhaps they were indeed dealing with ague or chills and fever after all. |
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