Curing Swamp Fever

I decided to switch to Sharon's side of the family with a certain amount of misgiving because, though I had found some interesting episodes in the Reagan family history, much of the time I ran into dead ends in the branches of the genealogy, especially with respect to her father's part of the tree.

I decided to be a little more systematic with my research and tumbled onto a branch of her father's genealogy that went all the way back to the 16th century, and to my surprise, that part of the family came from France and the Netherlands. Sharon's family has deep roots in Ireland but France and the Netherlands? Even she was surprised when I told her. 

As I began looking at the branches and limbs, I found historical connections to the Huguenots, whom we'll discuss in a coming post, some of  whom fled to America in the 1600s, and to the American Revolution, in which some of her ancestors fought alongside others of her ancestors, some at the same important battle. I wouldn't be surprised if they had no idea of the family connections at the time.

The oldest French connection was an Edmond du Husson, about whom I could find nothing much solid, except that he came from Lorraine, France, a region in the northeast bordering Belgium and Germany. The du Husson family crest is shown above.

Some Hussons made it to America by the 1600s, where their name changed to Hussong. I've little doubt the corruption came about from Englishmen trying to transliterate what they heard from the nasal French pronunciation of "Husson." No matter. Family name spelling changes litter that part of the tree.

I found a reference to something called the "Husson manuscripts," copies of which can be found on the 'Net. This collection of resources was compiled by Edward Marston Hussong in 1935 and was subsequently edited a couple of times by some of his descendants. A history professor prompted Edward to make the compilation for a class thesis, and it contains a wealth of lore about the family, which I will plow through and use for future posts. Edward eventually earned a doctorate in botany and taught in university.

Today, I want to discuss Dr. Martin LeFevre, another French descendant, who married a Hussong. Edward filed an application for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution in which he said that Dr. LeFevre had enlisted with colonial naval forces and came to be in charge of swamp fever hospitals.

Swamp fever is a generic term for a few diseases including malaria and leptospirosis. The disease affects horses, and you can find a lot about it on the World Interwide Netweb. For humans, the treatment is bark of the cinchona tree, from which quinine was separated and produced. 

LeFevre became part of General Nathanael (or Nathaniel) Greene's army, being appointed  assistant chief of the hospital corps. Edward Hussong included a letter he found in which Greene wrote, "Dr. Mathieu LeFevre is giving invaluable service in curing swamp fever among the soldiers of the army," presumably through the administration of cinchona bark.

Cinchona had long been in use in the Andean regions of South America. Europeans discovered its usefulness during their "explorations" of the continent and imported it to Europe, where it became a widely accepted treatment for what they called "malignant fevers."

Dr. LeFevre also witnessed the British surrender at Yorktown and was part of the reception committee in South Carolina when Lafayette visited the state.