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Yellow fever claims gubernatorial candidate
On this day in 1847, Texas gubernatorial candidate Isaac Van Zandt died
of yellow fever. Van Zandt, born in Tennessee in 1813, moved to Texas in
1838 and is considered by many to be the founder of Marshall. In 1842
Sam Houston appointed him the Republic of Texas chargé d'affaires to the
United States, in which capacity he worked for annexation. He was
stricken while campaigning in Houston and was buried in Marshall; George
T. Wood won the election. Yellow fever was a persistent threat in
nineteenth-century Texas; there were at least nine epidemics of the
disease in Galveston alone between 1839 and 1867. In one such outbreak,
in 1853, approximately 60 percent of the city's residents became sick
and more than 500 persons died. With dramatic improvements in sanitation
and better control of the mosquito that carries the yellow fever virus,
the disease receded.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- VAN ZANDT, ISAAC
- EPIDEMIC DISEASES
- MARSHALL, TX
- HOUSTON, SAMUEL
- ANNEXATION
- WOOD, GEORGE TYLER
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Texas Woman's Fair begins in Houston (1915)
- Kiowa chief commits suicide (1878)
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