Artimissa Shaw Prichard died of Cholera Epidemic along with her husband, Jourden Prichard, and children; Alexander Prichard, Rebecca Prichard.

Parents:
Alexander Shaw (1776-1845)
Mary Barclay (1781-1844)

Siblings:
John William Shaw (1797-1888)
Catherine Shaw (1798-1799)
Nancy Shaw (1800-1856)
Zachariah Shaw (1807-1871)
Charles Shaw (1811-1890)
Robert Shaw (1812-1888)
Mary Elizabeth Shaw (1815-1858)
Elizabeth Shaw (1818-1903)
Maria Shaw (1820-1821)

Spouse:
Jourden Prichard (1810-1849)
Married 20 Mar 1828 in Hopewell, Licking, Ohio, USA

Family Search record Ohio, County Marriages, 1790-1950; 004257844; Image 135 of 287 https://www.familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-15666-3257-64?cc=1614804&wc=8252748

Children:
Mary Jane Prichard (1830-1897)
Robert Prichard (1831-)
Alexander Prichard (1832-1849)
Elizabeth Prichard (1837-)
James Prichard (1840-1918)
Benjamin "Benny" Prichard (1841-1918)
Eliza Prichard (1841-1845)
Sarah C. Prichard (1843-1889)
Nancy Prichard (1843-1843)
Ellen Prichard (1847-)
Rebecca Prichard (1847-1849)

Liverpool Township (The Horror of 1849)
July 1849, Liverpool Township, Illinois

THE HORROR OF 1849. The most calamitous period in the history of Liverpool township, or indeed of the entire county, was the dreaded and fearful visitation of the Asiatic cholera in the year 1849. Homes were entered by the dark monster of death and loved ones carried off without a word of warning. Families were broken up and divided. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and children were taken with the fatal disease and ere a day had elapsed were a corpse. A very full account of the rage of the cholera in this tp. at this time was prepared by Robert Prichard, who was personally acquainted with the sad facts, and published in the Fulton Democrat during the year 1878. We re-publish his account of the horror: From St. Louis the disease made its way up the Illinois river by steamboats, and many a poor wayfarer was taken from some steamboat and buried in haste amid the shadows of the lonely shore—no human being left to tell the spot where he was buried. By accident this dread disease was introduced into Liverpool tp., six miles east of Lewistown. This is the awful story: July 3, 1849, Esq. Robert Summers, of that neighborhood, happened to be in the village of Liverpool on the Illinois river. A steamboat lay at the landing. Hearing that a man was dying of cholera on the boat, it is said that Esq. Summers gave way to sympathy or curiosity and went to see him. He returned to his home, was two days afterward taken sick with what appeared to be dysentery, and died on the 10th. Job Macklin undertook to make him a nice cherry coffin, but got it eight inches too short! He was compelled to make another, and thus the corpse was left unburied two days. This was a fatal blunder, as the sequel will show. Esq. Jordon Prichard, father of ex-Sheriff Robert Prichard, hastened at once to the bed-side of his friend and neighbor, Esq. Summers, and remained with him until his death. Esq. Prichard and Mrs. Summers were taken ill on the 12th. Mr. P. died on the 13th. Ahijah Arnett made a very neat coffin for him and he was buried on the 14th. Mrs. Summers died on the 16th. The neighborhood was now panic-stricken. Three of the Summers children were taken with cholera on the 13th and died the same day.On ly a few brave men could be found to care for the sick or bury the dead. Mrs. Summers was buried in an hour after she died. They wrapped an old quilt about her, placed the remains in a rude box and buried her in silence and terror. Mrs. Prichard was stricken on the 15th, died at 2 o'clock p. m., and was buried that evening. Alive and well at sunrise, the red sunset lit up her new-made grave! Mrs. P. had spent the previous day in washing her dead husband's clothes. How sad was her burial! Some of the neighbors dug the grave. Her son Robert and William Denny were left alone to bury her. Wrapped in a quilt, placed in a rude box, these two carried her to the grave. Those who dug it fled upon their approach. The two boys got the box partially in the grave, which was too short; the box lodged, one end on the bottom, the other two feet higher. The boys could neither get the box down or out. So they filled up the grave. Thomas Stockton was taken ill that day, and died and was buried the next, or 16th. John W. Pittman, now a prominent attorney at Havana, took care of him alone during his sickness. A little paling fence still marks the grave of this self-sacrificing hero on the hill near Jacob Maus's. The cholera then took Alexander Prichard, aged 17, Rebecca Prichard, aged 2 (Robert's brother and sister), and a child of Mrs. Havens, also one of the Prichard girls. These all died on the 16th except the child Rebecca, who died on the 18th. The brave men who cared for and buried these victims were Jesse Flory, Robert Prichard (then aged 18), Wm. Denny, John W. Pittman, James Jennings and Jake Fisher. One of the saddest incidents of the whole horrible visitation was the death of Mr. and Mrs. Fritz. They lived alone in a hut amidst the dark woods. The "burial band" heard that he was dead. They went with a box in a wagon to bury him. Arriving at the house the dying woman crawled over the body of her dead husband, imploring their aid. They put the corpse in the box, carried it away a few feet and buried it at the foot of a tree. They took the poor woman in their wagon and carried her four miles away to some of her relatives. They refused to take her in! The boys laid her under a tree and there she died in horrible agony with no brave hand to put a cup of water to her famishing lips! Mrs. Fritz was the last victim. The neighbors left alive had flown. The remaining Summers children were taken to friends in Henry county. Seven of the Prichard children were left. Benjamin and Elizabeth went to Jacob Maus's and were kindly cared for by him and his noble wife until they were nearly of age. Sarah and Ellen, the youngest, went to Mason county to live with their sister Mary Jane Havens, until they were grown. Robert and James worked among the farmers until they were married. Mrs. Northup (whose husband had run off for shooting and killing Beamas in Liverpool), and a Mrs. Phil. Numbers, who lived on the edge of the island just below Liverpool, sent for the Prichard children at first, fresh from their pestilence-stricken home, and cared for them until they could go to their future homes. What grand, brave souls were these that braved death in taking these stricken children to their hearts and homes! No history of our county will be complete that does not pay lasting honors to these heroic men and women. As soon as the Summers children were taken away their house was burned to the ground. Robert Prichard, with an eye to economy that was as admirable as the pluck displayed, took all the family clothing and sunk it in an adjacent stream for ten days. He then wrung them out and had them washed and preserved. Some of this clothing is still preserved in the family as relics of that memorable visitation of the "angel of death." The doctors whose services were tendered to these stricken ones were John B. McDowell, Thaddeus Nott, and a singular character named James Ashby, a mulatto. It is claimed they all did noble work and mutually saved many lives. The contagion lasted but about one week, and was wholly confined to the sparsely settled sections Nos. 11, 14, 15, 16 and 25 in Liverpool township. But the dead numbered thirteen souls, as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Summers and three children; Mr. and Mrs. Jordon Prichard and two children; Mrs. Haven's child; Thomas Stockton, and Mr. and Mrs. Fritz. Several persons were ill with cholera, but were rescued by the skill and heroic care of the brave physicians and neighbors named above. The following names are remembered among those who were ill and recovered: Wm. Dickson and wife, Charles Shaw and wife, James Prichard and Benj. Havens. We have read with interest carefully prepared accounts of the cholera visitations in many cities and towns, but we doubt if ever this country witnessed so rapid and fatal an epidemic, all things considered, as that which decimated the sparsely settled Prichard settlement in 1849.

Note: 2nd G-Grandmother of Kerry John Odom