176 EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 



1698, worked for John Crawford and on my own land ; and that 

 winter had a sore fit of sickness at Henry Stites' ; and in the year 

 1700, I lived at my own plantation and worked for Peter Corson. 

 I was married in 1701 ; and 1703 I went to Cohansie, and fetched 

 brother Aaron. In 1706, I built my house. Samuel Matthews 

 took a horse from me worth £1, because I could not train. In 

 1707, we made the county road." 



According to the same author, in the winter of 1713-14, the 

 county came near being depopulated '' by a grievous sickness," 

 which carried off between forty and fifty of the inhabitants. " The 

 disease came on with pain in the side, breast, and sometimes in the 

 back, navel, tooth, eye, hand, feet, legs, or ear." Amongst the 

 victims were Nicholas Stillwell, Arthur Cresses, Sen. and Jr., Reu- 

 ben Swain, Richard Smith, Samuel Garretson, Cornelius Hand, 

 Joseph Hewit, William Shaw,* John Reeves, Richard Fortesque, 

 John Stillwell, James Garretson, Return Hand, John Foreman, 

 Jedediah Hughes, John Matthews, Daniel Wells, and over twenty 

 others." It can scarcely be conjectured from the above recital of 

 symptoms, what the true character of the disease could have been. 

 It was a severe retribution in a population of some two or three 

 hundred ; and Providence alone, who saw proper to afflict, can solve 

 the mystery. 



From second Aaron Learning's manuscript: — 



" My father's father, Christopher Learning, was an Englishman, 

 and came to America in 1670, and landed near or at Boston ; thence 

 to East Hampton. There he lived till about the year 1691, and 

 then leaving his family at Long Island, he came himself to Cape 

 May, which, at that time, was a new county, and beginning to settle 

 very fast, and seemed to promise good advantages to the adven- 

 turers. Here he went to whaling in the proper season, and at other 

 .times worked at the cooper's trade, which was his occupation, and 

 good at the time by reason of the great number of whales caught in 



* Aaron Learning fii-st, afterward married his widow. 



