March 27, 1776

Samuel Ward, one of Rhode Island’s delegates to the Continental Congress, died of smallpox on March 26, 1776. In January, he had written to his daughter, Deborah, that he did not expect to be inoculated, as other delegates had been when they arrived in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, that decision cost him his life. Ward became infected naturally and quickly deteriorated. In a letter William Whipple wrote to Josiah Bartlett on March 24, Whipple initially wrote that Ward’s condition was “not dangerous,” but in a postscript added at ten o’clock in the evening, he wrote that Ward was “extream Ill, the Chance much against him.”

Delegates in the Continental Congress mourned Ward’s death as both needless and devastating for the colonies. John Adams described the loss in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on March 29: “We have this Week lost a very valuable Friend of the Colonies, in Governor Ward of Rhode Island, by the small Pox in the natural Way. He never would hearken to his Friends who have been constantly advising him to be inoculated ever since the first Congress began. But he would not be perswaded. Numbers, who have been inoculated, have gone through the Distemper, without any Danger, or even Confinement, but nothing would do.—He must take it in the natural Way and die. He was an amiable and a sensible Man, a stedfast Friend to his Country upon very pure Principles.” Adams also noted Ward’s funeral at the First Baptist Church on Arch Street, where Rev. Stillman’s sermon was received “with great Applause.”

The Pennsylvania Journal; and the Weekly Advertiser
Printed by William and Thomas Bradford

DIED, yesterday morning, the Hon. SAMUEL WARD, Esq; late member of the Continental Congress; his remains will be interred this afternoon in the Baptist Church; the procession will begin at 3 o’clock this afternoon, at Mrs. House’s in Lodge-Alley, where the friends of the deceased are desired to attend.—The body will be carried to Arch-street Church, where a sermon on the occasion will be delivered by the Rev. Mr. Stillman. The Ladies will be admitted into the galleries at three o’clock.