Mathilda Dalton

Epidemics were a terrible danger in all mining camps. Not only were diseases and their causes not well understood, but miners were careless with their water sources and the streams needed for placer mining quickly became polluted. Typhoid, spread through contaminated water, was particularly common. The Dalton family learned about this danger firsthand. The Daltons were natives of Maine and came west from Wisconsin traveling with the first Fisk expedition in 1862. The family of six settled at...