June of 1880 had an outbreak of disease, injury and death in Dayton, as the following newspaper reports show.

DIPTHERIA AT DAYTON IS ABATING

But one new case – that of Mabel, a girl of 7 years, youngest child of Jesse Green – is reported, and with her the disease is not violent. The others, who were very low with it last week, are recovering.

Fred Green, the lad who was so frightfully mangled in the paper mill last week, is bearing up bravely. His recovery would seem miraculous, considering the tortures he has suffered. In addition to the tearing off of the right hand, he lost the first and second fingers of the left hand, his right leg was broken below the knee, the left leg knee joint dislocated and the knuckle bone thereof broken and the right arm broken above the elbow. He successfully bore this awful shock and the subsequent one of the amputation of the fingers and right arm above the wrist, and apparently is on the mend, though many dangers lie in wait before he can recover.¹

DIED

At Dayton, May 20^th [sic: 26], 1880, of diphtheria, ALLIE, son of Jesse and H. R. Green.

At the same place on the same day and of the same disease, EDWARD, son of George and Charlotte McKinson [sic: Makinson].²

1. The Ottawa [Illinois] Republican, June 3, 1880, p. 1, col. 3
2. p.8, col. 5