The register

Under Virginia's registration law of 1853, each commissioner of the revenue recorded the deaths in his district once a year: the dead person's age, color, parents, birthplace and cause of death, and for an enslaved person the name of the owner. Patricia B. Duncan transcribed Clarke County's register in a book of 2008. It records 2,322 deaths from 1853 to 1896, and every one of them is on this site's deaths collection.

A single page can hold a family's worst month. Henry Edwards reported that his daughter Nancy, 9, died on December 23, 1853, of what the register calls "putria sore throat," and that her sister Sarah F., 6, died of the same a week later.

Source note: Patricia B. Duncan, 2008
✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

Patricia B. Duncan's abstract of the Clarke County death register records that Nancy Edwards, a white girl of 9, daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Edwards, died in the county on December 23, 1853, of "putria sore throat," as her father reported.

What the source supports

That the register records Nancy Edwards's death in December 1853 and its cause as her father gave it.

Uncertainty

The cause is the register's wording, not a diagnosis. Nothing about the family beyond the entry is recorded here. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

Source

Reference work

Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 38, entry for Nancy Edwards, died 23 Dec 1853.

Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

Locator: Page 38, entry for Nancy Edwards, died 23 Dec 1853

Relevant passage
EDWARDS, Nancy; white female; d. 23 Dec 1853; pod: county; cause: putria sore throat; age: 9y; par: Henry & Mary Ann EDWARDS; pob: county; occ: not given; status: not given; inf: Henry EDWARDS, father; pg:l: 86:24

Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

Open source

Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

Source note: Patricia B. Duncan, 2008
✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

Duncan's abstract of the register records that Sarah F. Edwards, a white girl of 6, also a daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Edwards, died in the county on December 30, 1853, of "putria sore throat," as her father reported.

What the source supports

That the register records a second Edwards daughter dying of the same cause a week after the first.

Uncertainty

The cause is the register's wording, not a diagnosis. The two entries name the same parents and informant; nothing beyond the entries is recorded here. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

Source

Reference work

Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 38, entry for Sarah F. Edwards, died 30 Dec 1853.

Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

Locator: Page 38, entry for Sarah F. Edwards, died 30 Dec 1853

Relevant passage
EDWARDS, Sarah F.; white female; d. 30 Dec 1853; pod: county; cause: putria sore throat; age: 6y; par: Henry & Mary Ann EDWARDS; pob: county; occ: not given; status: not given; inf: Henry EDWARDS, father; pg:l: 86:25

Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

Open source

Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

Before the war

From 1853 to 1860 the register records 228 deaths of white people. Where it names a cause, the most common are the childhood epidemics, diphtheria, scarlet fever, croup, measles and whooping cough, with 32 deaths, and consumption, as tuberculosis was called, with 29.

It also records 385 deaths of enslaved people, entered under their owners' names. For 185 of them, nearly half, it gives no cause, and many have no name. One entry, under Nancy Allen, is for an enslaved girl of one year and four months, her name not given, who died of typhoid fever on February 1, 1853. Typhoid is the cause the register names most often for enslaved people in those years, with 32 deaths.

Source note: Patricia B. Duncan, 2008
✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

Duncan's abstract of the register records, under the name of Nancy Allen as owner, the death on February 1, 1853, of an enslaved girl of one year and four months, whose name is not given, of typhoid fever; Nancy Allen reported it.

What the source supports

That the register records this child's death and cause, under her owner's name and without her own.

Uncertainty

The register gives no name for the child, and none is supplied here. "Slave" is the register's word as Duncan prints it. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

Source

Reference work

Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 161, entry under Nancy Allen, owner, for a death of 1 Feb 1853.

Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

Locator: Page 161, entry under Nancy Allen, owner, for a death of 1 Feb 1853

Relevant passage
Name not given; slave female; d. 1 Feb 1853; pod: county; cause: typhoid fever; age: 1y 4m; pob: not given; owner: ALLEN, Nancy; inf: Nancy ALLEN, owner; pg:l: 88:42

Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

Open source

Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

After the war

After emancipation Black residents appear in the register's main list, entered as "colored." From 1880 to 1896 it records 681 deaths of white people and 386 of Black people. Consumption leads among the white deaths, with 108, and pneumonia and other lung disease follows with 96. Among the Black deaths the two run level: lung disease 74, consumption 72, each about a fifth of the whole.

Silas William Ball, a laborer of 22, died of consumption in the Chapel District on November 14, 1887. A friend and neighbor, Alfred Ball, reported his death.

Source note: Patricia B. Duncan, 2008
✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

Duncan's abstract of the register records that Silas William Ball, a Black laborer of 22 ("colored male" in the register), son of James and Agnes, born in Clarke County, died in the Chapel District on November 14, 1887, of consumption; Alfred Ball, a friend and neighbor, reported it.

What the source supports

That the register records Silas William Ball's death of consumption in 1887.

Uncertainty

Duncan prints the informant as "Alf'd. BALL" and the parents as "Jas. & Agnes"; the expansions are this project's. The cause is the register's wording. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

Source

Reference work

Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 6, entry for Silas William Ball, died 14 Nov 1887.

Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

Locator: Page 6, entry for Silas William Ball, died 14 Nov 1887

Relevant passage
BALL, Silas William; colored male; d. 14 Nov 1887; pod: Clarke Co., Chapel Dist.; cause: consumption; age: 22y; par: Jas. & Agnes; pob: Clarke Co.; occ: laborer; status: not given; inf: Alf'd. BALL, friend & neighbor; pg:l: 160:4

Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

Open source

Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

The youngest and the oldest

In the same years about a quarter of the deaths in both groups were of babies under a year old: 164 of the white deaths and 100 of the Black. The cause the register gives most often for them is diarrheal illness, 66 of the 264, usually written as cholera infantum. Robert Elwell, two months old, died of it in the Battletown District on July 1, 1894.

At the other end of life the two groups part. 156 of the white deaths, 23 percent, were of people 65 or older, but only 47 of the Black deaths, 12 percent.

Source note: Patricia B. Duncan, 2008
✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

Duncan's abstract of the register records that Robert Elwell, a white boy of two months, son of William and Martha Elwell, died in the Battletown District on July 1, 1894, of cholera infantum; his father reported it.

What the source supports

That the register records an infant's death of cholera infantum in 1894.

Uncertainty

Duncan prints the cause as "chol. infantum" and the father as "Wm."; the expansions are this project's. Cholera infantum is a 19th-century name for diarrheal illness in infants, not a modern diagnosis. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

Source

Reference work

Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 40, entry for Robert Elwell, died 1 Jul 1894.

Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

Locator: Page 40, entry for Robert Elwell, died 1 Jul 1894

Relevant passage
ELWELL, Robert; white male; d. 1 Jul 1894; pod: Battletown Dist.; cause: chol. infantum; age: 2m; par: Wm. & Martha ELWELL; pob: Clarke Co.; occ: not given; status: not given; inf: Wm. ELWELL, father; pg:l: 178:45

Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

Open source

Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

About the registerWhat the evidence says
What the evidence says

Patricia B. Duncan's 2008 abstract of the Clarke County death register, counted from the entries on this site's deaths collection, with five entries quoted from her printed pages.

The counts are of reported deaths, grouped by this site's research categories of the causes as written; they are not rates or diagnoses.

  • An account exists✓ Supported by a source

    Patricia B. Duncan's abstract of the Clarke County death register records that Nancy Edwards, a white girl of 9, daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Edwards, died in the county on December 23, 1853, of "putria sore throat," as her father reported.

    See the evidence
    ✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

    Patricia B. Duncan's abstract of the Clarke County death register records that Nancy Edwards, a white girl of 9, daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Edwards, died in the county on December 23, 1853, of "putria sore throat," as her father reported.

    What the source supports

    That the register records Nancy Edwards's death in December 1853 and its cause as her father gave it.

    Uncertainty

    The cause is the register's wording, not a diagnosis. Nothing about the family beyond the entry is recorded here. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

    Source

    Reference work

    Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 38, entry for Nancy Edwards, died 23 Dec 1853.

    Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

    Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

    Locator: Page 38, entry for Nancy Edwards, died 23 Dec 1853

    Relevant passage
    EDWARDS, Nancy; white female; d. 23 Dec 1853; pod: county; cause: putria sore throat; age: 9y; par: Henry & Mary Ann EDWARDS; pob: county; occ: not given; status: not given; inf: Henry EDWARDS, father; pg:l: 86:24

    Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

    Open source

    Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

    AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

  • An account exists✓ Supported by a source

    Duncan's abstract of the register records, under the name of Nancy Allen as owner, the death on February 1, 1853, of an enslaved girl of one year and four months, whose name is not given, of typhoid fever; Nancy Allen reported it.

    See the evidence
    ✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

    Duncan's abstract of the register records, under the name of Nancy Allen as owner, the death on February 1, 1853, of an enslaved girl of one year and four months, whose name is not given, of typhoid fever; Nancy Allen reported it.

    What the source supports

    That the register records this child's death and cause, under her owner's name and without her own.

    Uncertainty

    The register gives no name for the child, and none is supplied here. "Slave" is the register's word as Duncan prints it. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

    Source

    Reference work

    Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 161, entry under Nancy Allen, owner, for a death of 1 Feb 1853.

    Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

    Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

    Locator: Page 161, entry under Nancy Allen, owner, for a death of 1 Feb 1853

    Relevant passage
    Name not given; slave female; d. 1 Feb 1853; pod: county; cause: typhoid fever; age: 1y 4m; pob: not given; owner: ALLEN, Nancy; inf: Nancy ALLEN, owner; pg:l: 88:42

    Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

    Open source

    Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

    AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

  • An account exists✓ Supported by a source

    Duncan's abstract of the register records that Silas William Ball, a Black laborer of 22 ("colored male" in the register), son of James and Agnes, born in Clarke County, died in the Chapel District on November 14, 1887, of consumption; Alfred Ball, a friend and neighbor, reported it.

    See the evidence
    ✓ Supported by a sourceAn account exists

    Duncan's abstract of the register records that Silas William Ball, a Black laborer of 22 ("colored male" in the register), son of James and Agnes, born in Clarke County, died in the Chapel District on November 14, 1887, of consumption; Alfred Ball, a friend and neighbor, reported it.

    What the source supports

    That the register records Silas William Ball's death of consumption in 1887.

    Uncertainty

    Duncan prints the informant as "Alf'd. BALL" and the parents as "Jas. & Agnes"; the expansions are this project's. The cause is the register's wording. Read from Duncan's printed abstract on the scan's page image, a digital reproduction, not from the register or the Library of Virginia microfilm. No human historian has reviewed this claim.

    Source

    Reference work

    Evidence role: supports. Duncan's entry: Page 6, entry for Silas William Ball, died 14 Nov 1887.

    Patricia B. Duncan, Clarke County, Virginia Death Register 1853-1896, with Birth Records 1855-1856 Entered on Death Register (Heritage Books, 2008)

    Patricia B. Duncan · 2008 (publication)

    Locator: Page 6, entry for Silas William Ball, died 14 Nov 1887

    Relevant passage
    BALL, Silas William; colored male; d. 14 Nov 1887; pod: Clarke Co., Chapel Dist.; cause: consumption; age: 22y; par: Jas. & Agnes; pob: Clarke Co.; occ: laborer; status: not given; inf: Alf'd. BALL, friend & neighbor; pg:l: 160:4

    Checked: Original inspected. A digital reproduction was inspected; no original has been handled.

    Open source

    Source family: duncan-clarke-deaths. Multiple passages from one source are not independent witnesses.

    AI-assisted source check (Claude Opus 5.5) · 2026-10-15. How this project checks its sources

Each statement above is assessed on its own evidence. Nothing here is averaged, scored or voted on, and a well-attributed account can be documented while what it describes stays unconfirmed.

Closing notes
What to take awayThe register is the county's only record of how ordinary people died in these years: children taken by epidemics, adults by consumption, and a gap in age at death between white and Black residents that the counts make plain.

Source note

This story counts what the register records, from the entries on this site's deaths collection. These are deaths someone reported to a commissioner, not death rates. Registration was uneven from district to district and year to year: the register has no deaths at all for 1860, 1862, 1863, 1869 or 1895, and only 100 for the war years, 1861 to 1865. The cause groups are this site's research groupings of 19th-century terms, not modern diagnoses, and each entry on the deaths collection keeps the cause as written. The counts by period, race, cause and age at death are a download.

Open question

How much of the gap in age at death between white and Black residents is in the deaths themselves, and how much in who was reported?

Know more about this story, or see something to correct? Help fill a gap. It stays private until it is reviewed.

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Josephine City: building a community after emancipation

How freedpeople built a community near Berryville in the years this register covers.