Summary

“Adversities Aplenty” recounts the series of challenges which befell Marietta and its vicinity in the years leading up to the War of 1812, with the war being yet another difficult period. Through the diary of Dr. Samuel Hildrith, himself an immigrant who had caught ‘Ohio fever’ and made his way to the colony, McCullough explores the outbreak of yellow fever which killed an unprecedented number of people in the region in 1807, the economically-disastrous exports embargo decreed by President Jefferson, then a horrific earthquake in 1811 followed by the war of 1812. Marietta suffered enormously during this era, and Ephraim Cutler experienced a personal tragedy to boot: his wife, Leah, died, but not before encouraging him to remarry quickly so as to support his children. He followed her advice and found happiness with his new wife.

McCullough then explains that the War...