Oddsconsin...where we explore peculiar and sometimes mysterious features of Wisconsin’s human landscape.
It’s easy to miss the two piles of stone rubble in Prairie Moraine County Park in the Town of Verona (Dane County). The rubble piles don’t look like much and are surrounded by invasive plants and weeds. The only real clues that there’s something unusual here are the wire fencing surrounding the rubble and a sign saying “Historical Site.”
The site is the ruins of a house (or houses) for leprosy sufferers. This was confirmed by area residents, who remembered visiting the site when the house still stood. Additional details have been supplied by local archaeologists and historians.
The house was built in 1896 for a resident of the nearby County Poor House (See Oddsconsin #2), a Norwegian immigrant named Thomas. At this time, there was no cure for leprosy and treatment usually involved isolation in a “leper colony.” Thomas was evidently to be joined by another leprosy sufferer, named Ole, who unfortunately died just before the house was completed. Thus, Thomas may have been the house's only resident, although some reports suggest there may have been others. After Thomas died in 1902, the house rapidly deteriorated. A 1937 air photo of the site shows only stone rubble.
Despite the fear of leprosy at the time, it was apparently common for Thomas to have visitors and guests. These included those bringing food and supplies, local farmers paying social calls to play cards, as well as journalists and county officials. After Thomas died, the house was an attraction to local curiosity seekers, which probably contributed to the building’s rapid deterioration.
Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by a specific type of bacterium. It spreads by prolonged close contact. Leprosy is now often called Hansen’s Disease after G. H. Hansen, the Norwegian physician who discovered the leprosy bacterium in 1873. The disease is associated with skin lesions, nerve damage, loss of sensation, blindness and muscular weakness. It can cause physical deformities, which has contributed to the stigmatization of persons affected by leprosy through history.
The first effective treatment for leprosy became available in the 1940s, but the World Health Organization considers it one of several NTDs (neglected tropical diseases), with estimates of 200,000 new cases each year worldwide.
In the late 1800s, local newspapers in Wisconsin frequently relayed accounts of leprosy outbreaks in the US and across the world. A headline in the Watertown Republican on June 2, 1897, states, “Leper Found in Baltimore.” This event was significant enough that Dr. William Osler, founder of the nation’s most advanced medical school at Johns Hopkins University, read a treatise on the disease to an assembly of physicians. Much was still unknown about the disease.
Public health was on everyone’s mind at the time. Infectious disease was a real threat. In Wisconsin, the legislature passed a law in 1897 prohibiting the transportation of persons who died from leprosy and other infectious diseases.
The Wisconsin State Board of Health and Vital Statistics Annual Report, delivered in January 1898, was covered in detail in many newspapers. The Wood County Reporter, on Jan 20, 1898, observed happily that the Board reported “a marked decrease in sickness throughout the state” in 1897. For example, there was a decline in diphtheria deaths from 450 in 1896 to 316 in 1897 (see Oddsconsin #6). The Report notes two cases of leprosy in the state, one of whom must surely be Thomas.
If you are interested in more details of the Leper House, and how historians rediscovered the site, you can watch Jesse Charles’ 2018 YouTube presentation.