![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Wilkinson abandoned her birth name and took a new one: the Public Universal Friend. owever, in the predawn hours of Friday, October 11.she suddenly recovered and rose from her bed… he young woman announced that she was no longer Jemima Wilkinson, explaining that she had died and her soul had gone to heaven, but her body had been reanimated by God and invested with a divine spirit that was neither male nor female in order to serve as his holy messenger…. The family resigned themselves to the loss of this bright, attractive, energetic young woman on the threshold of her life. ![]() As her fever climbed, Jemima fell into a coma. The doctor could offer little help or comfort. Dubbed “Columbus fever” by locals, the sickness spread through the seaport and beyond.Ī few miles north in the town of Cumberland, the 23-year-old daughter of Quaker widower Jeremiah Wilkinson fell ill with the fever on October 5. Her alarmed father called in a physician from Attleboro, Mass., ten miles off. Together with her prisoners, the Columbus offloaded a stowaway: contagion. Now she came home to guard the New England coast. But first, she had to disembark prisoners and undergo repairs. Even before the Declaration, the Columbus had seen combat, capturing British vessels in the Caribbean. A warship of the new Continental navy, the Columbus, soon eased her way into the busy harbor of Providence, R.I. ![]()
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