Sergeant Timothy Burr Wadsworth

Other Events and Attributes:

• Military Service: 27 May 1846, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio; Mexican-American War Co. B, 2nd Regt OH Vol Inf, under Col. Morgan. Died from a tarantula bit while encamped at Camargo, Mexico

Notes:

Timothy Burr and Absolm Thrift (his uncles) were appoint guardians of Timothy B. Wadsworth at Mt.Vernon,Ohio 22Jun1842 (his grandfather, David Wadsworth may have died abt then, as he had been his guardian since then).

Buried:
Assumed buried here with the hundreds of other US Soldiers that died here during the war. No markers were erected during the war, the dead where buried where they died for several reasons (i.e. body count for the enemy, cost to transport back east, contain disease, etc.).

Died:
History of Knox Co., Ohio (N.N. Hill, 1881), page 268
"There was an enemy in Mexico more dreaded by our soldiers than the Mexicans. It was the tarantula. The tarantula belongs to the family of the spider. In Italy it is comparatively small and not esteemed dangerous; but in Mexico it attains a size that an ordinary pint cup would scarcely cover. The back and legs are covered with a long hair of a reddish color, and the eyes project from its head. One morning T. Burr Wadsworth, a solidier in Kenton's company, called at the hospital and complained at what appeared to be a carbuncle on his cheek. Surgeon Trevitt told him that it was not sufficiently ripe to lance, but applied some lotion.
A few hours later Wadsworth returned, with his face and head badly swollen. Trevitt applied the lance, pouring ammonia on the wound. In the meantime a large tarantula was found in Wadsworth's blankets. Stupor set in; the poor fellow died, and company B had to mourn the loss of one of its best soldiers."