The graves of three siblings dating back to 1883 at the Cayucos-Morro Bay District Cemetery in Cayucos. Photo by Robert A. Kittle
By Robert A. Kittle
A casual visitor to the scenic seaside cemetery in Cayucos is not likely to notice three weathered headstones mounted in a row on a common plinth. In this overlooked corner of the old burial ground, closer examination reveals the graves of three siblings
The first is Edith Buffington, age 5, who died on June 4, 1883. The next marker, a few inches shorter than Edith’s, bears the name of Willie Buffington, who died on June 9, 1883, one day before his fourth birthday. The third monument, yet a few inches shorter than Willie’s, belongs to Jimmie Buffington, who succumbed on June 3, the day before his sister’s death and one day before his second birthday.
In normal times, the Buffington family would have celebrated the birthdays of their two youngest sons in the first week of June. Instead, they buried both boys, along with Edith, in wooden coffins built by their grief-stricken father, James Quincy Buffington, 33, a dairy rancher.
What could have caused this triple tragedy in one family? A house fire, perhaps? An outbreak of deadly influenza or scarlet fever? The graveyard gives up few clues, except that nearby are the plots of other Cayucos residents, primarily children, who perished in June 1883.
The answer to the mystery can be found in the archives of the San Luis Obispo Tribune, founded in 1869: An outbreak of diphtheria, also called the children’s plague, swept the Central Coast as summer approached in 1883.
One can only imagine the heartache endured by James Quincy Buffington and his wife, Mary, 31. For some families, the loss was simply unbearable.
The Cayucos-Morro Bay District Cemetery in Cayucos.
Photo by Robert A. Kittle
Around September of 1883 Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Goldsworthy lost their daughter. “She was a very bright and lovable little girl of three or four years of age,” the Tribune reported. “Her death fell like a pall on the happiness of her parents.” On Dec. 11, Mrs. Goldsworthy took a bouquet of flowers to her daughter’s grave, where she wept inconsolably. Here she swallowed strychnine, a powerful rat poison, and died a few minutes later of respiratory failure.
“Once at the home of a friend she was heard to express a wish that she could die,” according to the Tribune. “She leaves a distracted husband and one little child to mourn her loss.”
Among those hardest hit by the epidemic were the Buffingtons. Five cousins of Edith, Willie and Jimmie also died. They ranged in age from 2 to 11. Thus, the patriarch, Abraham Columbus Buffington, who founded one of the first dairy operations in fledgling Cayucos, lost no fewer than eight grandchildren, all within the span of June. James Quincy Buffington, his wife and their brood of five little ones lived with his father on their 480-acre spread on Little Cayucos Creek, with 75 milking cows.
Diphtheria, a highly contagious pathogen, is rare today because of vaccines. In the 19th century, however, it spread rapidly through direct contact, such as inhaling water droplets exhaled by an infected person. Especially lethal to children aged 5 or younger, the ailment caused a thick membrane to develop on the tonsils, restricting the airways and producing a barking cough.
Cayucos in the 1880s was a remote hamlet where ladies wore ankle-length, high-necked dresses with bustles, and men favored bowler hats. With no railroad, horses were the mode of transport. The prime link to the world was the telegraph office. English sea captain James Cass had built his pier and warehouse a few years earlier to handle steamer shipments of butter and cheese to the San Francisco market. Established by Italian-speaking immigrants from Ticino, the southernmost canton of Switzerland, dairies were an economic mainstay. Today’s sprawling Fiscalini Ranch Preserve in Cambria was once a grazing ground for the Swiss dairymen’s herds. In many coastal communities, the dominant language was not English or Spanish but Italian.
The first reported cases of diphtheria occurred in Cambria, and the northern reaches of the county absorbed the brunt of the outbreak. On June 21, 1883, the Tribune wrote:
“At the funeral service of the children of H.W. Martin on San Simeon Creek, there was a large and attentive audience, quite a number of friends and relatives of the afflicted family having come from a distance.” Because the San Simeon schoolhouse was too small to accommodate the worshipers, seats and a pulpit were set up in “a beautiful oak grove one mile below the school.”
Sadly, the newspaper pages were soon studded with advertisements promising quack cures and phony preventatives. These must have appealed to desperate parents, in part because no one understood how diphtheria was spread. Not surprisingly, this ignorance bred a lot of unfounded finger-pointing. On November 3, 1883, the Los Alamos Morning Press blamed the Native Americans:
“As all the contagious diseases that we have been afflicted with in this place commenced among the native population and then were spread to the Americans, we think that as soon as such diseases are known to be here, the trustees of the school should forbid any of the Californians going to the school until all danger of infection is past, and we hope they will do so during this coming year.”
As with today’s COVID, many residents avoided person-to-person contacts. At least one brave figure stood out, as the Tribune reported on June 7, 1883:
“You have heard of that terrible scourge, the diphtheria, scarcely second to the black fever of Egypt or the yellow fever of the South, and with what fatal effects it has ravaged our coasts. You also know how heavily it rested but recently on the Ott family who reside here (Cambria). Whilst all deeply sympathized with the afflicted family, few dared call upon them for fear of the terrible contagion, but a hero came to the front in the person of Mr. J. Johnson, who remained with them day and night until all were convalescent, neither asking nor accepting financial remuneration.”
To honor Johnson, Cambria’s justice of the peace, Rufus Rigdon, presented him a gold pen from the Good Templars, a fraternal organization dedicated to the cause of temperance. Owner of what is now the historic Rigdon House on Burton Drive in Cambria, Rufus declared: “None showed a greater courage or devotion than he who imperiled his life in the sick room and cared for others because of the duty of manhood.”
After burying their three youngest children, James Q. Buffington and Mary had four more, in addition to two older siblings who survived the 1883 outbreak, for a total of nine. In time the surviving Buffingtons relocated to Los Angeles County, leaving behind the graves of Edith, Willie and Jimmie. Today, in an homage punctuated with pathos, anonymous visitors leave small toys at the little ones’ graveside.
The children’s bereaved mother, Mary Cook Buffington, born in Nova Scotia to Scottish immigrants, died of diabetes on Feb. 19, 1921, at 68. Three years after having arrived in Cayucos in 1867, Mary had married James Q. Buffington. She was laid to rest in the Inglewood Park Cemetery. James passed away on the last day of 1932 at 82. His remains were interred next to Mary. In a history of San Luis Obispo County compiled in 1883, James is recalled by his neighbors as “public-spirited and intelligent.” He was “a very popular gentleman” who took “a great interest in public affairs, showing himself prominently where he can advance the prosperity and enlightenment of this community.”
In our day, it’s hard to comprehend how the families of Cayucos and other San Luis Obispo communities endured such immense suffering. Even the dreadful COVID pandemic was not so cruel, claiming the elderly but sparing the children. An understanding of the vicissitudes of life here nearly 150 years ago should engender in our generation a newfound respect for our forebears whose secrets lie in repose in the Cayucos cemetery.
Robert A. Kittle is a journalist and historian who lives in Cayucos. He is the author of ‘Franciscan Frontiersmen: How Three Adventurers Charted the West’ published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
