Canaan
March the 20^th, 1775

Sir — Madam —

I would be most gratified by your attendance at a Pox Party, to be given beginning the 1^st of April at my brother Lemuel Gitney’s Lodgings — on which Day my Guests and their servants shall receive as it were the Kiss of Life upon the Arm — which shall prove your Immunity from the Plague of the Small Pox, according to the most current Methods. No one shall leave the Premises once the Inoculation is complete. The Party shall continue unabated, in full festival Mode, for some few weeks thereafter, or until the belittled Pestilence has run its course through the Assembled. Any inconvenience due to our sequestration will be outweighed by the Protection afforded both against the Pox itself and against other Tumults of this Colony, of which we all must be sensible.

Commodious Quarters shall be erected for your Serving-People; the gayest and most gracious of Entertainments shall grace the Gathering throughout; and excellent Cuisine the Like of which you shall not have again while these oppressive Measures last. Contagion may well stalk these Fields, “his Eye-Sockets glaring Beams of frigid Light; his withered Weeds draped about the slats of his Emaciation”; but can we not bask in those Rays? And can we not dress him instead in Raiment of Silk, and teach him to dance the Minuet — and, the dance over, bid him bow and be GONE?

In short — if you must take the sickness — I beg that you share it with

Your most humble & affectionate,
Mr. Josiah Gitney