2/25/1878: Bill for the Relief of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd


Source: H.R. 3418, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

The five year period from 1873 to 1878 encompassed the third longest economic depression in U.S. history. Bankruptcies and insolvencies were widespread.  In rural areas, the downward pressure on prices reduced farm income and created great hardship. Dr. Mudd and his family were not exempt from this hardship. 

Congressman Eli Jones Henkle represented the 5th District of Maryland where Dr. Mudd lived. Following the 1867 yellow fever epidemic at Fort Jefferson, the Government paid Dr. Daniel Whitehurst, the civilian doctor whom Dr. Mudd worked under during the epidemic, the sum of $300 for services rendered during the epidemic. $300 at that time is equivalent to $6,000 today. In this Bill, Dr. Mudd is requesting compensation of $3,000, equivalent to $60,000 today, or ten times what Dr. Whitehurst was paid. The Bill died in committee. 
H.R. 3418

In the House of Representatives
February 25, 1878

Read twice, referred to the Committee of Claims, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Henkle, on leave, introduced the following bill:

A Bill

For the relief of Doctor Samuel A. Mudd, of Maryland.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the Secretary of the Treasury be, and is hereby, authorized and directed to pay to Doctor Samuel A. Mudd, of Maryland, or his legally authorized attorney, the sum of three thousand dollars for services rendered to the United States as surgeon and assistant surgeon during the epidemic of yellow fever at Fort Jefferson, Florida, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-seven.