.. From 1709-1720 there was a great need for sea and able-bodied sailors to man the warships.
For this service, 161 sailors were conscripted from Lofoten and Vesterålen. These young people, who came from fishing and farming families, were divided into several ships. In July 1711, Petter Wessel was appointed Second Lieutenant.
He was then given command of the schooner “Sermen”. The “Ormen” was moored at a shipyard in Langesund, where it was rigged as a warship. The crew on board was 50 discharged sailors from Lofoten and Vesterålen. In September, “Ormen” was ready for service and put to sea out to sea from Langesund. This was the first voyage of Petter Wessel and the sailors from the north.
And for many of them, it was also the last expedition. Among the sailors, there was a lot of illness, and after the end of the voyage, Petter Wessel demanded a new crew. “Ormen”‘s crew was put ashore, and distributed to other vessels.
The illness among the sailors developed, and of the 50 who were on board the warship “Ditmerschen”, 37 sailors had died by the end of the year and 11 had been brought sick ashore.
Of the 50 sailors who were placed at the disposal of Chief Inspector Jørgen Bøhme in Larvik, five died, eight lay sick in Larvik and six lay sick on board the warship “Neptunus”.
From Øksnes, 15 men were called up for war service, and of them it is known that 10 died on board the boats or on land. What was the cause of all the deaths is not known with certainty.
At this time, the bubonic plague ravaged the Nordic countries for the last time, but which did not reach Norway, due to strict border control, “where every Swede, be it man, woman or child, was to be shot down and buried, untouched by human hands”. But since the plague was not in Norway, it has been ruled out as a cause.
Another theory is that the seafarers had the disease with them, and the time of the event could indicate a disease such as scourge, or dysenthria, which had to do with acting epedomically in the autumn.
But since this disease practically did not occur north of Helgeland, it is therefore reasonable to believe that the disease that took so many lives occurred on board. Now it can be said that life on board the warships was dangerous enough in itself.
Poor diet, unsanitary conditions and many people gathered close together could easily lead to diseases arising and spreading. In some letters from Amtmann Scheldrup, he points out that the reason why so many died was that “the people were brought up on fish and milk, and they could not stand the food that they got on board the warships”, and that through diet one can lead the mind to a tubal disease.
In the 1700s, typhoid fever was the major public disease in Lofoten and Vesterålen. Now, the mortality rate was not high as a result of typhoid fever, but if you were affected by “spotted typhus”, the mortality rate was far higher.
With this tragedy among the sailors from Lofoten and Vesterålen, we were able to illustrate a feature of the population development in our region in the 1700s. Here there is a limited population group, which with its disease pattern from its original environment, was moved from isolated villages and farms and crammed together in isolation, which a warship represented.
On Sunday 17 and 24 January 1717, a service of thanksgiving was held in Dverberg and Hadsel churches with “thanksgiving for His Royal Majesty’s victory by Commander Tordenskjold over the Swedish flotilla at the Battle of Dynekilen”. Many thoughts then went to the young people who in 1711 were called up for war service and traveled south and who never returned home.
Source: Lofoten and Vesterålen’s history
