The end of October, the occasion for ghosts and goblins, is usually a scary time in Sussex County as the day for a good old-fashioned Halloween frolic nears. However, in 1918 people in Southern Delaware must have felt as if they had lived through an actual nightmare as they suffered through the Spanish influenza pandemic. Having struggled through this dreadful reality for weeks, many people decided they were not up to the usual antics and scary tales.
Although the danger has eased by the last few days of October, the Board of Health in Georgetown decided to stay on guard. Fearing that witches, clowns, goblins, ghouls, and hundreds of people congregating in the county seat would spread influenza, the Board of Health decided not to permit any celebration in the county seat on Oct. 30.
Following that decision, public health officials posted notices that the Halloween observance would be held on Friday night, Nov. 8. By that time, all danger of the spread of the disease would be over, and conditions in some of the other villages and towns in Sussex County would be improved enough for them to join Georgetown in the observation it was believed.
When the delayed celebration took place, one of the largest crowds that had ever attended a Halloween celebration in town thronged the streets. It was estimated that more than 500 people from the neighboring towns were there and Market Street from Race to Railroad Avenue were “a surging mass of humanity,” the Morning News reported on Nov. 12, 1918
Reflections on Delmarva's Past 