In the early months of 1831, there was another potato crop failure. Sharpe again organized a collection among local landlords to purchase a shipment of oats to feed the starving tenants. In June 1831, the town suffered an outbreak of Typhus - a disease that periodically broke out in North Mayo up to the 1920s. Dr. James McNair reported to the Connaught Telegraph that he had identified over 100 cases of Typhus, of which 38 patients lived within Crossmolina. Also in June 1832, the Church of Ireland minister of Crossmolina - the Rev. Edwin Stock - conducted a survey of the surrounding area to identify the extent of distress. The survey identified over 3,000 families comprising some 17,000 individuals suffering from a lack of food. One of the local landlords and secretary of the relief committee - George Vaughn Jackson - wrote a letter to the London Times, where he reported that in Crossmolina "the present distress is fearful...poor mothers wailing for their children, and hordes of men roaming about asking for work and food, carry(ing) with them the unequivocal proofs of positive starvation. Fever has been raging a good while, and will, it is feared, increase."