1798 — Yellow Fever Epidemic, esp. East Coast port cities, esp. Philly and NYC –~10,000

–10,000 Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14
— 6,623 Blanchard tally based on numbers below.

Connecticut ( 81)
— 81 New London Aug 25-Oct 28 Arnebeck 1999; Augustin 1909, 451; Keating 1879, 80.
— 81 “ U.S. Marine-Hosp. Svc. Annual Report…FY 1895. 1896, p. 431.

Delaware ( 255)
— 255 Wilmington Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80.
— 250 “ U.S. Marine-Hosp. Svc. Annual Report…FY 1895. 1896, p. 431.

Maryland ( 200)
— 200 Baltimore Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80.

Massachusetts ( 145)
— 200 Boston U.S. Marine-Hosp. Svc. Annual Report…FY 1895. 1896, p. 431.
— 145 “ Childs 1886, 61.

New Hampshire ( 100)
— 100 Portsmouth Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80.
— 100 “ U.S. Marine-Hosp. Svc. Annual Report…FY 1895. 1896, p. 431.

New Jersey ( 6)
— 6 Port Elizabeth Keating 1879, 80.

New York (2,086)
–2,086 NYC. Barrett 1863; Childs 1886, 61; Heaton 1946, 74; Putnam 1851, 605 ;
Simonds 1902, 83; Wikipedia.
–2,080 “ Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80; US MHS, 1896, 431.

Pennsylvania (3,695)
— 50 Chester Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80.
— 50 “ U.S. Marine-Hosp. Svc. Annual Report…FY 1895. 1896, p. 431.
–3,645 Philadelphia Augustin 1909, 51; Childs 1886, 61; Simonds 1902, 83.
–3,645 “ Willsey, Lewis. “Philadelphia,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, 626
–3,500 “ Arnebeck 1999, Ch. 14; Keating 1879, 80; US MHS, 1896, 431.
–3,056 “ Barrett 1863.

Narrative Information
New-York:

Heaton: “In the early summer of 1798, yellow fever again appeared in New York and raged with such violence as to be known as the great epidemic. The usual panic seized the people who at that time were preparing for an anticipated war with France. They soon faced an enemy more terrible than any foreign nation. “Upon the approach of this awful disorder,” wrote James Hardie, “the bustle we are making for self-defense was suddenly suspended; the warlike looks, which our citizens had assumed, changed into those of dismay; the fortifications in a great measure neglected; the military associations discontinued.”

“The inhabitants are flying in every direction wrote William Dunlap in his diary. Those doing business in the neighborhood of the East River removed their offices to Broadway which was deemed more healthy; the Custom House in Mill Street and the insurance office in Water Street were established for the time in the Tontine Tavern on Broadway. A carpenter on Warren Street was kept busy day and night making cheap coffins of plain pine boards. He would send two boys out with a light hand wagon on which three or four coffins were carried, to sell them in the streets. Stopping at the street corners the boys would cry, “Coffins! Coffins of all sizes!” Still most people could not afford the four dollars asked for a coffin. Every night the dead cart carried corpses to be thrown into the pits of Potter’s Field, which was then located on the site of the present Washington Square.

“Bellevue was reopened on June 12th, with Dr. Isaac S. Douglass in charge. The health officer, Dr. Richard Bayley, asked Dr. Alexander Anderson to find additional medical assistance. Dr. Anderson himself accepted the position at a salary of three pounds -a day. On August 31, he was rowed to Bellevue where he found twenty patients. Four died in the course of the day and fourteen more were admitted. On the eighth of September, Anderson’s brother died of the plague and on the tenth his father was stricken. Anderson turned over his work at Bellevue to Dr. Douglass and hastened to look after his father. On the twelfth, his father died and the next day Anderson was horrified to find his wife ghastly and emaciated, sick with yellow fever. Now within a few days his wife, mother and daughter died. The grief stricken Anderson spent several months as physician to the poor and looking after his sick friends, almost all of whom he lost. Terribly depressed he gave up the practice of medicine forever.

“At Bellevue, Dr. Douglass himself contracted the disease which he attributed to having visited friends in New York, in that part of the city where yellow fever was raging. He reported that there were no cases of infection among the sixteen nurses and other attendants at the hospital.

“Nevertheless, Bellevue was considered by people at large as the house of death. Convalescent patients were crowded in with the sick and dying. The Common Council, therefore, ordered the erection of two new buildings, each sixty by twenty feet, one of which was two stories in height. These structures were completed in eight days. Because of dread of the disease only the most hardened characters could be induced to enter Bellevue as attendants or nurses, but strenuous efforts were made to obtain nurses of good character and finally the “former improper persons” were dismissed and the hospital “began to be viewed by many of the afflicted as a place where they stood a greater chance of recovery than anywhere else.”

“On September 3rd, an attempt was made to allay the growing alarm. The few cases of diseases which had occurred were considered due to effluvia from the sewer or from spoiled provisions which had not been shipped due to the French preying on our commerce with the West Indies. “There was no very unusual mortality for the season.” On September 6th, it was noted with approval that the authorities at Albany agreed that the epidemic was due to local causes and engendered among themselves: “no sentiment about importation. The gentlemen of the medical profession have indeed done themselves an honor on this occasion.” The Common Council appointed a standing committee on September 10, for the duration of the crisis to aid the health commissioner and authorized to take measures for the relief of the sick and indigent, to direct as many physicians as necessary to attend the indigent sick, and to make the necessary arrangement with respect to the admission of the sick at Bellevue Hospital. On September 24th, the city watchman were doubled, because so many people had fled the city. Sextons were criticized for not digging graves deeper and porters for passing too close to the houses when carrying the dead through the street.

During the great epidemic, 2,086 people died of the yellow fever in New York City. From September 25 to December 23, donations of food, clothing and medicine poured in from the Hudson Valley, Jersey and Connecticut for the victims of yellow fever. More than five hundred families were supplied with food from these contributions.” (Heaton. “Yellow Fever in New York City.” BMLA, Apr 1946, 34/2, pp. 73-74.)

NYT: “Probably there was never more suffering in this city [NYC] than in the yellow fever of 1798. From 29th July to 29th November, 2,086 died, and at that time the city contained about 55,000 inhabitants.

“Its very first victim was an old merchant, named Melancton Smith, who was taken sick in his store in Front Street, near Coenties Slip. His death was followed by several of his neighbors being taken ill… Almost at the same time it broke out in Cliff street and Burling Slip, Ryder street, and Eden alley, at Golden Hill street (since John.)

“It raged greatly in Eden alley and Ryder street, where not a family escaped it: and it terminated fatally to one or more members except in two houses….

“At that time there was a prospect of a foreign war, and everybody was engaged in making preparation. Companies were being formed, batteries were being erected, subscriptions were being raised for the purpose of building vessels of war to protect our commerce, when the yellow fever broke out.

“At once all the war views were suspended. Speedy death was the only prospect. Parents were deprived of their children, husbands of their wives, wives made widows in a few hours, and from happy independence made beggars. Infants cried for dead parents. Whole families were cut off. Half of the houses were empty, and the frightened occupants fled to the country….” (Barrett 1863)

“The Summer of 1798 was known for many years afterward as ‘the dreadful yellow fever year.’ The plague was so virulent well-to-do not only made their exodus, but the neighboring farmers, the principal source of food supply, refused to come to town, and so famine threatened. There was, however, an energetic and brave relief committee, and it made the following appeal through the newspapers, which proved of much avail:

We entreat our fellow-citizens of the surrounding country not to withhold from the markets the usual supplies of poultry and small meats, as well as other articles so essentially necessary to both sick and well in this distressed season.

“Two thousand and eighty-six lives were taken by this visitation and at this time the population of the city was not more than 40,000. Business was almost entirely suspended; the schools and churches were closed. Washington Square, which had been purchased by the Corporation in 1796 as a pauper burial place, became also the hasty grave for many of the rich and the distinguished.

“After the epidemic had lessened, a great public meeting was held to inquire into the causes of the pestilence. It was generally agreed that the water supply of the town was insufficient, and for the most part impure. It consisted mainly of brackish wells – the one source of which every one boasted being the famous ‘tea pump,’ drawing on a deep and seemingly inexhaustible spring at the corner of Chatham and Roosevelt Streets. In accordance with the sense of this meeting, the Bronx River was surveyed, but the Corporation finally refused to vote the $1,000,000 required to utilize its stream.

“The home of the disease this year was along the East River front, it having started at Coenties Slip.” (New York Times, “Epidemics in New-York,” February 16, 1896)

Elsewhere: From October 7, 1888 New York Times article on the Yellow Fever: “In this country the most terrible visitation of the last century was in 1798, when the mortality from yellow fever in Philadelphia was 3,500, in New York 2,080, in Baltimore 200, in Wilmington, Del., 225, in Portsmouth, N.H., 100, in New London, Conn., 81, and in Chester, Penn., 50. In this year also, on the island of San Domingo, out of 25,000 troops the incredible number of 21,199 fell before the dread destroyer.”

Sources

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