Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-07
AT SEA WITH DEATH.
How Cholera Ravaged the Steamer
Virginia in 1866.
PATRICK MURRAY'S EXPERIENCE.
He Saw the Unfortunates Die Like Poi
soned Flies.
IN QUARANTINE FOR SIX WEEKS

"I saw 465 English and Irish emigrants
die of cholera in six days., Patrick Murray,
the Water street livery man, said yester-
dav. Mr. Murray is robust, substantial
citizen. He came to Pittsburg as an emil
grant in 1866
ST came to America on the steamer Vir-
ginia, of the old National line. I travelled
as q steerage passenger. There were 1875
passengers and the crew was made up of 50
seamen. We sailed from Liverpool on
April 4, 1866, and we arrived in the New
York harbor just IA days later We we're
at sea eight days when the cholera broke
out 1t was the black cholera and it reached
the ship with the first sunshine after a
three days storm. During the storm,
which was violent beyond description, we
kept huddled together in the hold of
the ship. We had not been on deck ten
minutes after the weather cleared when the
passengers began tumbling over with a
strange ailment which afterward proved to
be cholera. We had on board with us a
quack doctor who was working his way to
America He had little ability and less
medicine to battle with the pestilence.
'The ship was crowded almost beyond its
capacity, and the plague had full sway. 1t
swept through the ship like deadly cyclone,
and the dead and dying were scattered
about like flies on a poisoned plate. The
unfortunates would tumble over and many
of them would die in ten minutes. Others
would linger for two or three days and
some of them even recovered But from
the minute the disease struck the ship there
was an unceasing, distressing that wall went
up from the helpless sufferers. Without
friends. without medicine, without the con-
ISOLATION of minister, and even without
hope, the victims yielded to the scourge as
a suicide plunges into eternity.
81 was not stricken with the disease. I
was constantly among the dead and dying,
and L had positively no hope of escaping.
1 went about doing all could for the at
ficted ones, and every hour my surprise in
creased that I had not been stricken.
While waiting for the disease to attack
me. I really became reconciled to the fate
that seemed sure to overtake me and when
occasionally would get little sleep I
would waken up disappointed to find my
self all right. You can scarcely imagine
how completely abandoned one feels under
such circumstances
Like Lost Soul.
'Drifting about like lost soul with
nothing but death and horrible distress in
sight 1 could have died then with absolute
abandon. We used to drop the dead over
board without ceremony.
"But relief and hope came to us after
reaching New York. We are not allowed
to land. We were driven back to
Sandy Hook where we were held in
quarantine for six weeks Medical
attention never failed and all
the possible comforts were sent to us
every morning. The afflicted were taken
from our ship to an old gunbcat which was
anchored out in the ocean, and there for the
first time since the cholera struck us did we
begin to appear anxious to live.
'The filth of the ship and the mean and
slim rations supplied are responsible for the
breaking out of the disease. That was my
only experience with the cholera 1 don't
think it will come to Pittsburg now"