The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-08-06
DEATH ON THE TRAIN
OF THlRTV NINE WHO NET IT AT THE
STATION ONLY ONE SURVIVED.

An Immigrant Woman and Her Two Chill
dren Carried Desolstion to a Pennsyl-
vania Town - The Cholera Epidemic Of
1852 and Its Victims.
"A generation or so ago the arrival of a
railroad train at rural stations was thing
of much greater rarity than it Is today,
said PENNSYLVANIA railroad employee,
"and it was invariably greeted by the
gathering at the station of almost the en-
tire population. one morning in the sum-
mer of 1852 l was one of group of 80
Just such curious folk, mostly men-but
thore were three or four women--who were
gathered at the railroad station at Column
hia Pa. awaiting the coming of the inn
migrant train from Philadelphia, which
was due at 6 "A. IN. The train came in as
usual. and three weeks from that day ey-
cry one of that group of 80 persons was
dead and buried except myself. The con-
ductor Of the train helped from IL at Col
umbia a woman with two small children.
Tho woman was German immigrant,
and both she and her children had been
taken very i'll on the train, and the con-
duotoT had deemed it best 20 leave her at
Columbia for medical treatment,
Photographic communication was not
vet established there with tho outside
world, and daily newspapers were rarity.
Cholera had been raging at the seaboard
cities, but the extent of the calamity or its
possible spread through the country was
not appreciated in the rural districts. The
suffering woman and her children We're
helped by sympathetic hands to a small
frame building near by, and some one ran
for doctor 1t was some time before the
doctor came, and in the interval every one
in that crowd had come in contact with
the suffering immigrants in efforts TO help
their intense suffering. The doctor arrived
at last, but the mother of the children had
become worse so rapidly that she was in
the throes of death Tho doctor had no
sooner seen her face than he turned where
he stood and waving his hands frantically
toward the crowd exclaiIned
"Choleral My God, cholerar
"Instantly we fed. remember that |
found myself hiding behind pile of lum-
Der long way from the station. l was in
those days clerk i'm a store at Columbia.
/ was only young chap, but had sense
enough to say 10 myself that If i was
doomed to the cholera 1t would be just as
well for me TO remain in Columbia as 10
go elsewhere, and so / staid, but when the
awful news spread-the two children of
the German woman having died not long
after she died-people began leaving CO.
lumbia pellmell to escape the dreaded con-
sequences of that accidental infection.
This frantic exodus lasted but a day, how
ever, for the people of the outlying country
placed on the people of Columbia what
was perhaps the most effective quarantine
that was ever placed on any people in this
or any other country. They stationed cor
dons of armed guards all about Columbia,
with instructions TO shoot down any per-
son who attempted TO pass from that in
fected place to peighboring towns. Before
this had been done, though, many of Co
lumbia' 5 residents had fled TO York, Har
risburg and other towns, and, as the re-
suit proved, infected those places
within three days after the death Of
the German woman and her children chol-
era had possession of the town. 1t was
the custom then in Pennsylvania rural
towns when person died for the sexton
of some church 10 toll the bell stroke for
each year that the dCCeGgnt had lived, and
the cholera q id,mic WAS soon such in Co
lumbia that the tolling of the church bells
became continuous. The deaths were so
numerous that for three weeks, day or
church bells were not tolling. Some one
had suggested early in this awful time
that the burning of soft coal and pitch in
the streets would so purify the air that the
result would he the staying of the spread
of the pestilencC. We had no anthracite
coal then, and soft coal and pitch were
heaped at every street corner ana fired.
The heavy black smoke from these fires
rose and hung over the place for weeks
like a pail Whether it did any good or
not l can't say, but know that it added
10 the gloom of the scenes we had To wit
ness daily.
Il said that out of the 80 people who
met that emigrant train on that beautiful
summer morning only myself survived,
but did not say that l helped in the
burial of every one of them, among them
my brother and my father. Deaths were
SO frequent that we all became hardened.
Instead of fright an utter disregard of the
value of life governed every one. ! met
one day the man l was working for.
How are your he said
'All right thus far, replied.
Zone hour later helped lower his body
into trench. An old darby was the
gravedgger of the village, and when the
demands on him became so great and no
one seemed willing to share the task with
him he was by common consent permitted
to charge SO for every body inferred. He
worked day and night, and when, months
afterward, his services were paid for his
widow received 81, 900. Had the old man
lived through it all he might have received
more than twice that sum, but he died Of
cholera in the midst of it all, and he was
buried in trench he himself had dug. In
one day we buried 1870 victims of the
scourge. / don't believe there is another
place in this country, considering It's sit
uation in the most healthful region that
can be imagined, that ever was the victim
of such pestilential visitation as that.
More than 500 persons died. New York
| Sun.