The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-08-11
THE EPIDEMIC OF
IS IN NORFOLK

fever had broken out in the Hampton Sol
dlers' Home across the bay from the city,
may have appeared unnatural and exag-
gerated to those not acquainted with Nor
folks history. It would seem to an out
slider that, with modern quarantine precau-
lions and all the armament of modern med
zeal science at command, such an outbreak
ten miles across an open roadstead would
amount to nothing more than an unpleas-
ant incident, with no serious cause for
alarm. To the old resident of Norfolk.
however, it was a different matter. The
name of yellow fever brought with it the
memories and traditions of the last great
outbreak of 1866 when for three months
the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth were
swept as by fire, when business was sus-
pended, when all VINO could had fed from
the terrors of the scourge, and when, dur
ing the height of the epidemic, there were
not enough able-bodied people in the town
to nurse the sick and to bury the dead.
The record of this great epidemic, which
sprung from a single infected ship. is large
ly forgotten history north of the Potomac,
but to old residents of Norfolk it is still
a terrible memory. costly monument
there bears witness to the faithful services
of those who died in fiGnting the scourge,
and the history of the epidemic was en-
bodied in a modest volume, compiled, at
the request of the survivors. by Mr.. Will
liam Forrest of Norfolk, who mad not only
lived through the season of terror, but
carried on at the time a journal in which
the happenings in the unfortunate COM
munity were chronicled from day to day.
iG To thn aar oil 81 fI.s
epidemic gives a vivid picture not only of
Norfolk during the plague but of the in
effacable imprint that the visitation left
on those who Witnessed and survived it.
He says in part:
1.-The mysterious and pestilential vista
tion with which Portsmouth and Norfolk
were afflicted in 1860 is justly classed
among the most terrible caIamities that
ever visited any community.
Some idea of the destructiveness of the
pestience may be formed by comparing it
with the great plague of London. In that
plague one in seventeen died, here one in
three. When the black plague afflicted
London in 1865 it carried off 100000 souls.
Although the total number of victims OF
the Norfolk epidemic was not so great,
the mortality, as will be seen was much
higher.
with regard to the origin of the cpl
demic, there are of course, different opin-
ions. Some contend the disease was of
local origin, some that it was imported by
the Inflated steamer Ben Franklin; others
regarded it as scourge of pestilential
visitation specially sent by the Advise and
Just Ruler, and which has been slowly
ole
at Pensacola in 1858 and travelling thence
nprthwardly, sweeping off multtudes in
Charleston and Savannah in 1854 and trav-
cling on to devastate other cities of the
seaboard."
The local chronicler then goes on to
make out a strong case against the
steamer Franklin, which, in tradition at
least is held in Norfolk to have been the
sole and sufficient cause of the fever cpl
demic. The history of the case at least
shows a woeful lack of acumen on the
part of the port officials of that day as
we'll as of deception on the part of the
vessels captain.
The Franklin was on her way north at
the time from st. Thomas to New York.
The yellow fever was epidemic in st.
Thomas at the time and broke out among
the Franklins crew on the voyage. The
vessel was old and leaky, and encountered
such severe weather that she was forced
to seek a port, and, after some debate,
chose Norfolk. She came into the roads
on June Z, black, weather-beaten, and for
bidding enough, but no one in the town
dreamed what a burden of terror she was
bearing under her tight-battened matches.
A Mr.. Harper and, as the chroncler puts
it, "other esteemed, reputable, and trust
worthy citizens boarded the vessel in
search of tropical fruit, and were informed
by the crew that there was fever on board.
Others from the shore saw one afternoon
a coffin and a mattress on the top of one
of the matches. The coffin was carried
ashore and buried off old Fort Norfolk,
and the mattress washed ashore near the
same spot. Then the body of man, his
face and hands the color of orange, foated
ashore He was believed to have fallen
overheard in his delirium. He was buried
near where he was found without an in
quest
Two sailors swan ashore, saying they
preferred to take the chances of drowning
to death by fever on the ship. This would
have seemed enough warning for almost
any community, but when the captain of
the Franklin stoutly declared to the port
officials that he had no fever aboard the
ship was allowed to come up to Page &
Aliens shipyard for repairs. Mr.. Harper
and others prophesied an outbreak of fever
but the captain promised to keep his
matches down, and not to break out his
cargo, SO he tied up at the Gosport
wharf.
Almost Immediately the fever broke out
among the shipwrights who went to work
on the vessel. In two days a boilermaker
was stricken and died. The shipyard was
deserted and all work suspended. Cases
broke out along the water front, and the
section was boarded off and put under
quarantine, but 1t was too late. The refu-
gees from that section of the town had
spread 1t to all parts of Portsmouth and
to Barrys Row, in Norfolk, where there
were several cases. The citizens became
alarmed and Rarry's Row was burned in