Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-08-16
A STEAMBOAT
RIOT RECALLED
Writer for Paterson Newspaper
Tells Some Interesting Things
About EARLY Perth AmbOy.

Under the heading Of Editor Vans
Series" the Paterson Evening News
tells about the cholera scare in Perth
AmDoy many years ago. The article
is as follows:
we We're eight years old when we
learned all about the Asiatic Cholera.
Perth Amboy, in which eight years
before, we had first seen the light.
was a pretty little seaport with a
morning and afternoon boat to and
from New York. The "Napoleon."
the smaller boat, and its consort. the
swan, ran up the Raritan to New
brunswick, whilst a larger boat. the
Independence, ran out upon a long
dock OF a half mile in length over the
HATS, TO reach the channel OF the
ltaritan. This big steamboat was
then a wonder and received the pas
sengers from the railroad, then con-
structed from South Amboy as far as
Bordentown-the then new route to
Philadelphia.
This period was a long while be-
fore the Croton water had been Sc
cured for New York, and with the
water from wells and pumps the ma
Jor portion of the city was content.
And hence came the great spread of
the Asiatic cholera in 1S01-2-3, for
the water was unfit to drink.
People died like sheep and were
carried out at night in dead wagons
as they had been during the great
yellow fever epidemic some years
previously. The cry of the dead
wagon was heard all through the
night: Bring out your dead!' and
the bodies were enclosed in rough
board collins and were thrown into
great trenches outside the city and
not in single graves.
Business was mostly suspended in
the summer of 1892 in New York
and a general exodus of the people
to the country towns crowded every
steamboat, and all the sailing sloops
and schooneBs yer engaged at high
rates to take away entire families
with the necessary clothing and uten-.
sils to enable them to exist else
where-anywhere in fact outside of
New York.
Perth Amboy became filled with
the refugees until a number of deaths
occurred in the little town and then
the mob on shore gathered at the
landings and would not permit the
steamboat from New York any longer
to land with their crowds.
My 1ather's house was within a
stones throw of the shore, in a To-
cality then called "Under the Hill,''
and on a line with the big ship sup
ply and ship chandlery stores of the
grandfather of DR.. Marsh, and we re-
member standing On one of the old
Joseph Marsh wharves and seeing the
steamboats, laden to the waters edge
refused a landing, for no one dared
to catch the roao from the steam
boats and showers of stones anfs
%brickbats were fired at the carecniEk
vessels whenever they approached
the steamboat landings.
1t was a cruel crowd, but the chOl-
era had at last broken out in Amboy
and the dead had been quickly buried
and the city was growing desperate
and would nj longer even allow the
loads of men, women and children
from the infested city to pass through
the streets on their way into the
country. We have often related how
in the midst of the fright and fury
old Joseph Marsh, the mayor of the
city for forty years, came down like
Il patriarch and went upon the edge
of the narrow dock of his W river
yards and with his naked head and
long snow white hair flowing adown
his back, stretched forth his hands
and signaled for the crowded steamer
to approach the pier. Then the crowd
was stilled. Not another missile was
thrown, for all loved the venerable
father of the town, and the despair
ing crowd which ~blackened the boat
gave a great shout as he caught the
small pioneer rope or cord first
thrown and began to pull it in. In
stantly the reop'h on all the eontigu-
GUS docks cheered the brave old man,
and a hundred hands grasped the
rope to help pull in the bigger "1aw-
ser" to which the pioneer cord was
attached, and instantane0usly a
mighty shout arose all along the wat
er front for the whole towns popula-
ton was there, and in the twinkling
of an eye all the people changed to
sympathy for those on board the
steamboat. as it slid along side the
dock and tied up and threw out the
gang plank and set all the passengers
free. James Parker, the congress-
man, later on came upon the scene.
He was the father of Cortlandt Park
err, the sage of the Newark bar, and
he warmly shook the hand of the
mayor before the crowd and then the
people cheered again as they gather
ed about these two great men of the
place. And so this was the end of
the great steamboat riot in Perth
Amboy, Despite the fury of the di-
sease which decimated New York,
Amboy again shut her gates to
those who were forced to flee for
their lives from the big city. The
only man now living whom we in
those days knew is the venerable
Newark lawyer, who was then a
young student in college, but wheth-
err he was home from Princeton at
the time we cannot say, for whilst
we knew him we were only a boy OF
eight years then and held by the hand
of a loving mother, who left S half a
century ago,
Iu....I,.,... G.,,.a,x - DIant Moved