1795 — July 19–Oct 12, Yellow Fever Epidemic, NY City; Providence, RI (45) –745-~800
–745-800 Blanchard estimated death-toll range.*
New York City (700-800)
— 800 Arnebeck. Destroying Angel: Benjamin Rush, Yellow Fever… Chapter 11, p. 1.
— 780 Sternberg. “Yellow Fever.” 1908, p. 719.
— 732 Barrett. The Old Merchants of New York City. “Yellow Fever of 1798.” 1863.
— 732 Heaton. “Yellow Fever in New York City.” BMLA, Apr 1946, vol. 34, no. 2, p. 71.
— 732 Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 239.
— 732 New York Times. “Epidemics in New York.” February 16, 1896, p. 1.
— 732 Putnam, G. P. (Ed.). The World’s Progress: A Dictionary of Dates. 1851, p. 605.
— 732 Wikipedia. “Timeline of New York City Crimes and Disasters.”
— 730 Keating. A History of the Yellow Fever. 1879, p. 79.
— 730 Sternberg 1894, 42.
— <700 Childs. A History of the United States In Chronological Order. 1886, 59.
-- 700 U.S. Marine-Hospital Service. Annual Report…for the Fiscal Year 1895. 1896, 431.
Providence, RI ( 45)
-- 45 Sternberg. “Yellow Fever,” pp. 39-72 in Buck: A Reference Handbook… 1894. p. 42.
* Blanchard estimated death-toll range. Given the wide range of deaths (700-800) sources note for New York City, and the relatively small number of deaths in Providence, RI, we include the Providence number in the low-end of our estimated death-toll, but not in the high-end.
New York City
Heaton: “Early in the summer of 1795, yellow fever again broke out in New York. The first victims were two sailors who were removed to Belle Vue from the ship Antoinette docked at Whitehall on May 29th. On the 19th of July, the brig Zepher, Captain Frederick Bird, arrived at New York from Port-Au-Prince loaded with sugar and coffee. Dr. Malachi Treat, the health officer boarded the vessel and found the crew sickly, that several men had died on passage and that a boy had died the morning of her arrival. On July 22nd, Dr. Treat was taken ill and on the thirtieth died of a fever with symptoms characteristic of the disease.
“Soon the wildest rumors began to circulate throughout the city. It was claimed that Dr. Treat had incautiously opened the dead body. Now people viewed every vessel arriving from the West Indies with suspicion as the importer of the plague. Disease broke out on the ship William which had arrived from Liverpool on the 25th of July and four of the crew died. People said the William had caught it from the ship Zepher, although it was afterward shown that the ships had not been within half a mile of each other. Nevertheless, the fever appeared among the inhabitants of that part of Water Street close to where the William lay at wharf. Next suspicion was centered on a bale of cotton deposited in the store of Lawrence and Mott, at the foot of Dover Street, which had been imported in the brig Caroline. It was reported that a man had thrust his arm into a bag of the damaged cotton and when he withdrew it the arm, from the virulence of the contagion, was of a livid color.
“Rumor reached Philadelphia that the people of New York were "popping off like rotten sheep." Two hundred "carcasses" had been burned on the Battery. Five hundred citizens had been hanged lest they should catch the fever. Some forty more had been guillotined. All the glass in the city had been broken by firing cannon. On August 31st, the Governor of Pennsylvania forbade all communication with New York. This threw the citizens of New York into a rage and bets were offered at the Tontine that one-third more people had died at Philadelphia during July and August than had died in New York during the same months. Terror was spreading throughout the city, all who could were deserting it and business was at a standstill.
“As usual an attempt was made to minimize the danger. On August 15th, a group of physicians calling themselves The College of Physicians of New York held a meeting at City Hall devoted to the subject of the state of health in the city and reported "that no contagious fever, in any particular different from what this city has been accustomed to, for some years past, at this season, exists at present." The Committee of Health reported on August 29th, that the disorder was a local malady and the number of sick considerably decreased.
“A letter of the same date, received in Philadelphia from a New York correspondent, expressed a different view: "The fever rages chiefly in Water Street; my family and myself are unfortunately in the midst of it. There are buried from our neighborhood eight or ten every night. God only knows what will become of us."
“The Medical Society on September 14th, after pointing out that the College of Physicians were, "some characters who are out of the pale of the medical society," stated that the collective opinion of the Society was that the fever is not specifically contagious. The New York Hospital refused to admit patients on the grounds that they were contagious. The Common Council reported to Governor Jay that in their opinion a much greater degree of health prevailed in New York than usual at this season of the year. Justice James Kent evidently was of a different opinion for on September 17th, he hastily left with his family for Poughkeepsie.
“A vivid account of conditions at Bellevue during the epidemic of 1795 is to be found in the diary of Dr. Alexander Anderson, who entered the hospital in September as house surgeon at a salary of four dollars a day. At the time he was less than twenty-one years of age, yet he performed his work as a man and a physician nobly. Writing in his diary under the date of Sunday, September 23, he said:
As I was at tea, Doctor Smith call'd to offer me the care of the Hospital at Bellevue, in place of P. Anderson, who had returned somewhat unwell. The Salary 20s. a day. I promised to give him a decisive answer in the evening.... Call'd at Doctor Smith's and agreed to accept the proposal.
24th. Behold me in a new Station and my mind in a state of confusion and perplexity. At 10 O'clock I call'd on Doctor Smith, and after sitting near 2 hours stepped into the Chair with him and away we posted to Bellevue. After instructing me in my duty and introducing me to the family and patients, he shook me affectionately by the hand and departed. There are 6 patients. The Family consists of Mr. Fisher, the steward, and his wife, Old Daddy, the gardener, an old negro, a black nurse, and 2 white ones. I spent the afternoon in putting up medicines and arranging matters. At 5 O'clock I set off and walked to my Father's, 31/2 miles, drank tea, packed up some clothes, books, &c., in a trunk which I bought of my Father. My Mother's feelings are not a little agitated on this change in our family. I returned to the Hospital about half past 8, my Brother keeping me company about a mile up the road. Another patient had arrived. Attending to him and writing the daily report to the Committee of Health employ'd me 'till near 10 in the evening.
“The next day another patient arrived. He was in shocking condition after ten days of the disease, vomiting blood by the mouthful and dying within two hours. Two young seamen arrived in a cart and Anderson performed blood-letting immediately because of the violence of their fever.
“On the 29th, Anderson wrote in his diary: "Everything around me had a cheerful aspect because my patients were better." He was called to see a young girl who appeared to be dying, but he revived her "by the application of a large blister and pouring down medicines." She died, however, during the night. The diary notes the deaths of several patients daily. Anderson was of a deeply religious nature and was very conscientious about each and every patient. On the fifteenth trouble arose among the nurses: "Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Hull came to pretty high words." The young physician was apparently quite discouraged for he wrote, "I am sometimes tempted to resign my station."
“With the arrival of cold weather there were no new arrivals and on the twelfth of October, Anderson took leave of Bellevue Hospital. "I made," he wrote, "A pretty sudden transition in my business. Having kindled a fire in my new apartment I began at engraving." He had spent seventy-nine days in charge at Bellevue Hospital and had been employed day and night, witnessing above one hundred deaths and assisting in opening four dead bodies. Although he escaped the infection he suffered from great depression of spirit.
“Anderson gave so much satisfaction at Bellevue that on retiring in the autumn he was offered a place as physician to the New York Dispensary at a salary of a thousand dollars. He declined the offer. Early in October, the Philadelphians sent seven thousand dollars to the mayor of New York for the benefit of the poor. The plague had killed 732 out of a total population of about 50,000.” (Heaton. “Yellow Fever in New York City.” BMLA, Apr 1946, 34/2, p. 69-71.)
Kohn: “New York Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1795.”
“Outbreak of yellow fever in New York City killing 732 persons of an estimated population of about 50,000. The cause of this epidemic was disputed to a great extent, but most observers then believed that the disease arrived aboard the brigantine Zephyr, which landed at the port of New York in late July 1795. A health officer stationed at the port, Dr. Treat, soon died from yellow fever on July 29. However, according to one source, a case of yellow fever had been observed in New York two weeks before the docking of the Zephyr….
““In 1795 most citizens did not flee as yellow fever spread throughout New York City, where a relatively large number of foreigners (almost 500 immigrants) died from the fever. In 1798 the disease erupted severely in the city, causing more than 2,000 deaths, many of them countrymen and women this time.
“Further reading: Duffy, A History of Public Health in New York City; Top, The History of American Epidemiology; Webster, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; Winslow, The Conquest of Epidemic Disease. (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 239.)
NYT, 1896: “In 1795 an English frigate entered New-York Harbor with several cases of yellow fever on board, and the pestilence soon gained such headway in the city that there were 732 deaths therefrom. But little attempt seems to have been made to stay its ravages. All who were able fled; for those who remained a generous public subscription was made. It is worthy of note that the City of Philadelphia, true to its name, forwarded $7,000. About this time a new almshouse was built on Chambers street. The following description of the state of the city is taken from the New-York Journal of Oct. 17:
‘This city has been in a truly melancholy situation, although the accounts have been greatly exaggerated. Consternation has added greatly to the distress of the city, the poor have suffered much, but their wants have been liberally supplied from the hands of benevolent donors. Very little business has been done, a solemn calm has reigned through every street. We are now blessed with salubrious Western gales, which are conceived to be sent in mercy and presage to our hopes that the city will be free from the epidemic in a little time’.”
(New York Times, Epidemics in New York, Feb 16, 1896.)
Wikipedia: “1795 – Yellow fever epidemic kills 732 between July 19 and October 12, from a total population of about 50,000.” (Wikipedia. “Timeline of New York City Crimes and Disasters.”)
Sources
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Barrett, Walter, Clerk. The Old Merchants of New York City. “Yellow Fever of 1798.” 1863. Accessed 3-15-2021 at: http://bklyn-genealogy-info.stevemorse.org/Newspaper/Disasters/YellowFever.html
Bayley, Richard. An Account of the Epidemic Fever Which Prevailed in the City of New York, During Part of the Summer and Fall of 1795. NY” T. and J. Swords, 1796. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=qssIEacDw0UC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Childs, Emery E. A History of the United States In Chronological Order From the Discovery of America in 1492 to the Year 1885. NY: Baker & Taylor, 1886. Google digitized. Accessed 3-15-2021 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=XLYbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Heaton, Claude Edwin, MD. “Yellow Fever in New York City.” Bulletin Medical Library Association, April 1946, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 67-78. Accessed 11-23-2010 at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194570/
Keating, J. M. A History of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis, TN: Howard Association, 1879. Google digitized at:
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Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (3rd Ed.) NY: Facts On File, Inc., an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 1995, 2001, 2008. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=tzRwRmb09rgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
New York Times. “Epidemics in New York.” February 16, 1896, p. 1. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C01EEDF123EE333A25755C1A9649C94679ED7CF
Putnam, G. P. (Ed.). The World’s Progress: A Dictionary of Dates. NY: G. P. Putnam, 1851. Digitized by Google. Accessed 3-15-2021 at: : http://books.google.com/books?id=qz9HAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sternberg, George M. (US Public Health Service, US Marine Hospital Service). “Yellow Fever,” pp. 39-72 in A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (Vol. 8), Albert Henry Buck, (Ed.). NY: William Wood & Co., 1894. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=Jr00AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sternberg, George M. (US Public Health Service, US Marine Hospital Service). “Yellow Fever: History and Geographic Distribution.” Pages 715-722 in Stedman, Thomas L., M.D. (Ed.) Appendix to A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences, Volume VIII (Albert H. Buck, M.D., editor). NY: William Wood & Co., 1908. Google digitized; accessed 3-15-2021 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=3ezqX415M5wC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
United States Marine Hospital Service, Treasury Department. Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1895 (Document No. 1811). Washington: GPO, 1896. Google digitized. Accessed 3-15-2021at:
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Wikipedia. “Timeline of New York City Crimes and Disasters.” Accessed 11-23-2010 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_New_York_City_crimes_and_disasters