–546 Blanchard tally based on City numbers below.

Alabama ( 39)

— 1 Basham’s Gap Oct 30 Mrs. J. D. Sherrell (Decatur Alabama refugee.)[1]

— 1 “ Nov 4 Mr. J. D. Sherrell (Decatur Alabama refugee.”[2]

–35 Decatur Sep 11-Nov 9 Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” 1889, p. 67.

–35 Decatur Sep-Oct. Waymarking.com. “Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888 Memorial.”

— 1 “ Sep Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 442.[3]

— 1 Hanceville, Blount Co., R. Stuart. Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” 1889, p. 67.[4]

— 1 Huntsville, Madison Co. Mr. Summers. Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” 1889, p. 67.[5]

Florida (497)

— 497 State Blanchard tally of breakouts below (430 for Jacksonville)

— 1 Ellaville Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 454.

— 430 Jacksonville July 28-Dec Adams. Rpt…Jacksonville…Sanitary Association. 1889.[6]

— 410 “ Aug-Dec 7. Journal, Logansport, IN. “The Year’s Disasters,” 1-22-1889, 4.

–>400 “ Late July-Nov Merritt. A Century of Medicine in Jacksonville, 1949, p161.

— 396 “ Simonds. The American Date Book 1902, p. 83.

— 23 MacClenny 1^st case Aug 8 Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 456.

— 1 Manatee July 20 Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 456.

— 11 Palmetto Nov 19-23 Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 456.

— 21 Plant City June-Aug 18 Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 458.

— 10 Tampa Dec 3, end Augustin. History of Yellow Fever, 1909, 458.

Kentucky ( 2)

–1 Louisville. Ben Grant (Decatur Alabama refugee.)

–1 “ Moses Newberg (Decatur Alabama refugee.)

Illinois ( 1)

— Jasper. Mrs. W. L. Prince (Decatur Alabama refugee.) Cochran 1889, p. 67.

North Carolina ( 1)

–1 Asheville, St. Clair Co. Sep 14, J. L. Pogue, a refugee from yellow fever in Decatur, AL.[7]

Tennessee ( 2)

–1 Chattanooga. Flemming Wilson, at a way station near Chattanooga (Decatur refugee.)[8]

–1 Milan. Oct 2 William H. McKinley (Decatur Alabama refugee.) Cochran, 67.

US Navy Ship Boston ( 4)

–4 Nov 20-21, 23, Haiti to Brooklyn Navy Yard. NYT. “Yellow Fever Onboard,” 11-15-1888, 1

Narrative Information

Adams: “The first authentic case of yellow fever in Jacksonville was that of R. F. McCormick, who came here from Tampa[9] in the latter part of July, and was reported sick July 28^th….August 8^th [4 others]. The publication of these new cases created a wide-spread panic, and several hundred people left the city….On the morning of the 10^th, the Board of Health issued a proclamation announcing that the fever was prevalent in the city, and that it was tending to assume an epidemic form….The publication of the proclamation…started anew the panic…and all outgoing trains and boats were crowded to their full capacity. The Board of Health was requested to condemn and have burned the ‘Mayflower House’…which request they granted…” (Adams 1889, p. 11)

“By this time [August 10] nearly the whole State of Florida and also Savannah, Mobile, Charleston and a number of other Northern and Western cities, had quarantined against Jacksonville. Those going from the city encountered great hardships in passing the quarantine stations, and many delicate women and children were subjected to a great deal of unnecessary exposure and trouble by the arbitrary rules of different Boards of Health….

“A bill was introduced in the United States Senate [Aug 10] to appropriate $200,000 to assist in eradicating the fever…” (Adams 1889, p. 12)

“On the advice of a number of physicians and others, huge fires of pine and tar were kindled in various portions of the city at night to purify the air [Aug 11].

“August 12 – The sanitary work was commenced on Sunday…. A special was received from St. Augustine saying that the people there were greatly alarmed over Jacksonville’s fever, and that nearly two thousand people had left that city in the three days previous.” (Adams, p. 13)

“Dr. D. Echemendia, a well-known Cuban physician, was appointed by the Board of Health to direct the work of disinfection. A large force of men was put to work in various portions of the city…cleaning the streets and yards, and scattering lime and other disinfectants.” (Adams, p. 14)

“At seven o’clock in the evening [Aug 14], the first experiment in concussion was begun. Three guns were used and fifty rounds of ammunition fired….[on the theory that microbes in the air could be killed (p. 18)].” (Adams, p. 16)

“August 16….Nurses of yellow fever patients were not to be allowed on the streets at all, and a guard was to be placed by the city authorities at each house where there was a case of fever, to segregate the inmates….” (Adams, p. 17)

“August 20….It was…made the duty of this department to make arrangements for promptly furnishing families, detained under quarantine, with desired supplies at their own expense.” (p. 20)

“August 21….One trouble that met the Board of Health was the difficulty of isolating patients, and preventing the spread of infection. The guards were found untrustworthy, and suspects at many times escaped.” (Adams, p. 22)

“August 22….President Daniel was requested to investigate the complaints of exorbitant charges, made against undertakers, with the power to take action which should bring about more satisfactory work on their part. (Adams, p. 23)

“August 26…Excitement prevailed…all passage was refused on the Government train going to Camp Perry…the people of Waycross had threatened to tear up the rails on the track if any refugees were allowed to pass out of this city via Waycross, even in locked cars and passing that town at a high rate of speed…Camp Perry…was said to be in a horrible condition for the care of women and children….The citizens of East Jacksonville published a strong protest against using St. Luke’s hospital for a pest house” (Adams, p, 26-27)

“August 30….Criticism was called forth…by the stringent orders that had been issued by Surgeon-General Hamilton, forbidding anyone leaving the city except for the refugee camp at Camp Perry. As that camp was reported to be in a bad condition as regards accommodations for the women and children, and in other respects, the people were indignant at being obliged to stop there.” (p. 29)

“August 31 – At the rooms of the Association…the citizens present organized themselves into an indignation meeting and passed caustic resolutions regarding the vacillating policy of Surgeon-General Hamilton and the Washington authorities, denouncing their action as unnecessary, arbitrary, and unprecedented and inhuman, and appealing to the people of the United States for relief from this unjust and unheard of imprisonment….” (Adams, p. 30)

“September 1…. Telegrams were read from Putnam, DeSoto, Lake, Volusia, Marian, Alachua, Orange and other county officials announcing that no freight would be received from Jacksonville under any condition….” (Adams, p. 30)

“September 3….The conference of health authorities of Tennessee and Alabama and representatives of Savannah, held at Augusta, passed a resolution approving the course of Surgeon-General Hamilton in requiring the detention at Camp Perry of refugees desiring to leave Jacksonville.” (Adams, p. 32)

“September 7….Alderman D. T. Gerow announced that C. B. Smith, Mayor, would not return to the city and that in the absence of Acting Mayor J. W. Archibald, who had left town in expectation of the return of Mayor Smith, he would open an office and make arrangements to perform the duties of Acting Mayor…” (Adams, p. 34)

“September 8….The following telegram was received by Acting Mayor Gerow; ‘Do you want the assistance of the Red Cross with experienced yellow fever nurses? Clara Barton, President American National Red Cross’….Some thirty professional nurses arrived from Pensacola and New Orleans on a special train late at night….” (Adams, p. 35)

“September 17…a letter from Hon. Chas. Dougherty was read, announcing the passage of the bill appropriating $200,000 for the relief of yellow fever sufferers….” (Adams, p. 40)

“September 19….the chairman of the Committee on Claims stated that he wised public attention called to the exorbitant claims which were being put in for the destruction of property. He suggested that persons having claims should manifest a spirit of self-sacrifice, and gave notice that the Committee on Claims would thereafter throw out all unreasonable ones…” (Adams, p. 42)

“November 26 – Monday was a day long to be remembered by Jacksonville…Not a single new case of yellow fever was reported during the previous day. During the night the thermometer went down [to 32 degrees]. “ (Adams, p, 73)

“It must be remembered…that besides the sick, there was a population of some 16,000 souls left in the city, 14,000 of whom were without resources and without employment, by reason of the utter demoralization of business and the flight of employers, and that this population had to be provided for….Besides the expense for relief and labor, the funds expended in caring for the sick, in furnishing hospitals and physicians and nurses, in providing drugs and nourishment, and in buying the dead, were considerable. The percentage of deaths, according to the published bulletins, was about 9 1/6 per percent.” (Adams, p. 9)

“Enough has been said to indicate the attempt to present to the public abundant facts to enable each individual, in the calm of his leisure hours, to comprehend something of the nature of the sudden demands of the crisis upon the citizens who were hurriedly selected to face it, without experience or preparation, and to judge of the success or failure of their efforts….Of the seven members of the Executive Committee and the two secretaries who met together for four months every day…four are gone. The pen falters and the ink dries as memories of their presence spring up at nearly every step in the preparation of this report.” (Adams 1889, p. 9)

Merritt on Jacksonville: “Late in July yellow fever appeared in the city, and in August assumed alarming proportions so rapidly that the whole nation was shocked and concerned. Jacksonville was entering the period of its greatest disaster. By fall she lay utterly prostrate.[10]… [p. 148]

After a diagnosis of yellow fever was made for the first victim (R. D. McCormick from Plant City) “…the patient was sent to the Sand Hills Hospital….[11]

“On August 8, when the health authorities announced that four new cases of yellow fever had been reported in the city, fear and anxiety gave way to panic. On August 9, when five additional cases were reported and on the next day, when the Duval County Board of Health announced that the disease was assuming epidemic proportions, carriages, drays, and wagons laden with people streamed toward the depot and the docks while every outgoing train and steamer was crowded beyond capacity.[12] The public roads were congested with people, some on foot, others in conveyances. Many had no particular destination in mind, but most were fleeing north and west through Waycross and Jesup, Georgia, by the few routes which remained open.[13]

“Soon, however, rigid quarantine was established against the refugees from Jacksonville, and many found it necessary to travel from place to place n search of shelter. As an example of the hysteria which prevailed, the people of Waycross refused to let Jacksonville residents pass through their town even in locked railroad cars at a [end of p. 149] high rate of speed, and they threatened to tear up the railroad tracks if necessary to isolate themselves from the refugees.[14]

“….A widespread quarantine against Jacksonville in mid-August left only one avenue of escape. Camp Perry, on the bluffs of the St. Marys River about forty miles north of Jacksonville, was opened on August 22. This detention campo at first offered very meager, even primitive, accommodations, but every refugee from Jacksonville was required to stay there for ten days before he was allowed to travel farther. Many people preferred to expose themselves to the disease in Jacksonville rather than to brave the hardships afforded by a leaky tent, poor food, insufficient bedding, and ho hospital facilities.

“Although tows and cities throughout the United states established [end of p. 152] rigid quarantine against Jacksonville, many of them were prompt to offer money and supplies. At first the city authorities refused to accept outside aid, but later, when it became necessary for them to request help from the country at large, they were met with an overwhelming response….” [p. 153

“All outgoing mail from the city was thoroughly fumigated. Two stations, one near Waycross, Georgia, and the other at La Villa in the suburbs of Jacksonville, handled an amazing amount of mail. The Waycross station alone is said to have distributed 2,500,000 pieces, each of which had to be handled four times. Despite this precaution, the authorities at St. Augustine refused to accept mail matter from Jacksonville, and some other towns in the state would not allow merchandise of any kind to come into their communities from the infected area….” [p. 156]

“By fall Jacksonville had become indeed a desolate spot. A census compiled by a house-to-house canvass during early September showed that the population had been reduced from approximately twenty thousand to about fourteen thousand, of whom only four thousand were white. Later that month, during one week alone, nearly one thousand new cases of fever and seventy deaths were reported. Most of the people were entirely without resources. Stores and residences were deserted, business was utterly demoralized, and at night an uncanny stillness which settled over the city was broken only by the occasional rattle of a death cart. Unless it was absolutely necessary, no one went out of doors between sunset and sunrise.

“Finally it was decided to depopulate the city. In September the United States Government had provided a train with free transportation from Jacksonville to Hendersonville, North Carolina, one of several cities that welcomed yellow fever refugees, but the trip had proved to be a fiasco. Later in the fall camps of refuge were [end of p. 159] established near Jacksonville, and the people were urged to go there. The first, Camp Howard, built on Moncrief Creek, did not become popular, but Camp Mitchell, named for Dr. Neal Mitchell and located seven miles west of the city, was ready for occupancy in October. About four hundred persons were cared for, and only one death was reported there.

The Turn

“October proved to be the turning point of the epidemic. During the first week of that month there were nearly five hundred new cases of fever and thirty-seven deaths, whereas during the last week both new cases and deaths were reduced by a little over half. Likewise, during the last week of October, there was an appreciable decline in the number who needed aid.

“On the night of November 25, the temperature fell to thirty-two degrees, and thereafter the epidemic was virtually at an end….” [p. 160]

“Nearly five thousand had contracted the disease…more than four hundred had died….” [p. 161]

Sources

Augustin, George. History of Yellow Fever. New Orleans: Published for the Author by Search & Pfaff Ltd., 1909; General Books reprint, Memphis, TN, 2010. 1909 copy digitized at: http://archive.org/stream/historyofyellowf00auguuoft#page/n4/mode/1up

Adams, Charles S. (Ed.). Report of the Jacksonville Auxiliary Sanitary Association of Jacksonville, Florida Covering the Work of the Association During the Yellow Fever Epidemic, 1888. Jacksonville, FL: Times-Union Print, 1889, 462 pages. Digitalized by Google. At: http://books.google.com/books?id=JgQTAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Cochran, Jerome (MD, State Health Officer). “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” Pp. 49-67 in The Report of the Board of Health of the State of Alabama, for the Year 1888 (The Medical Association of the State of Alabama). Montgomery, AL: W. D. Brown & Co., State Printers, 1889. Google preview accessed 4-30-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=-c0-AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Daily Journal, Logansport, IN. “The Year’s Disasters.” 1-2-1889, p. 4. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=83142306

Merritt, Webster. A Century of Medicine in Jacksonville and Duval County. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1949. Accessed 4-25-2018 at: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00103093/00001/51x

New York Times. “Yellow Fever Onboard; Four of the Boston’s Crew Die of the Scourge.” 11-15-1888, 1. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=19735782

Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC

Waymarking.com. “Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888 Memorial — Decatur, AL — Obelisks on Waymarking.com.” Posted 5-25-2011. Accessed 4-30-2018 at: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMBJ89_Yellow_Fever_Epidemic_of_1888_Memorial_Decatur_AL

[1] Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” Report of the Board of Health of the State of Alabama 1888. 1889, p. 67.

[2] Letter of attending physician, Dr. N. A. Barret, 1-5-1889, to Dr. Jerome Cochran, AL Board of Health, p. 69.

[3] We can only speculate that Augustin is based on the virtually national attention given the first death.

[4] Another refugee from Decatur Alabama.

[5] Refugee from Decatur Alabama.

[6] This report lists in an appendix the names of 430 individuals who died, their date of death, and their death number – 430 being the last listed death.

[7] Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” Report of the Board of Health of the State of Alabama 1888. 1889, p. 67. A refugee from Decatur Alabama.

[8] Cochran. “Yellow Fever in Decatur.” Report of the Board of Health of the State of Alabama 1888. 1889, p. 67.

[9] Merritt writes that Mr. McCormick “had come to Jacksonville from Plant City, by way of Tampa, and was ill upon arrival.” (p. 148)

[10] Cites, in footnote 6, “The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888” chapter, p. 148:

[11] A group of houses, huts, and later, tents, on the outskirts of Jacksonville.

[12] Cites, in footnote 11, p. 149: Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, 8-10-1888.

[13] Cites, in footnote 12, p. 149: Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, 8-11-1888.

[14] Cites, in footnote 13, p. 152: T. Frederick Davis. History of Jacksonville, Florida and Vicinity, p. 180.

1888 — July-Dec, Yellow Fever Epidemic, FL esp. Jacksonville (430); Decatur AL (35)– 546