A Standard History
of
Erie County, Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Civic and Social Development.  A Chron-
icle of the People, with Family
Lineage and Memoirs.
By
HEWSON L. PEEKE
Assisted by the Board of Advisory Editors
Volume I.
ILLUSTRATED
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1916

Chapter XIV.
The Three Cholera Years.

     The United States Census of 1850 gave Sandusky an estimated population of 10,000 people.  The city directory of 1855 claims only 5,000 in 1850, and the census of 1860 gives Sandusky 8,408 population, and John McKelvey in his directory published in 1867 corrects the mistake.  In the cholera year of 1849 the population of Sandusky was probably not over 4,000 people, more than one-half of whom left the city when the cholera was at its height, so that of the remaining population of not over 2,000, 357 died in sixty-eight days from cholera alone.  The highest number of any one day being thirty-three on July 30th.  A. W. Hendry gives the following description:
     "The railroad connection between Sandusky and Cincinnati had just been completed and the large amount of travel and traffic over its line was unprecedented in the West.  Large shops, docks and warehouses at Sandusky became a necessity, laborers with their families were crowded into small buildings with insufficient accommodations and it often happened that several families would occupy a small building hardly sufficient in size for one.  Temporary cabins and boarding houses were hastily erected and soon crowded to overflowing.  When the visitation of cholera came the city was wholly unprepared.  There were no hospital accommodations and the force of local physicians was wholly insufficient for the emergency.  Hospitals had to be improvised and physicians like the good Samaritan of old came in from the neighboring cities.  The first death from the cholera was Mrs. Allen, July second.  Three prominent ministers of the gospel passed away - Rev. N. W. Fisher, pastor of the Congregational Church; Rev. H. P. Ward, of the Methodist Church and Rev. T. C. Cooper in charge of the Bethel Church.  They are buried side by side in Oakland Cemetery near the city.  A single marble shaft bearing the names of each was erected by kind friends as a monument to mark their last resting place.  The cholera again visited Sandusky in 1852 and 1854 but in a mild form compared with 1849."
     In a communication from C. C. Keech in the Register of July 12, 1884, he states: "There were fifty people put in the trench in three days, the trench filled up with dirt a stone wall built around the outside and three feet of extra earth placed on top.  The trench has never been opened since the dead were placed in it.  The big grave or trench was dug Sunday morning about July 28th, 1849.  Mr. F. T. Barney hired a lot of railroad men at one dollar an hour to dig it.  Before the work was commenced on the trench there were some twelve coffins piled up at our then small graveyard.  As soon as part of the trench was dug the coffins were placed in and covered up.  * * *  Some four hundred died in a month.
     On August, 13, 1852, the Register announced the death of fifty-four people from cholera in the week ending that date, and on August 20, announced the death from cholera of fourteen more.
     For exactly thirty years the papers of Sandusky accessible to the writer contain no mention of the cholera.  On July 31, 1879, C. C. Keech calls attention to the day as the thirtieth anniversary of the day when the height of the cholera was reached and 103 died in three days, after which the pestilence abated.
     In the year 1857 D. R. R. McMeens made a report of the cholera to the Ohio State Medical Society, from which the following extracts are taken:
     Previous to the year 1851 no data of the dead were taken of the dead were taken or recorded, there being no established cemeteries or no reports made, and was unable to obtain any reliable representation of the mortality of early years, with the exception of those periods of time remembered and furnished me by Dr. D. Tilden.
     In the year 1838 there were just sixteen deaths, eight adults and eight children.  In 1839 there were occurred precisely the same number of deaths.  In 1840 there were thirteen deaths registered by an old divine in the following laconic words: "two from disease, six from drowning, one killed by a 'mad bull,' one hung, and three still-born."
     Cholera has been the scourge of Sandusky, for which she has become widely but unjustly proverbial.
     Circumstances of an adequate nature combined at one time to provoke an inordinate display of this disease, and accordingly induced an erroneous impression of some peculiar predilection existing in the place, and was advanced as evidence corroborative of the limestone theory.
     Sandusky, at the time referred to, constituted the most important point of disembarkment on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and possessed the only railroad connection with the Ohio River, while the largest class of steamers daily discarded their vast load of passengers and emigrants at our docks and depots.  The more opulent class were immediately conducted on their journey by a train of cars held in readiness for that purpose, while the poor and ignorant emigrants were invariably detained for more convenient disposal and less expensive conveyances, and consequently all the cheaper and illy-provided houses of entertainment were filled with hordes of half-famished foreigners, huddled together in the most incommodious and ill-ventilated apartments, subsisting entirely upon the refuse vegetables remaining unsold in market and sleeping promiscuously and unprotected upon their piles of loathsome luggage, having left but lately already contaminated cities or infected ships, and passed along attainted thoroughfares-0 thus affording the most favorable circumstances for an ample display and extensive dissemination of the pestilence.
     In the year 1834 the first case of cholera was a man by the name of Childs, who came from Detroit here in the middle or latter part of August, to work in our shipyard, but sickened and died before he commenced work.  It then spread through the town, and we lost many of our valuable citizens, as it seemed to prevail amongst a different class of people from what it did in 1832, and I think it was longer amongst us.
     I have all of the names of the persons who died in the town in 1834; the number was forty-eight, of which twenty-seven died of cholera.  There was no cholera on the peninsula in 1834.
     Cholera of 1849. - The year 1849, memorable for the widespread prevalence and devastation of cholera throughout the country, was one of fearful fatality and corresponding consequences to Sandusky.  At first giving but an occasional intimation of its intentions, attracting but a casual notice, until suddenly exploding with an overwhelming force, it swept through the affrighted populace like a besom of destruction, withering with its upas breath the brave, the beautiful, the strong and the feeble, the affluent and the indigent, and persisted with unabated fury until the place was nearly depopulated by death or desertion.  "Dismay stalked abroad in the daytime, and the drowsy night was hideous with the wailings of the disconsolate."  Many of the stricken were unpityingly forsaken by their friends and family, and left to the care and sympathy of the physician and philanthropist; all business was suspended, stores closed and workshops shut, and their occupants fled or fallen victims to the disease; the busy streets were painfully noiseless and apparently deserted.  No coffins could be procured, nor graves made fo the accumulating dead, and soon but one physician remained to serve or see the sick.  Doctor Austin was prostrated at the onset of the disease; Doctor Tilden became completely exhausted from excessive fatigue and family affliction about the time of its acme; Doctor Lane eventually became ill, and Doctor Cochran was left alone, and stood steadfast and unfaltering at his post throughout the whole period of the pestilence, unceasingly dispensing his services and sympathy to suffering and sorrowing in daytime and night.  The remainder fled ingloriously form the field; but, to the honor of legitimate medicine, the fact that the recreants were all (all) outsiders or emperies should be stated.
     During this time a few fearless and self-sacrificing spirits strove to bring order out of confusion, and endeavored to furnish the assistance and supply the necessities of the occasion, as the board of health, organized at the advent of the disease, had dispersed and the majority of them abandoned the place.  Among the most efficient and untiring of these benefactors was F. M. Follett, Esq., and others, a number of whom fell martyrs to the disease, in their noble efforts to serve the sick.  The names of other citizens of both sexes worthy of most honorable mention are too numerous for special notice in a paper of this character.
     A call was made to the sister cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati for aid, and a number of physicians and nurses rushed at once to the rescue.  Hospitals were hastily arranged, services secured, and confidence restored, when the scourge began to succumb, and soon entirely disappeared.  Among the first and foremost to respond to the call was Dr. H. A. Ackley, Cleveland, "who, Putnam like," left his plough in the midway furrow of his own lucrative field, and, regardless of danger or pecuniary reward, started at the summons of his fellowmen, with his students and what other assistance he could command, for the scene of death and disorder, and, like the good Samaritan, poured oil into the wounds of the sick and brought hope to the hearts of the besieged.  The other principal professional coadjutors were as follows:  Dr. E. Lauerdale and Spencer, of Cleveland, and Drs. E. P. Strader, A. F. Follen, C. A. Caroland and Josiah York, of Cincinnati, and Doctor Vance, of Urbana.
     But the remembrance of the invaluable and gratuitous services of those skillful strangers are engraven upon the annals of Sandusky as enduring as the rock upon which she stands, and treasured in the hearts of her people with the holiest affection.
     The first case that was witnessed in the place was a young gentleman from New Orleans by the name of Shephard, who was attacked on the cars between this city and Cincinnati, and arrived at the Mad River depot on the 25th of June, suffering severely from the disease, and was kindly admitted to the residence of Doctor Cochran, after being denied an entrace at all the public houses, and under his care and treatment recovered.  In the same week a German woman was attacked upon the same road, and died soon after her arrival here, at the Exchange Hotel.
     The first case originating in the place was that of  a Mrs. Allen, residing near the Mad River depot, on the 2d day of July, which terminated fatally.  The next day a Mr. Rosegrant died of the same disease.  From that time it rapidly increased, but no accurate account of its mortality was observed or registered before the 19th of July.  Up to that date there was known to be nineteen deaths, and from July 20th to 23d there were twenty-one deaths.
     From this time no daily reports were registered, and for further facts we refer to the following article published in the Sandusky Clarion of November 22d, as containing the most reliable statement of all the returns.  It says:
     "The first case of cholera occurred on or near Monday, the 2d day of July, and the last in the city, of which we have any account, was on the 7th of September - thus lingering in our midst for sixty-eight days.  On the 10th of August we published the following table derived from F. M. Follett, Esq., who was, during the greater part of cholera epidemic, 'the Board of Health:'
     "To August 8th, 320 deaths; to August 11th, 25 deaths; to September 7th, 12 deaths; making a total of 357 deaths.
     "When the above table was made out it was known that many were not included in it, and it was thought that the true number of deaths of our citizens was 400, vide Sandusky Clarion.  During the period of its greatest devastation the population was computed to be not more than from eight hundred to one thousand souls; and so inadequate were the few laborers that could be obtained to supply the demand for graves that one wide, unseemly trench was made and the dead indiscriminately deposited in one common sepulchre.
     "The epidemic commenced at the western limits of the city, in the immediate neighborhood of the Mad River depot, and created the greatest havoc in that and the central portion of the place most contiguous to it.  The east end of the city escaped with comparative immunity.
     "The weather during this time was gratefully cool and pleasant, the sky clear and unclouded, rendering the nights in the full of the moon brilliantly light and lovely."
     Four cases of cholera occurred in the spring and summer of 1850.  The first, a gentleman from Syracuse, New York, died at the Townsend House early in April, attended by Doctor Tilden and myself.  On the 10th of April a Mr. Elwell was taken, directly opposite the Townsend House, but recovered.  On the 21st day of April, an old lady by the name of Parker residing in the Mansion Hose, had a violent attack but ultimately recovered.  On July 19th a gentleman from Memphis, Tennessee, arrived at the Exchange Hotel with the disease and soon after died.  No other cases were known to have been in the city, and the ordinary health of the place prevailed throughout the balance of the year.
     Cholera of 1852. - The subjoined account of the cholera of 1852 is an abstract of a report read by me before the Erie County Medical Society:  The approaches of this fearful disease created uneasy apprehensions, as rumors of its ravages in adjacent cities reached us, and its earliest manifestations were looked for with lively interest - our people being rendered extremely excitable from the terrible visitation experienced in 1849.
     The first exhibition of the disease in our immediate vicinity occurred at Venice, a small and isolated village about three miels distant, where a whole family were swept off in a few days.  They had but recently received a trunk containing the clothes of a relative who had died of the disease on the Ohio River, which they had exposed and washed for preservation.  These facts are alleged and accredited upon the authority of Drs. Tilden and Hoyt, who were in attendance upon them.
     An old lady residing in this city, and a relative of the family, visited them during their illness and was immediately attacked on her return home and died.
     Contemporaneous with the above events a general disposition to diarrhoea began to develop itself in our midst, resembling in all particulars the cholerine, as described by authors, and occasional well-marked cases of cholera were reported, occurring principally among the patients of our German practitioners.
     The first well-attested case was an Irish laborer, attacked on the evening of the 21st of July at an Irish boarding-house on Water Street near the Mansfield depot.  The same night I was called to see a German on Franklin Street, in the immediate vicinity of the first.  Both were fully developed cholera, but both fortunately recovered.
     The next night I was summoned by Mayor Follett to visit three German emigrants suffering from the same disease at a German tavern situated directly between the two former places, who were subsequently removed to the hospital, where two soon after died.
     After the above demonstrations considerable alarm and excitement pervaded the place, and many of our citizens began to leave the city, while the importance of at once providing a hospital for the reception and concentrations of the emigrant and indigent portion of our population became obvious and imperative.
     Through the indefatigable exertions of the mayor, aided by an intelligent and energetic sanitive committee, such an establishment was furnished and supplied with most commendable dispatch, by converting a commodious but unfinished church to that purpose.  This was divided into a male and female ward, and was opened for the admission of patients on the 31st day of July, and contained that night five patients

 
THE CHOLERA CEMETERY OF 1849.  The Trench Where 60 Were Buried Two or Three Deep, Half of Them without Coffins, Is between the Tree and the Corner Where the House Stands on the Left Hand Side of the Picture.

afflicted with cholera, and remained more or less occupied until the 16th day of September, when it was finally closed.
     During this period there were admitted eighty-seven cases of cholera.  Five of this number were in articulo mortis when received, and consequently had no further attention than removal upon demise.  Fifty-seven were discharged cured, or convalescent, and thirty deaths occurred in all.
     Cholera in 1854 - The cholera appeared in Sandusky in 1854, but scarcely reached an epidemic character.  The large majority of cases were among the recently arrived emigrants, seafaring men, or refugees from other places, and only occurred among our citizens in isolated attacks at considerable intervals.  The first case in the city was on the 10th of July, that of a French emigrant just arrived from sea, who recovered.  Seen by Doctor Donahoo.
     The next was on the 12th of July, in the practice of Doctor Donahoo, that of a woman just arrived from Dayton, and soon after died.  On the morning of the 14th I was called to see a seaman on board the schooner Velocity, direct from Detroit, who was far advanced in the complaint and was carried to the hospital, then just opened, where he subsequently died.

     On November 22, 1849, the Sandusky Clarion published the following article:
     "We lay before our readers today as perfect a list of victims of cholera as we have been able to obtain.  We doubt not that there are many that have been overlooked, but a great deal of care has been taken to make the table as correct as possible.  It was impossible to ascertain the names of many persons who were known to have died of cholera.
     "The first case of cholera occurred on or near Monday, the 2d day of July, and the last in the city of which we have any account was on the 7th day of September, thus lingering in our midst for sixty-eight days.
     "We publish the names of 365 in alphabetical order.  Of this number, 138 were given at the time the death occurred; which was all we could obtain from our best authorities.  We have looked over the list and added dates to all those which were known to us.  We would publish the number of deaths each day during the scourge, if we had the data to work from, but such was the excitement that prevailed, that it could not be kept.  The greatest number of burials were on Monday the 30th of July.
     "If there are any mistakes in this list we hope those who know the facts will inform us that we may correct them.'

     Some of the early settlers remember vividly the cholera year of 1849.  Mrs. Angeline Miller says:
     "I was born in 1830, and will be 85 in April, and came here in 1833.  We first lived in a log house on Water Street, and then over a blacksmith shop.  There were many Indians here then.  I do not remember the name of the tribe, but they wore rings in their noses.  They had tents where the wine cellars are now situated in the west end of the city.  I lived on Market Street in 1849.  The people died like flies.  They hauled off the dead on drays, three or four to a load.  They buried over one hundred in one trench about three coffins deep, with a few inches of dirt on top.  More than thirty died in one day.  Many of the coffins were made of unplaned boards, and they set them in the cemetery and left them unburied till the weather cooled off.  The cholera filled up the old cemetery in the west end so that they ceased burying there after 1849.  Many of the bodies were moved to Oakland later.  They began to remove the tombstones when the war broke out.  One man took some of those tombstones away and made sidewalks out of them.  There was one grae left beside it marking where a colored man was buried.  My cousin Margaret Doerflinger died of the cholera."
     John W. Holland says:
     "I was born in 1824 and came to Sandusky in 1832.  In the cholera year of 1849 every day looked like Sunday.  We went to the country to live for two weeks, then we came back and found the cholera as bad as when we left.  This was in July of 1849.  Thirty-three died in one day.  The coffins were made at the shops of the Sandusky, Mansfield & Newark Railroad Company, which is now the B. & O., by a man named Lathrop.  He lived on Adams Street, across the street from me.  You could buy nothing to eat because the grocery stores were not open.  Foster Follett was the Mayor.  A man named Hathaway went away and left his grocery store and Foster Follett forced the store open and placed a man in charge to sell the goods and settled with Hathaway when he came back.  At this time the town extended south as far as Jefferson Street, but one stone house was all there was south of Adams Street, and that is still standing on the south side of Jefferson Street.  On the west the town was bounded by Camp Street, and on the east the town extended nearly to the bay.  East Market Street was an aristocratic section of the town till the S. M. & N. Railroad came through.  They buried about 75 in one trench in the old cemetery, mostly of the poor people.  Dr. Tilden and Dr. Austin were here then and Dr. Elwood Stanley came here from Cleveland to fight the cholera.  They took the old High School building for a hospital which stood south of the old Congregational Church on the west side of Columbus Avenue.  Just as soon as a person died they took them to the cemetery in wagons or drays.  There were no hearses.  Some were buried in boxes of unplaned boards, and some were buried without coffins, and simply wrapped in sheets.  After the worst of the cholera was over Lathrop and his two daughters died.  At that time south of Jefferson Street was all hazel bushes.  And the people used to hunt rabbits there."
     John S. Rice says:
     "I was born in 1838.  I have always lived in Sandusky.  I remember the old Cholera time.  They buried them three deep in the trench which contained seventy-five or eighty corpses and was about forty feet long and as wide as the length of a coffin.
     "South of the old Congregational Church on the Courthouse square was the old High School.  Then around the corner on Adams street opposite the present residence of Dr. Parker was a small frame building called the unclassified school.  Then came a little German church.  Then on Jackson street was the old Methodist church with cupola and bell.  Then the Beatty church afterward the Lutheran church on the Northwest corner.
     "On the opposite square beginning at the Episcopal church next South was the little church later used by the Baptists; then around on Adams street the Albreit or Zollinger church; then the Blue Grammar school; then Enszlin's church; then came the old Court Hosue which was originally built for an academy but was never used as such.  Then East of the old court house was a little German church facing North near where the present High School stands."
     Lorenzo D. Anthony says:
     "I was born in 1827 and came to Sandusky in 1832.  I was here all through the cholera time.  I remember asking the sexton how many were buried in that trench before it was finished and he said about forty at that time.  I saw several buried.  They were buried two or three deep and not half of them had even boxes to cover them.  We lived on Camp Street then and I saw many of the funerals.  The list given by the Clarion was not complete.  There were many strangers here then who died shortly after their arrival and no record was kept.  I think there were at least a hundred deaths not given in that list.  They began stealing the gravestones about 1852 or 1853.  There are many bodies still out there that were never removed to Oakland Cemetery.  No bodies were ever taken from the trench and it was never opened to my knowledge.  I have lived here since 1832.
     The Sandusky Clarion of December, 1849, quotes the following from the New York Evangelist, under date of Sandusky City, Oct. 24, 1849;
     "Sandusky is literally a city of the dead.  My heart was fairly sickened today at the recital of the awful havoc the cholera had made in this place.  When it broke out here it fell upon them like a thunder boalt.  It seemed almost audibly to crash upon them.  If the billows of the sea had been breaking in upon them, their consternation could have been no greater.  They fled in every direction.  Of 5,600 inhabitants only 1,000 remained.  Of this remnant about 400 died.  So malignant was the epidemic that it was no unusual think for business men to be attacked in their shops and stores, go to the cabinet warehouse and engage their coffins, and then go home, lie down and die before their coffins could get there.  Not less than five ordained ministers of the gospel were among its victims.

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