Claiborne County, MS and the Yellow Fever Epidemics

by Sue Burns Moore

Mrs. Katy McCaleb Headley wrote in her history, Claiborne County, Mississippi : The Promised Land, “One of the worst things that could have happened to Port Gibson, as well as to Claiborne County right after Reconstruction was the yellow fever epidemic of 1878.” Indeed it was terrible – the worst yellow fever epidemic in US history, and Claiborne County was hit particularly hard.

In those days, the real cause of yellow fever or “yellow jack”, a bite from a “Tiger” mosquito carrying the virus, was unknown. The fever was often attributed to “foul, pestilential air from the gutters,” or “noxious vapors from unsanitary conditions”, or even human carriers. 

After being bitten by a carrier mosquito, and usually within three to six days, a person develops flu-like symptoms, such as extremely high fever, accompanied by excruciating head and body aches. Then after a very short time of seeming to improve, a more intense stage often follows during which the victim vomits black blood and suffers liver and kidney failure. In this final stage, jaundice (the skin turning yellow) is also a typical symptom – thus the name “yellow fever.” If a victim dies, it usually occurs within two weeks; however, survivors can feel the ill effects for a lengthy period.

Medical treatment of the day for the disease included dosing with emetics, hot senna and manna tea, and calomel. Old treatments such as cupping and bleeding were used by some doctors.  Mustard footbaths and sponge baths were applied. Water was given only in moderation.  One physician recommended that by the third day, ice water should be given freely, but that it should not be used in the first fifty hours.

The beginning of 1878 presaged a possible problem with so many refugees coming into the South from Cuba- a place where the disease ran rampant. A recent meteorological study suggests that 1877-78 were El Nino years with heavy rainfall which promoted the breeding of mosquitoes.  By July, the first death from the fever occurred in New Orleans.  The Yellow Angel of Death then proceeded up the Mississippi River, and by early days of August had made itself known in Port Gibson. By the end of August, the city was under quarantine. Within the county at Rocky Springs, “one of the town authorities violated the quarantine by bringing in a lot of bagging for baling cotton.  The fever broke out in the family of his partner or agent who took home a portion of this bagging.” They couldn’t have known that it was the mosquito, not their neighbors, that they needed to fear.

A letter to the Union Chambers of Commerce, Washington Post, Sept. 9, 1878, signed by E. John Ellis, Louisiana, R.L. Gibson, Louisiana; John T. Morgan, Alabama; William H. McCardle, Mississippi; and Cyrus Bussey, president of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce states the economic chaos and human suffering created by the fever.  "In New Orleans, Vicksburg and Memphis, as well as the smaller towns of Holly Springs, Grenada, Port Gibson, Canton, Greenville, Brownsville, Baton Rouge and Delhi, all business is entirely suspended. [Unemployed workingmen] have no means to get away from the pest-ridden cities; for them there is no labor, no wages, no bread- nothing but death or starvation, and this condition must last at least for fifty days, for there will be no stay of the pestilence, no resumption of business until frost."

Help did arrive from many places and sources. The Howard Association, named after the English philantropist John Howard, had been established in Virginia during the 1853 epidemic, and it rushed to aid the sufferers of 1878. Eight nurses from the association were sent by train to Port Gibson as early as mid August according to a New York Times article. Later in the month, the Times reported that Port Gibson Howard workers had sent the following telegram: “Fever very fatal, and no abatement,  Two hundred and thirty cases and 35 deaths to date.  Ice is wanted more than anything else.  Nurses doing well,  Our expenses are $150 a day.  New York, St. Louis, Jackson and Columbus are aiding.  But one or two convalescent persons so far.” Cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Kansas City and others sent contributions. Additional organizations including the Masons and the Odd Fellows came to the aid of the county, as well.

The Port Gibson Reveille published this account given by John J. Kelly in its first issue after quarantine was lifted following the first frost of autumn.

 “On the morning of August 8, a man by the name of Augusta Simonson, an employee of the Grand Gulf and Port Gibson Railroad died. For several days before his death, he had been quite sick with a high fever. He was sent to his boarding house, the Louder Hotel  One doctor said he had billous fever, another said intermittent fever, but one of the same doctors saw him the day before he died and said he had a genuine case of yellow fever.  Then the stampede started.  Everybody that could get a horse, a carriage, a cart, or any other conveyance did, and many on foot, left town.

“ I was working in a store for Mr. Crane, who told me to put down everything and find a way to get to the county to hunt a place for both our families.  I went out and found a negro with a horse.  I tried to get him to lend him to me, but he said he couldn’t. I took the horse anyway and rode off.

“About three miles from town, Mrs. Mackey, a friend of my mother, lived in a two-story house at Elmwood Springs.  I told her what had happened and what I was looking for. She said, ‘Go home and bring both families out here. There is plenty of room!’ So I went back and they all packed up to leave.

“I had to get two wagons to move us out.  By sundown we reached the home of Mrs. Broughton, and there spent the night. Early next morning we left for Mrs. Mackey’s.  Although there were several in her family, she could always find room for others.

“Everybody in the house, even the negroes, had the fever except me. There were no nurses, so I had to wait on the sick.  I waited on everybody I could.  I got the wood and hauled the water from the spring, went to town as far as the quarantine station, for everything they needed, and did not take the fever.  My brother, the oldest, had a bad case of the fever and what we called ‘Black vomit.’ I didn’t know what to do for him, so I gave him lots of ice water with plenty of lemon in it.  Then I started for the doctor, but the vomit had stopped before we returned. When I told the doctor what I had done, he said ‘Well, Johnnie, I’m afraid you have killed your brother.’  When we reached home, my brother was much better.  He soon recovered from the fever.

“Another man had the fever, so I went down and heated a bottle of whiskey to rub him with.  I found that I had forgotten the sponge.  So I went down to get it and when I returned, I found the whiskey was gone.  The man had drunk it up. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘You surely will be dead in a little while.  But he said, ‘No, I’ll be able to help you soon.’ And so he did.

“The negro cook had the fever, and she had a little negro girl that had the fever, too.  A tub of water had been put in the room for some cause, and when I came in, the little girl was in the tub of water. I said, ‘What are you doing in that water. Don’t you know it will kill you?’ She said, ‘Yes suh, Boss. I’ze jest been washing off the yellow fever.’ Her mother died, but she got well.

“There were not enough doctors or well people in town to wait on the sick and dying.  Sometimes it took several days to get the dead buried as many died each day.  When the fever started, Howard Associations were formed to provide food, medicine and coffins to bury the dead.  Mr. James A. Gage was elected president, and Mr. Fulkerson was elected secretary and treasurer. The negroes elected Thomas Richardson (colored) for president of their association.”

The Galveston Daily News of Houston, TX carried this report entitled “The Desolate District” with news of the epidemic from James A. Gage, president of the Howard Association: “Port Gibson, Oct. 1 – The epidemic at this place has greatly abated, with but few cases in town and few to have the fever.  It is spreading to an alarming extent in the country, and is forcing refugees back to town as the true place of safety.  The number of cases here figures about 600, out of a remaining population of 700.  The deaths number 116.  Among those lately recorded are Judge J. B. Thrasher and Dr. W. D. Sprott.  A week ago it was thought that the disease had run its course, but the weather has since been warm, the thermometer ranging all day at 86, and new cases are occurring, and some severe and fatal relapses.  In the country, Hon. G. W. Humphreys has 50 cases on his place, his son Earl being quite sick; Dan B. Humphreys has it in his family, and it is at Mrs. DeShapron’s; at the Sprott’s place in Idlewild, near the town, little Janie Leonard is quite sick with it; at Glensade, Prof. J. Payne Green has just lost two lovely and accomplished daughters, and there are more cases on the place.  At Woodstock (plantation), Miss Harrison, of New Orleans, and Miss Maggie Burnett have it – both mild cases.  Mr. Burnett, his daughter, Miss Sallie, and his son John, are down with it, having been refugees, but forced back to town.  In fact, it is rapidly extending all over the country. On many plantations and among refugees great concern is felt for the safety of the country people, as well as for securing the crops.”

Father Abram J. Ryan was a famous and prolific poet of the day, a Catholic priest in New Orleans and other southern cities, and a Confederate chaplain, dedicated to memorializing the South and its “lost cause.” 

According to Edward Blum in the Journal of Southern History, “Ryan's feelings toward northerners and toward the Union changed considerably after a devastating yellow fever outbreak in 1878 ravaged much of the South and was met by a massive relief effort on the part of northern whites.”  After the epidemic, in appreciation, he wrote  "Reunited":

“ For at the touch of Mercy's hand
The North and South stood side by side:
The Bride of Snow, the Bride of Sun,
In Charity's espousals are made one.

 “Thou givest back my sons again,

 The Southland to the Northland cries; 

 "For all my dead, on battle plain, 

 Thou biddest my dying now uprise: 

 I still my sobs, I cease my tears, 

And thou hast recompensed my anguished years.” 

 

The “saffron scourge” or yellow fever had killed so many, but North and South came together again as Americans to help the people of Claiborne County. National economic loss was estimated at between two to three million.  Congress held hearings and a National Quarantine Act was passed. There would be other years with yellow fever, but the 1878 scourge was the last great yellow fever epidemic in the history of the county.

YELLOW FEVER REPORTS - 1878

Population about 1100.  First case, August 3^rd.  Total cases in town and country, about 1500; total deaths in town and country about 275.

“The terrors of war in the spring of 1863 scarcely equaled the ravages of the yellow fever in the summer and fall of 1878. Two Howard associations were formed and the members went forth boldly from the first, but as dim lights began to shine in every home, it became evident that other help was needed. The response from the outside was prompt and liberal. Nurses were employed from a distance. Immense sums of money were sent from neighboring towns and from Northern cities, villages, churches and individuals. The first number of the town paper issued after its suspension on account of the death of the printer, estimated the cases up to that date at 1,300 and the deaths 300. This paper says: ‘It would be impossible to describe the pestilence when in the height
of its fury. From the 8th of August to the 31^st  fifty deaths occurred,
and during that month and September utter silence reigned in our streets —every home was a hospital—the dying and the dead were all around— corpses, just as the victims died, wrapped in sheets and blankets and hurriedly encoffined, were stealthily lifted out of doors, and sometimes out of windows, and buried in haste at sunrise—after dark, by dim lanterns, and frequently lay all night long in the graveyard unburied. The colored people with few exceptions were down with the fever and it proved unusually fatal to them. Very many of them were found doing
their duty and some of them were among the successful nurses.’"

from “The History of Port Gibson” by Rev. H. G. Hawkins, The Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, ed. Franklin L. Riley, Vol. X, Oxford, Miss., 1909.

Tables taken from The Epidemic of 1878 in Mississippi : A Report of the Yellow Fever Relief Work  through J. L. Power, Grand Sec. of Masons and Grand Treasurer of Odd Fellows, Jackson, Miss. , Clarion Steam Publishing House, 1879.) These same yellow fever deaths are also listed in the Vicksburg Weekly Herald, Jan. 10, 1879.

1878 DEATHS IN PORT GIBSON AND ADJACENT COUNTRY

*Note:  The asterisks are from St. Joseph Parish Catholic Church records, and indicate the person was a Catholic.

Total number of colored deaths, 95.

Total number of cases treated in the county, not less than 1200.

The above list of deaths is made up with the assistance of Howard officers Gage, Englesing, Fulkerson, and J. L. Foote, undertaker.  It is not claimed that it is a full list of deaths in the county, from the fact that to obtain a full and complete list is impossible.  Many white and colored people have died from this fever of which I have no official information thus far.  The Howards have extended their helping hand to every corner of the county that could be reached. Local pickets alone kept them from covering the whole ground.   R. F. GORDON  Oct. 31^st, 1878.  Health Officer, Port Gibson, Miss.

1878 DEATHS IN ROCKY SPRINGS

127 cases reported, 39 deaths – 12 colored deaths

Rocky Springs is a ghost town on the Natchez Trace now, but once it had a population of more than two thousand.  The reasons given for its decline and eventual death are the Civil War, yellow fever, erosion, and eventually the boll weevil.  Grant, with 40,000 troops, established his headquarters for a time here during the war.

The following is a list of deaths in August and September of 1878, indicating day of death taken from St. Joseph Parish, Claiborne – Jefferson Counties MS, compiled and transcribed by Ann Beckerson Brown and Walter Lee Salassi, pub. by the Claiborne - Jefferson Genealogical Society, 1995.

AUGUST