Chapter VI: Canto VI

1833.
CHOLERA.

We have sung the hillside city
In the wilds of old Kentucky,
In the fruitful, blue-grass region,
In its central rich location.
We have sung its days of beauty,
From the hands of the Creator;
Of its innocence and quiet,
Ere the foot of man had pressed it;
We have sung its days of progress
Since the first rude cot was fashioned;
We have sung its days of pleasure
'Mid its households and its people;
We have sung its days of profit
In the gain of cents and dollars;
Days of rustic simple manners,
Days of industry and labor,
Days of glory and of triumph,
Days of pride and exultation.
Now, there came a fatal era,
When the busy hum of traffic
Filled no more the stirring places;
When the noisy roll of carriage
Ceased to sound along the pavements,
And the death cart's slow procession
Told of woe and desolation,
Told of pestilence and danger,
Told of cottages all empty,
And of mansions grim and silent,
Of the hearthstones all deserted,
All the happy, quiet hearthstones.
In this sad and fearful era,
In the year of eighteen hundred
Three and thirty, came a despot,
More oppressive in his power
Than the hosts of foreign armies,
More insatiate in his passion
Than the simoon of the desert.
Came a despot whose invasion
Struck the heart all dumb with terror,
Drove the people, panic-stricken,
From the homes so neat and tasteful,
From the places dear and sacred,
To the refuge of the country,
To the refuge of the mountain,
To the refuge of the valley,--
Anywhere for life and safety
From the grim, pursuing monster.
'Twas the cholera of Asia,
Laying hands upon the city.
'Twas this skeleton so ghastly,
With its breath of foul miasma,
With its desolating vengeance,
With its greedy, fatal cravings,
Laying hands upon the city.
And the doomed victims yielded
To the swift-distilling poison;
White and black and high and lowly,
Fell beneath the sweeping scythe-blade.
On the air was borne the crying
Of the hurrying, the fleeing,
Through the air the sad lamenting
Of the helpless and deserted,
Cries of anguish and of terror,
Wails of suff'ring and despairing.
Some brave souls remained in peril,
'Mid this notable hegira;
Some remained with Spartan courage,
And the enemy confronted;
Some fell, martyrs in the struggle,
When their task of love was ended.
B. F. Duncan, kind physician!
Stood his post a valiant soldier,
Never faltered, never wavered,
While his duty lay before him;
Stood forth bold for his profession,
Stood forth friend and nurse and doctor.
But his skill and his devotion
Could not terminate the death-list,
Could but palliate the anguish,
Could but soothe the dying victim.
Mournful sights were his to witness
In the lone, deserted village;
Painful scenes he long remembered,
In the still, plague-stricken city.
From the news sheets of the era,
The "Kentuckian" or the "Journal,"
(Early chronicles established
In the city of Lancaster),
We may glean the sad statistics,
Glean the names of some who suffered,
Suffered death from the invader,
From the cholera Asiatic.
May the list awake a tear-drop
At the sounds once so familiar.
William Cooke and A. McDaniel,
D. McKee and William Pollard,
Seymour Gice and Mrs. Woodruff,
Thomas Pratt and Charles S. Bledsoe,
Doctor William Gill, E. Sartain,
Robert Gill and James G. Tillett,
Mrs. Gill and Mrs. Gresham,
Then Ray Smith and Mrs. Tillett,
Mrs. Anderson, J. Aldridge,
Mary Crooke and J. Vanmeter,
Nancy Bland and Joseph Evans,
Miss E. Gill and Daniel Bledsoe,
Mr. Parks and Mrs. Jennings,
Mrs. Parks and Patience Wilmot,
J. V. Gill and Mrs. Aldridge,
Mrs. George and David Sutton,
Patience Crow and Mrs. Reynolds,
Mary Robertson, John Bryant,
Mrs. Dunn, James Pope then follow.
Next come Mrs. Pratt, John Pollard,
E. McKee and Ruth A. Evans,
Frederick Hutchison, Ben. Letcher,
G. W. Thompson, Mary Woodruff,
S. S. Wilmot, William Lillard,
Joseph Woodruff and "two strangers,"
Lastly, Alexander Collier,
And "five children," are recorded.
Sixteen days the grim destroyer
Scourged our city on the hillside,
The sad city of Lancaster.
And the dead, one hundred sixteen,
White and black, were laid to slumber,
Laid to rest from toil forever,
In the old, neglected graveyard.
It was not so old in those days;
Flowers bloomed upon the hillocks,
Blossoms waved among the grasses;
Now, sweet flowers of remembrance,
Live among the few survivors
Of that sleeping generation;
Live with those whose hearts are faithful
To the victims of the death-knell,
Of the fatal epidemic
Of eighteen hundred three and thirty.

And the changing cycle moved on,
As the moons were waxing, waning.

Turn we now from pictures ghastly,
For the hand of God is lightened;
Sing no longer mournful dirges,
For the earth is glad and merry;
Let the requiems rest silent
In the lull of deep thanksgiving.
For the wrath of heaven is lifted,
Lifted from the rescued city.
Gone, the sound of rolling death-cart,
Hushed, the ringing, tolling belfry,
Still, the bier and gloomy shovel,
Still, the idle, listless sexton.
Other days of anxious watching
Followed, one or two years later;
Days when fierce, destructive fevers
Darkened many homes with mourning.[2]
Yet the citizens are happy
In this season of glad respite;
Now the people of the township
Open wide the doors of welcome
To the long-abandoned firesides;
Open now the shop and office
To the artisan and student;
Active now the hands long folded
From the busy round of labor,
And the fields of grain and verdure
Wave once more beneath the sunlight.
Fields of corn and wheat and barley,
Fields of oats and rye and clover,
Fields of hemp and of tobacco,
All the products and the grasses
Spring again to life and beauty.
Let us sing no more lamenting
For the boon of life is granted,
Swell the choral hallelujah
To the Giver of all blessings,
To the Guardian of our fortunes,
The great Healer of diseases,
Our Preserver from disaster,
Our Physician and our Father,
The beneficent Jehovah,
Who hath stayed the scourge's power,
Who hath stilled the epidemic
Of eighteen hundred three and thirty.

[2]What was known as the Lancaster fever prevailed in 1835. A fatal fever
also visited Lancaster in 1836, caused by the grading of the public
square. Dr. Luther Buford discovered the origin of the malaria and
wrote a thesis upon the subject.