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Cornell University Library 1993.FIRST APPEARANCE, IN 1832, OF
THE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO,
With Incidental Notices of the Late
Roswell W. Haskins.*
EXTRACT FROM PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY.
BY LEWIS F. ALLEN.
The Asiatic cholera had raged in various countries of Asia for
some years previous to 1832, and in many places with great
fatality. The disease gradually progressed westward into Cen-
tral Europe, spreading to more or less extent in all its divisions
until it reached the Atlantic Ocean, and leaping across the chan-
nel dominated irregularly throughout considerable portions of
the British Islands. In May or June, 1832, some English emi-
grant ships brought the disease to Quebec, in Lower Canada,
where it soon spread and raged with great violence during some
months. Within a short time after reaching Quebec, it crept up
the St. Lawrence to Montreal, to Kingston and Toronto, in all
of which places it spread with destructive fatality, and late in the
month of June, or early in July, following Lake Ontario up to
*Died January 15, 1870. Mr. Allen once wrote of him in a newspaper sketch: “Mr.
Haskins was an original in many traits of his character, like some other of the earlier
residents of our village, and afterwards city, and one of the latest living of a class of
men who early made their mark on the features of its progress and moulded its civil
and social institutions into their well tried stability and usefulness. His early labors
for its prosperity and greatness should be perpetuated in the memories of his sur-
vivors.” An appreciative notice of Mr. Haskins, read at one of the club meetings
of the Buffalo Historical Society, a short time after his death, by his friend Mr. L. G.
Sellstedt, follows in this volume.—Ed.
245246
FIRST APPEARANCE OF
the Welland Canal by the vessels then coasting those waters (as the
outlet of that canal was then into the Chippewa Creek) into
Niagara River, and soon after appeared in Buffalo. The whole
country was alarmed, and precautionary measures, so far as the
larger city authorities of our country knew or could ascertain
what such measures should be, were adopted to ward off its
approach and guard against its ravages. Among these com-
munities the little city of Buffalo, with its seven or eight thou-
sand people, through its civil authorities, did what, with its
limited means, it could to prepare for its approach.
But the cholera was here, and broke out in several fatal cases
before its approach was expected, or even anticipated. A sud-
den meeting of the Common Council was called, decisive move-
ments taken, and a Board of Health established for prompt and
vigorous action. The City Council appointed Roswell W. Has-
kins, Dyre Tillinghast and Lewis F. Allen, a Board of Health,
over whom presided ex officio, Doctor Ebenezer Johnson, then
Mayor, and the first Mayor of the city—a magistrate to whose
energy, faithful discharge of official duty, promptitude in action,
and executive ability in times of emergency or exigency like that
then upon it, Buffalo will never know a superior. These four
men, then in the prime of life, of sound health and physical
activity fully equal to the highest average, constituted the Board
of Health, and took upon themselves the fearful responsibilities
of exercising an almost plenary power conferred by the Council
to do whatever they should see fit. Loring Pierce* was the chief
undertaker of the city, a capital nurse of the sick when needed in
such capacity, sexton of St. Paul’s Church, crier to the courts, a
faithful, prompt executor of all orders in his line with which he
might be charged, and ever ready for service. As a general
assistant and undertaker he was employed by the Board, and
when not otherwise engaged, was usually present at its daily
meetings to bring in reports and receive orders. He was useful—
indispensable, in fact. Last, but, perhaps, the most important
adjunct to the labors of the commission, was the Health Physi-
cian and medical adviser, Dr. John E. Marshall, of the firm of
Trowbridge & Marshall, both able and accomplished in their
*Said to have been pronounced “ Purse.”—Ed.THE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO.
247
profession, whose characters equally for integrity, uprightness
and advisory counsel,-as well as medical skill, were not only
unquestioned, but held in the highest repute.
The cholera began its work fearfully and rapidly. One after
another was stricken down, mostly among the more destitute,
heedless and imprudent, but occasionally the disease burst into
the dwellings of the careful and more circumspect, and carried
off its victims with awful suddenness. The coffin makers and
grave diggers were constantly at work; many people hurriedly
packed their trunks and left the city,while others stood appalled,
knowing not whether to go or stay. Every morning the Board
of Health met at their little one-story wooden office on Main
Street, received reports of the resident physicians, and made up
their orders for the day. The entire Board were at work by day
or by night, as exigency called. Steamboats were stopped on
their entrances to the harbor until their passengers and crews had
passed medical inspection; stage coaches (we had no railroads
then) were stopped outside the city; canal boats were met below
Black Rock as they were coming to their destination, and
country people kept at a safe distance outside by their own fears
of contagion. Everybody but the reckless ones lived on half
rations of food, so far as vegetables and fruits were concerned,
and the most abstemious of all diluted their water with a
modicum of what, by courtesy, was called “ French brandy ” ;
while the tipplers (and they were more than enough), held a
prolonged saturnalia of bibulous indulgence. A hospital was
improvised, the first one being “ The McHose House,’’ which
was pulled down a few years ago. It stood in a hollow about
midway between Niagara and Ninth Street, now Prospect
Avenue, built by McHose at an early day for a tavern, in
expectation that the Erie Canal would pass it to avoid the
projected Black Rock Harbor—a terrible dread in that early day
of its erection, to all loyal Buffalonians ! The house was
unoccupied at the time. The Board of Health took possession
of it, put in a few bedsteads, beds, tables, chairs, and cooking
utensils. Pierce took partial charge, so far as moving the
destitute cholera patients into it, and supervising its arrangement.
But corpses were almost daily carried out, and but a few days248
FIRST APPEARANCE OF
after its opening, the chief nurse and factotum died, and was
carried to his grave.
That was a calamity, and the Board were appalled. What
was to be done ? After casting about for one to refill the place,
Mr. Pierce found a stout, good-looking, healthy Irish girl of five
and twenty years, or thereabouts, who offered her services, and
brought her to the meeting of the Board. She looked cheerful,
spoke hopefully, and appeared the very embodiment of health
and good spirits. When asked if she had no fears of disease she
answered in the negative, and went energetically and faithfully
to work. Within the space of four days afterwards, that cheer-
ful, kind, devoted girl was carried out of the hospital- to her
grave! There were sad hearts in the Board of Health that
day. Pierce laid her shrouded body tenderly in her coffin, and
gave her a hurried, yet respectful burial in the High-street field
of graves. All that the Board of Health knew of her history or
name, was “Bridget” !
On raged the cholera. There were “dens” across Buffalo
Creek, where large elevators and coal shutes now stand, and they
yielded up their victims; and on the “flats,” up stream and
down among the warehouses, and along the canal and its borders,
Death erratically appeared. The disease darted like forked
lightning at right angles, at obtuse angles, at oblique angles, up
one street, down another alley, and into any and almost every
quarter of the little city. The weather was hot; showers made
the ground smoke with moisture, for there were not then eighty
rods of sidewalk, nor a rood of paved street in the entire corpor-
ation. Dr. Johnson was busy with his official duties in the
Council, and at the morning meetings of the Board. Haskins,
Tillinghast, and Allen were busy at all calls, with little leisure.for
their own affairs ; Dr. Marshall always engaged in his indispens-
able labors, and Pierce at his daily work of taking patients to the
hospital, restoring the convalescent to their humble homes, or
more frequently taking the dead, mostly by night (not unneces-
sarily to frighten the people) to their graves..
A single instance may be related :	The day had been serene
and cloudless; the Board had done their daily round of duty
and repaired to their several homes. Mr. Allen’s house was onTHE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO,
249
Main Street, between Chippewa and Tupper Streets. Tired and
fatigued, he had retired to his bed. Soon a fearful thunder
storm arose, rattling and lightening all over the sky, and the
rain poured. He was the only human being in the dwelling,
his little family having left the town early in the season. He
could not sleep, and lay restless. About midnight a gentle tap
was heard at the window near his bed, for he slept on the ground
floor. Rising to know what the intrusion at that untimely hour
could be, and raising the window, there stood — Loring Pierce !
“ What’s the matter now,Pierce—anything new or alarming?”
<{0h no ! ” replied the imperturbable undertaker, “only I’ve
got six coffins in my wagon going up to the graveyard to bury
them, and not knowing but you would like to take a look at them
and see that all was right, thought I’d call and ask you.”
“And is that all,” asked the astonished Allen, “and in
such a hurly-burly of thunder, lightning and rain — worse than
that of the witches in ‘Macbeth’—you call me out of bed to see
six coffins on their way to burial ? You surely are not alone in
such a night as this? ”
“ Oh, no ; I’ve got Black Tony with me-—he’s watching the
wagon now, in the street — and I guess we two can get along
with it — bury ’em, and get home before morning. Good-night,
Mr. Allen.” And on went Pierce and Tony with their patient
horse and wagon-load of bodies through the pitiless rain to the
graveyard. The next morning at the Board meeting, Pierce
was at his daily duty, sedate as usual, as if he had slept soundly
all night. Pierce was a hero, and the dark-featured Tony his
trusty sergeant !
It was not the poor only who suffered. The upper and
brighter walks of life yielded also. Henry White, one of the
distinguished lawyers of the city and county, after spending an
afternoon at the Mansion House—then Landon’s Hotel—in
attending to some legal business with one who had come a
distance to see him, went home in the evening, not feeling well,
retired to bed, and before nine o’clock next morning was laid
out a corpse. And he was but one of many whose deaths were
so appalling and sudden.250
FIRST APPEARANCE OF
Haskins, although loving mankind in the aggregate, hated
some men, and among them, blacklegs and loafers in particular.
A graceless vagabond, who had been for months prowling about
the streets, playing “ sixpenny loo ” with street boys, canal
drivers, with any idle reprobate, in short, whom he could wheedle
or cheat out of his pennies, to get his own night’s lodging in an
underground “dive,” or a contingent meal, was a stout, burly,
able-bodied fellow, of perhaps thirty years, and abundantly able
to labor for a living. He had been in the watchhouse, before
the police, in jail, as a vagrant. The scamp was utterly worth-
less for any good purpose whatever. Haskins had had no partial
eye on him for months past. One of the physicians reported to
the Board that this man (he had a name which every one knew,
for he was a notorious nuisance, but what the name was is now
forgotten) was taken sick, and must go to the hospital. Has-
kins’s eyes lighted. “I’ll attend to his case at once,” and out
he started, taking Pierce and his horse and wagon along. They
proceeded to a miserable rookery on “the flats,” fronting Main
Street, somewhere in the block where the Webster Buildings now
stand. The man was in a loft reached by a ricketty flight of
wooden stairs. At about half a dozen leaps, with Pierce at his
heels, the top stair was reached, and through the shattered, half-
hinged door which opened into it, both entered a room. There
lay the poor creature utterly helpless, in the merciless gripe of
the cholera. “ Poor fellow,” cried Haskins, his heart softening
at the wretched spectacle, “ bad as he is, Pierce, we must take
care of him. Here, help get him on to my back.” And with
that he crouched over, Pierce put the sick man on to the shoulders
of Haskins, who left the room, with Pierce’s assistance—for
Haskins was a strong, sturdy man—felt his way down the stairs
carefully, and laid the poor creature tenderly on the straw in the
wagon ! Pierce drove him to the hospital, and the next day he
was carried out—in a coffin ! Haskins hated him no longer ;
but he didn’t wish him back again.
The leading physicians in those days, aside from Drs. Trow-
bridge and Marshall, were Dr. Cyrenius Chapin and his medical
partner, Dr. Bryant Burwell, the late Dr. Bristol being at that
time a druggist, and not in medical practice. Chapin was anTHE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO.
251
able doctor, sixty years of age or upwards, an early resident
here, of wide professional practice, blunt in speech, sometimes
abrupt in manner, but with much kindness of heart, abounding
in poor patients, to whom he scarce ever denied his services—
as well as in patients who had the means to compensate his
labors. But he was oftentimes dictatorial, sometimes obstinate,
and had a sovereign contempt for the Board of Health as an
official body,' although on good personal terms with them as
private individuals. He wouldn’t make his daily reports of
cholera cases to them, as required, and responded to by all the
other physicians. “ Why should I report my medical cases to a
set of ignoramuses who don’t know the cholera from whooping
cough? No : I’ll see ’em hanged first.” But Dr. Johnson, the
Mayor, had made up his mind that Dr. Chapin should report,
willy-nilly, and after a delightful joust of words, altogether
characteristic on the part of Chapin, the latter made up his
mind that discretion was the better part of valor, and afterwards,
made his daily reports faithfully. Doctor Burwell,* who was the
widest possible contrast to Chapin in way and manner, although
his business partner, had always made his reports punctually
and w7ell.
As before mentioned, the vessels navigating the Welland
Canal came into the Niagara at Chippewa on the Canada side,
and coasting up stream, crossed at the foot of Squaw Island,
entered the ship lock and reached the lake through Black Rock
harbor, in all cases when a northerly wind was not strong enough
to take them, by their sails, up the rapids. Most of the Canada
vessels during the summer had newly-arrived immigrants from
Europe on board. In that way the cholera had at first reached
Buffalo, and a sharp eye was afterward kept on every Canada
vessel which approached our shores.
One dark murky evening, word was sent up from the ship
lock to the Board of Health, that several vessels from Ontario
had arrived near the foot of Squaw Island, and lay at anchor,
intending to pass the lock next morning and go into Lake Erie
on their passage up to the Canadian border beyond. The Board
instantly convened, and with their physician—Pierce was left
out this time—took carriages, and went to Lower Black Rock.252
FIRST APPEARANCE OF
The people there had become alarmed at the presence of the
three or four Canada schooners, for they had only come in
singles or couples before, and the Board were promptly met on
their arrival by Colonel W. A. Bird and his business partner,
Judge McPherson, who had a large flouring mill and store there,
and several other active inhabitants of the place. Two or three
small boats were instantly provided, and the Board, with the
gentlemen named and several others, supplied with enough stout
oarsmen, took passage for the vessels. The night was pitchy
dark, but the lights hung up on the vessels guided the boats to
them readily. It was near midnight when the inspecting party
reached them, and officers, crew and passengers, save a single
watchman on the deck of each vessel, were soundly asleep in
their berths. The captains were aroused as one after another of
the vessels were boarded, and summoned to state the sanitary
condition of their human cargo. They were indignant that any
“ foreigner” should interfere with their business; some of the
passengers waked up, came on deck, and in no very decorous
terms, bade the invading party be gone. But this was of little
use ; the visitors were strong enough to protect themselves. The
condition of the crew and passengers was ascertained to be
free from disease, and the boats with their visitors on board
returned to the wharf whence they started. On reaching the
shore the party went to the tavern near by, where some of them
restored their wasted strength by imbibing a trifle of the
“medicine” so "frequently taken to “ward off the effects of
frequent exposure.” On this occasion, Haskins, who never
touched a drop of spirits, not even wine, cider, or beer—
“would as soon drink aquafortis as either”—was profusely
liberal in setting a decanter of brandy before the boatmen,
telling them to “ take all they wanted.”
“ Why, Haskins,” said Allen to him, “ what does this mean?
Your precept and example both are against all dram drinking,
and here you are, giving the opportunity to let these men get
drunk at their pleasure.”
“ Can’t help that,” replied Haskins ; “if these chaps hadn’t
expected a treat of this kind, we might have stayed ashore instead
of getting to the vessels, and I am not the one to balk their
appetites. Taking the liquor is their affair, not mine. ’ ’ AlthoughTHE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO.
253
a rigid abstinent, he would sooner get boozy himself than join a
Temperance Society. He thought every one should be temperate
on his own volition, and not lean on others to keep good his
habits.
The next day the vessels were permitted to pass the lock into
the harbor, but without landing any persons, and go quietly on
their voyage. No further alarm came from Canada vessels
during the season.
Two of our present eminent physicians, Gorham F. Pratt and
James P. White* were then medical students in Buffalo. Pratt
was with Dr. Chapin—possibly had begun practice with him, as
he was for some years afterwards a partner; and White, some-
what younger, in the office of Trowbridge & Marshall. These
young men were active, intelligent, enterprising, and gave most
valuable aid to the Board,as well as to their medical superiors in their
laborious duties. Pratt stayed chiefly at home in Dr. Chapin’s
office to attend pressing calls there, while White was sent to
guard the outpost at Lower Black Rock, where the canal boats
from the East and the Canada vessels entered the harbor. Here
his activity and vigilance greatly relieved the anxiety of the
Board of Health, the physicians of the city, and the people at
large. His reports of the condition of things were frequent, and
his watch was only given up on the disappearance of further
danger.
Many incidents, some melancholy, and some othewise,
occurred during that distressing season. Many valuable lives
were cut off by the disease, and some that were of little use to
society. The city authorities and the medical faculty, as well
as the people, had the cholera and its treatment all to learn, and
before the scourge had left the city, as it did when the frosts of
autumn came on, the disease had become measurably controlable,
and its contagion somewhat arrested by timely precautions. So
passed the first cholera year of Buffalo, thirty-seven - years ago,
and in the course of those years have passed away every member
of that Board of Health and their associates, save one, and he
yet robust, but in the sere and yellow leaf of life.f
* Dr. Pratt died April 6,1871; Dr. White Sept. 28,1881.—Ed.
t Mr. Allen was 69 years of age when he thus alluded to himself. He died May
2,1890, in his 91st year.—Ed.254
FIRST APPEARANCE 01
Less has been said of Tillinghast than of Haskins in this
brief memoir, but he was quite as active and vigilant in the dis-
charge of his duties as either of his associates. The Health
Physician, Dr. Marshall, was untiring throughout in his labors,
and his fidelity to his fearful trust, no doubt, saved lives that,
with a less attentive care, would have been lost. Nor were the
labors of the other physicians of the city less meritorious. The
names of all of them may not have been mentioned in this
recital, but they were Good Samaritans, and devotedly gave their
services either with or without the expectation of reward, as
chances might govern. All the reward the Board of Health
received for their three months’ labor and the neglect of their
private business was the thanks of the Common Council, except
that Tillinghast was paid $50 by them for keeping the records as
clerk of the Board. Few men, we fancy, in these later days of
plunder and extortion of the public would consent to be thus
compensated. A remarkable fact may be mentioned, that so far
as now recollected, no member of the Board of Health, nor any
of their official associates or attendants, suffered a day from sick-
ness, during the period of their labors.
After an interregnum of the year 1833 in which, however, a
few stray cases of cholera occurred, the disease again broke out
in the year 1834 with all its previous virulence. A new Common
Council and a new Board of Health were in action, with im-
proved opportunities for managing the disease, but the fatality
was proportionally as great as in 1832. Yet the precautionary
measures against attack were better understood, and those who
were in health feared less to encounter the disease than before.
Several active young men of the city turned out bravely as
nurses to the sick, and did grateful service; and so did many
reputable women. A marked exception of her sex who devoted
herself to this brave work was one, not of the good and virtu-
ous in society, but of whose labors at this distant time it would
be unjust not to bear recognition.
Lydia Harper was a fallen woman. Whether she became so
by the wiles of seduction, or by her own volition, was unknown
to the people of Buffalo. She had lived in Rochester time past,
as it was said, but her home for some few years had been inTHE CHOLERA IN BUFFALO.
255
Buffalo. Her personal appearance was decent; of middle size,
well-formed, bright eyes, good complexion, modest in carriage
and dress, as she passed the streets, healthy in look, with intelli-
gent, expressive features, she would appear to the stranger a
respectable woman. Her age was perhaps thirty. But she was
not what she should have been, and her home was among the
wayside localities of the abandoned of her sex. To the public,
as she appeared among them, her conduct was correct, and to
those only who consorted with her kind was her vocation famil-
iar. Yet rumor told various acts of kindness and charity at her
hands, and the name of Lydia Harper was not always accompan-
ied with approbrium, or censure. She did not entice the young
and unwary to her abode. She knew enough of the world to
understand her own position, never sought to conceal it, nor did
she thrust her presence in unwelcome places. So she passed,
unobtrusive to society, and apparently content with the lot which
her own fallen nature had chosen.
When the cholera, in 1834, had broken out, and attendants
on the sick were much needed, this woman offered her services
as a nurse in places where they were appropriate, simply for such
labors as she could render without regard to her social recogni-
tion. She asked no pay. She was ready to work, she could
work, and she did work, with a readiness, a facility, an aptitude
of which many better women were incapable ; and she entered
houses whose inmates were respectable, and where her efforts
were gratefully appreciated. She could do everything required
of a female nurse,* prepare food and drinks, give medicines,
bathe the sick, smooth their pillows, and minister all those gentle
attentions so grateful to the stricken and afflicted, and with a
decorum and fidelity admirable in their manner. And she did
all these throughout the cholera season. Was not that woman a
heroine—-a true woman indeed—in all the virtues of a repentant
Magdalen ? Let charity excuse her frailties, while gratitude
applauds her kindly efforts to relieve the miseries of her race.
It was no “ putting on” of hers for the occasion, but a genuine
philanthropy, innate in her being, which broke out at the cry
of distress, ceasing only when the occasion for its action had
passed. Lydia lived years afterwards in her vocation as before,256 FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHOLERA IN BUFFALO.
and died some years since in this city. In what part of the
common burying ground her remains were deposited no one
perhaps now knows, for no tombstone tells the tale of her good
deeds or records the story of her frailties. Let this simple
narrative perpetuate the one, and oblivion blot out the other.