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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
Avas 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
folloAving description:
"The railroad-connection betAveen Sandusky and Cincinnati had just
been completed and the large amount of travel and traffic over its line
Avas unprecedentecUin the West. Large shops, docks and warehouses at
Sandusky became a necessity, laborers Avith 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 Avere hastily
erected and soon croAvded to overflowing. When the visitation of cholera
came the city Avas Avhplly "unprepared. There Avere no hospital accommodations
and the force of local physicians Avas Avholly 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 Avas Mrs. Allen, July second. Three prominent
ministers of the gospel passed aAvay—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 Avas '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 Avere fifty people put in the trench in three days,
the trench filled up Avith 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 Avere 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
AA'as commenced on the trench there Avere some tAvelve coffins piled up
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