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182 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
at our then small graveyard. As soon as part of the trench Avas dug
the coffins Avere 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 AVIIS reached and 103 died in three days,
after which the pestilence abated.
In the year 1857 Dr. R. R. McMeens made a report of the cholera to
the Ohio State Medical Society, from Avhich the folloAving extracts are
taken:
Previous to the year 1851 no data of the dead Avere taken or' recorded,
there being no established cemeteries or no reports made, and Avas unable
to obtain any reliable representation of the mortality of early years,
Avith 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 occurred precisely the same number of
deaths. In 1840 there Avere thirteen deaths registered by an old divine,
in the following laconic Avords: "tAvo from disease, six from droAvning,
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 plaee,
and Avas 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 AVCIV immediately
conducted on their journey by a train of cars held in readiness
for that purpose, Avhile the poor and ignorant emigrants AA'ere 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—thus affording
the most favorable circumstances for an ample display and extensive
dissemination of the pestilence.