‘The dreadful summons’: an epidemic remembered

Mankind has often been beset by pestilences and plagues, and the worst to ever hit Warren County was the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. There had been earlier ones and a few later, but none of the magnitude of the one in 1878. It claimed more than 1,000 lives in Vicksburg and Warren County.

My grandmother, Carrie Lee Cotton, grew up next to Redbone Cemetery and was a child in 1878. She remembered funerals held at night, for a victim was usually buried immediately after death.

Mrs. Sophie Adams Goodrum lived in the community and in her diary, she recorded the deaths of friends and neighbors who were buried at Antioch and Asbury cemeteries. Antioch is on Fisher Ferry Road at the intersection with Goodrum Road, and Asbury is located on Halls Ferry Road beyond Timberlane.

It was a year “long to be remembered,” Mrs. Goodrum wrote.  She was remembering the late summer of 1878 when yellow fever, also called the black vomit, devastated untold numbers of families.

Mrs. Goodrum lived on a plantation between Antioch Baptist Church, where she was a member, and Asbury Methodist Church. She recorded the deaths of people from both congregations.

Toby Whitaker, a 20-year-old member of Antioch, was the first in the community to become ill; he was stricken on Aug. 27, 1878, and his parents had the responsibility of nursing him.

“Not a single person would enter the house to help in this dark hour,” Mrs. Goodrum, who was Toby’s aunt, wrote. William and Sarah Whitaker, Toby’s parents, stood “alone, with none but God to help. Many times they thought him dying—no friend but his own parents to watch and comfort—all earthly friends had fled from the terrible scourge.”

Though death seemed certain, by Sept. 6, Toby was improving and able to change clothes for the first time since he had become ill. Then, others in the household became sick. The Goodrums took provisions to the Whitaker home but dared not go beyond the gate. Only William Whitaker escaped becoming ill, and he was exhausted from nursing his family and seeking provisions.

Miss Bettie Bell, a neighbor, died on Sept. 15, and Williams Whitaker had the responsibility of burying her. James W. Goodrum and his sons built a casket and paid a man to take it to the yard, but he would go no farther than the fence, for most thought that anyone who went near the sick or dead were sure to succumb to the disease.

Two men were hired to dig the grave, but they became frightened and ran away, so William Whitaker carried the casket into the house, and he and Toby placed the girl’s body in the box. Whitaker then backed the wagon as close to the door as possible. He and Toby took a plank, placed one end on the wagon and the other near the casket, and then slid it into the wagon. The two then drove to the graveyard where they used the plank to slide the casket out of the wagon and into the grave. Toby was exhausted, so his father filled the grave.

“Sorrow and anguish fill every heart—death stares each in the face, and everyone waits in breathless suspense for the dreadful summons,” Mrs. Goodrum wrote. She longed for news of neighbors, but she dreaded the reports she might hear.

Sophie Whitaker Pettit, Toby’s sister, began nursing her mother-in-law when she became violently ill on Oct. 28. Two days later, Sophie also grew ill, becoming delirious, and she lost consciousness. Her aunt, for whom she was named, wrote: “Dear Sophie, shall I never more behold thy bright, cheerful face?”

“Our hearts sicken within us, as we glance up and down the road for some bearer of sad news. At last the dreadful tidings came—our darling Sophie is no more! She took her flight to heaven today abut 1 o’clock. Her parents and brother were with her, but death regarded the agony of none. We ask ourselves who is to be the next victim, and who is to be spared.”

Sophie Pettit was possibly buried in the Pettit family cemetery, but no stone marks her grave. The Adams-Goodrum family cemetery, where Bettie Bell was buried, was destroyed in later years by the development of a subdivision.

No services were held at Antioch from August until the middle of December, and Mrs. Goodrum wrote that there were many vacant pews in Antioch and many fresh graves in the cemetery. For weeks, the only subject talked of was the plague.

Mrs. Goodrum recorded four deaths that occurred in the vicinity of Asbury.

Patience Lynche Kline, wife of Nineon Kline Sr., died on Oct. 9.

“They laid my friend away in the silent grave, between 9 and 10 o’clock at night, on the day on which she died, without the procession of friends,” Mrs. Goodrum wrote, “—they carried her off in the night and laid her beneath the forest trees.”

Mrs. Kline was buried at Asbury Cemetery. She was 60.

The next morning, Oct. 10, between 5 and 6 o’clock, Mrs. Theresa Nailer died. She was the second wife of Dr. Daniel Burnet Nailer. She was buried that evening at Asbury, and the Howard Association, which assisted in the fight against yellow fever, paid for a metal casket and the use of a hearse at a cost of $160.

“Sad and lonely the hearse passes,” Mrs. Goodrum wrote. “No long procession of friends—just enough to lay her away in the dim twilight.”

Mrs. Nailer was buried at Asbury.

Two days later Nineon Kline Jr., 31-year-old son of Patience Kline, died as well. He, too, was buried at Asbury.

The effects of yellow fever were felt long after the disease abated. Two days before Christmas in 1878. Mrs. Emma Kline Lane, daughter of Nineon and Patience Kline, and wife of Williams Lum Lane, died about 4 o’clock in the morning, leaving a week-old infant. Emma had suffered from yellow fever, and Mrs. Goodrum felt that she never fully recovered, that the fever had weakened her system.

Emma had married Jan. 29, 1878, the ceremony taking place in the Kline parlor. Now, on Christmas day, less than a year later, her body lay in a casket in that same parlor, dressed in the wedding gown she had worn on that happier occasion, a request she made shortly before her death.

Emma Kline Lane was buried at Asbury, beside the still fresh grave of her mother. Emma was 35.

Emma’s grave is the only one of the four mentioned that is marked. The author placed a tombstone at her grave two years ago.

Material for this article came from the diary of Mrs. Sophie Adams Goodrum and is owned by a descendant who shared it with the author.

Gordon Cotton is the curator emeritus of the Old Court House Museum. He is the author of several books and is a renowned historian.