The Disasters and Epidemics of a River Town: Memphis, Tennessee, 1819-1879

The Disasters and Epidemics of a River Town: Memphis, Tennessee, 1819-1879 BY S. R. BRUESCH, M.D., Professor of Anatomy, University of Tennessee, Memphis A SMALL town was laid out on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff in May of 1819. General James Winchester, impressed by its location on the bank of a great river, named the town Memphis.' John Overton, the principal proprietor, predicted confidently that the town would become one of the great cities of the United States, if indeed it did not at some future date rival in splendor the ancient city of Memphis on the Nile.2 Although Overton, the partner and inti- mate friend of Andrew Jackson, doubtless had an eye on the sale of lots when he made this bold prediction, he appreciated also the advantages of location which the new town would possess. High on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi, the town had immediate access to the best in river transportation but at the same time was protected from devastating annual spring floods. The proprietors and early settlers believed also that Memphis would be a healthful town because they imagined that the elevated location would provide 'good air' and thus exempt its inhabitants from many of the diseases teeming in the lowlands. As the Memphis of 1951 is a prosperous city of 400,000 people and rivals its ancient namesake in size, if not in splendor, John Overton's prediction of 1819 seems strikingly presciential. But had he lived to witness the many crises which were thrust upon the developing town, there would have been occasions when he might have wondered whether Memphis would even survive. For the 'Ole Man River,' which Overton envisaged as the town's greatest asset, often turned against it and brought disasters and epidemic diseases in wave after wave until the inhabitants were on the brink of abandoning the site to its aboriginal wilderness. It is the purpose of this paper to describe some of the disasters and epidemics which Memphians faced during the formative stages of their city. The Memphis of 1830, with a population of 663, must have been a barren place. There were no paved streets or sidewalks, mud was everywhere, and in- ' Williams, Samuel Cole. Beginnings of West Tennessee. Johnson City, Tenn., The Wa- tauga Press, 1930, p. 126. 2 Brown, Col. James. Early reminiscences of Memphis and West Tennessee. Old Folks' Record, 1: 403-407, 1875. 288 DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS OF A RIVER TOWN 289 describable filth overran vacant lots and public squares. An English press cor- respondent, touring the South, described his feelings in the form of this couplet: "I wonder why they gave it such a name of old renown, This dreary, dismal, muddy, melancholy town."3 Flatboats were in abundance on the river-front; perhaps as many as a hundred were tied up at the wharf at one time. These flatboats, travelling singly or in fleets, poured annually thousands of travelers, adventurers, and rough flatboat- men into Memphis. Some of these men were unloaded ill and dumped upon the mercy of the inhabitants; others became ill while ashore and remained behind when their flatboat departed; still others carried diseases into the town and left behind virulent reminders of their visit. A contemporary observer penned this extravagant description of the dangers from disease that flatboat travelers encountered: "Perhaps there is no river in the world, whose waters and borders witness as much sickness and death as the Mississippi ... Ambitious, enterprising young men (and many aged, that have perhaps before safely tried the experiment) that have never before perhaps left their own county or state, forsake their homes of plenty, parents, brothers and sisters-the very sanctuary of happiness on earth-throw themselves on the bosom of the Ohio in a miserable damp flatboat, float into the whirling Mississippi, and haste along its gray turbid waters, into the region of sickness and death ... "Coming from a high, hilly country, with its mountain air and pure water (as is generally the case with strangers here) to one low and damp, partly inundated with floods two or three months in each year, leaving ponds and pools of dead stagnant water scattered along the river's valley for a thousand miles, with vegetation luxuriant beyond bounds and a sun at fever heat, filling the atmosphere with a miasma of the most poisonous type, and in a climate whose citizens even flee from the ravages of its deadly maladies, half of the time where the call for a Physician cannot be heard or the healing influence of medicine sought, among strangers hardened in scenes of death, cold and friendless, no mother or sister to soothe and soften with their anxious and watchful presence, the pains of a lingering and a painful sickness, you die, unknown and unwept, and in thoughtless silence buried upon the bank of the river, perhaps without a shroud or coffin, a tree or stick for a tomb-stone, a little hill of mud swelling over your body, and the first heaving of the mighty river sweeping all away into the recesses of its turgid bowels. ". Our little grave yard, on the bluff, canopied with shade trees, will tell you its grass wavers over from 50 to 60 strangers-the death pits of Orleans can tell of their tens of thousands."4 It was estimated in 1836 that 500,000 persons annually traveled by or through Memphis. During the year 1835, a total of 140 ailing persons were cast ashore and left to the charity of the 1,700 inhabitants of the town.5 3Young, J. P. Standard history of Memphis, Tennessee. Knoxville, Tenn., H. W. Crew & Co., 1912, p. 131. 4Latham, S. L. Editorial in Randolph Recorder, Sept. 16, 1834. 5 Memphis Enquirer, March 19, 1836. 290 S. R. BRUESCH As early as Nov. 27, 1829, the Legislature of Tennessee, recognizing this burden of sickness thrust upon the town from the river, authorized the erection -of a state hospital in Memphis.6 But the original appropriation was a mere $3,300 and no provision was made until 1832 for the hospital's maintenance. Recognizing the inadequacy of this initial effort, the Legislature authorized on Dec. 10, 1835, the sale of the original Memphis Hospital and.made a supple- mentary appropriation of $5,000 to enable the Board of Trustees to erect a more suitable building on a larger site. By 1836 the Legislature felt unable to cope with the situation and petitioned the Congress of the United States for assist- ;ance. The legislators argued in their memorial that: "The erection of a Hospital at this point suitable for the relief of the worn down, sick and necessitous traveller, and such as may ease sufferings of the dying son of misfortune and pQverty, and afford him a decent burial in a strange land, is a matter which your memorialists deem well worthy the aid of the nation . ."7 The memorial of 1836 was without result and a similar memorial was sent to Congress in 1850,8 again without result. A U. S. Marine Hospital was established eventually in Memphis in 1884. In the meantime, the State of Tennessee con- tinued its support of the Memphis Hospital in amounts varying from $5,000 to $7,000 annually until April, 1853, when the Federal Government arranged to pay the expense of treating river boatmen.9 Hospital reports for the years 1851, 1852, and 1853 show that between 2,500 and 3,000 persons applied annually for medical aid, of whom about 1,500 were connected in some way with river commerce.10 The tiny hospital could admit only a small proportion of these applicants, however; e.g., in 1852 it cared for 189 patients. Many of the applicants were accommodated as out-patients in the Memphis Medical College Dispensary, which treated a total of 1,104 cases in 1853 and 1,347 in 1854. The State relinquished its interest in the buildings and land of the Memphis Hos- pital to the City of Memphis in 1873.1" This Memphis Hospital, founded in 1829, has been developed into the present John Gaston Hospital and now provides the principal clinical teaching facilities for the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. 6IJournal of the Senate, State of Tennessee, Eighteenth General Assembly. Nashville, 1829. 7 Public acts passed at the first session of the twenty-first General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, 1835-6. Nashville, S. Nye and Co., 1836, p. 215-216. 8 Acts of the State of Tennessee passed at the first session of the twenty-eighth General Assembly for the year 1849-50. Nashville, M'Kennie and Watterson, 1850, p. 561-563. 9 Quintard, C. T. Health and mortality of Memphis (Report on years 1851, -52, -53). Memphis Medical Recorder, 2: 193-220, 1854. 10 Ibid., p. 216. 11 Acts of the State of Tennessee passed at the first session of the thirty-eighth General Assembly for the year 1873. Nashville, Jones, Purvis and Co., 1873, p. 21-22. DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS OF A RIVER TOWN 291 STEAMBOAT DISASTERS Few steamboats stopped regularly at the Memphis wharf prior to 1838. The town of Randolph, about 80 miles upstream, obtained most of the steamboat traffic so the Memphis wharf was left with only the flatboats."1 However, the situation began to change following the panic of 1837, and the low water of 1838; thereafter, more and more steamboats stopped at Memphis. With the rapid expansion in river traffic on the Mississippi after 1830, Memphis began to experience her share of disasters from steamboat explosions and conflagra- tions.

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