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In 1855, Norfolk was a prosperous city of some 16,000 residents with one of the busiest harbors on the East Coast, five large hotels, five newspapers, and eight banks. Ships were often lined up five or six deep at the wharves. Portsmouth, just across the Elizabeth River with a population of 10,000, was similarly flourishing. The region appeared poised for major growth, due in part to Norfolk’s reputation as a healthy southern city, clean and virtually free of yellow fever, which had plagued southern ports sporadically since the late 1700s. On June 7, 1855, the steamer Benjamin Franklin arrived in Hampton Roads for repairs after a two-week voyage from St. Thomas in the West Indies. The port’s health officer visited the ship and the captain assured him that there was no disease onboard, despite the fact that two crew members had died on the journey. After a twelve-day quarantine, the ....
A monument in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia to the fifteen local medical volunteers who perished during the Norfolk and Portsmouth yellow fever epidemic. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. At its best, history opens a window in time that helps illuminate the past and the present. Such is Encyclopedia Virginia’s new entry on the long-forgotten Norfolk and Portsmouth Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1855, contributed by Addeane Caelleigh, who also wrote the You aren’t alone if you’ve never heard of this epidemic, which was one of the worst in the history of the United States. But in the decade before the Civil War, a yellow fever outbreak of such ferocity hit Norfolk and Portsmouth in the late summer and early autumn of 1855 that a good part of the population fled the low-lying port cities, the city governments ceased to function, and the local economies collapsed. ....