Cholera

A Kansas Portrait

Immigrants moving west in the great migrations of the 19th century brought with them more than hopes and dreams. They brought cholera.

Rooted in sub-Asian antiquity, the disease first appeared in Europe and America in the 19th century. It slowly filtered west along the trade and transportation routes. Many western migrants suffered from the affects of the dreaded disease, but so did the regions indigenous population. The various Indian tribes suffered major losses in population from cholera as well as other diseases the newcomers carried with them.

The "west" had its first taste of the disease in 1832. Immigrant ships destined for Canada, carried the disease up the St. Lawrence River. From there, the cholera traveled down Lake Champlain and then west by canal boat from Albany to Buffalo. In a short time it reached troopers at Jefferson Barracks outside St. Louis.

Wintering each year in the deep south, the disease would join the travelers on their journeys in the spring. It made its way up the Missouri on riverboats such as the Yellowstone. An outbreak on board in July 1833 turned the boat into a floating death trap. One of the few survivors, Joseph La Barge, later recalled that just below Kansas City he buried eight victims in one grave. Fear of an epidemic caused Jackson County, Missouri, residents to threaten to destroy the ship.

There were fewer reports of cholera in the American continent during the mid 1830s. The disease reappeared in 1849, the year gold was discovered in California. Historian George W. Groh wrote that "the gold rush was to cholera like wind to fire."

The cholera which struck St. Louis in the first months of 1849 left an estimated 4, 500 to 6, 000 deaths by the end of the summer. The number of trail deaths is difficult to determine accurately and there are figures as high as 5, 000 for that year alone. Historian Merrill Mattes concluded that the overall mortality rate on the Platte route was 6. 6 percent. Whatever figure one selects he must conclude that the disease made a substantial impact on travel on the trails.

In 1850 the losses might have been greater. A Missouri newspaper estimated that along a stretch of the Overland trail one person per mile died from the disease. Mattes again estimates the possibility of four graves per mile on the Platte route. It might not be a stretch of the imagination to believe the assertion that along the Platte you were scarcely out of sight of grave diggers.

The disease was particularly virulent at the frontier outposts such as Fort Riley in 1855. Near anarchy reigned when the commanding officer, Major E. A. Ogden, died from the disease.

Between 1855 and 1866 the plains remained relatively free of cholera. It reappeared on the military posts in 1866 and 1867 and was equally devastating to civilian populations in the communities that had recently appeared in response to the railroad construction and cattle shipping in central Kansas. Panic stricken people fled their homes when the dread words were uttered. It has been estimated that the population of Ellsworth was 1,000 before the epidemic and about forty afterwards.

Elizabeth Custer, detained at Ellsworth on her way east to Fort Riley, reported that it was so bad there was not enough lumber for coffins, and that crude receptacles were fashioned from hardtack boxes. Her husband, George Armstrong Custer, left his post at Fort Wallace to journey to Fort Riley and was later court marshaled. One of his excuses was fear for his wife's safety. The last epidemic occurred in 1873.

The disease spread because of a lack of knowledge about the spread of the disease as well as poor sanitation. The causative organism would not be discovered until 1883.