Local history: “And then came nearer the dark angel of pestilence.” The 1833 cholera epidemic and mass death in Lexington.

Part 1: The Disease and it impact in Lexington.

Cholera is a bacterial illness that epidemiologists find originated in South Asia along the Ganges Delta. The bacteria can survive in fresh water for many days, and it is contracted when a victim ingests the bacteria, typically from contaminated wells and streams, contaminated vegetables, fruit, or fish, or touching their mouth after handling contaminated objects.

It is a particularly harsh, cruel illness that can kill a victim within 24 hours. Once ingested, cholera produces a toxin in the intestines that inhibits the absorption of water and salt. It quickly replicates and kills the other “good” intestinal bacteria. Death is typically by cardiac arrest caused by electrolyte imbalance. For the victim, the first signs of infection are sudden severe cramps, nausea, and fever, shortly followed by severe diarrhea and vomiting. In the 1830s, theretofore healthy adults suffered a +50% mortality rate; for infants, the elderly, and the infirmed, over 90% of those infected died. Because of the severity of symptoms, it was called a “violent death.”

In the early 1800s, while the symptoms of cholera were identified so that it could be distinguished from other common diseases, it spread quickly because people didn't know what caused it. Most thought that cholera was spread by “bad air” or “miasma,” which was caused by marshes, putrescent matter from the slaughter of animals, and rotting corpses. Still others thought that it was punishment by God as the consequence of sin. There was no knowledge or understanding of the connection between bacteria and illness, and it wasn't until 1849 that British physician John Snow found a causal link between tainted water and cholera.

In Lexington, as elsewhere in the world, people had no clue at all that the water they were drinking could kill them.

The Cholera Pandemic begins in India and in six years reaches Lexington.

Commerce brought cholera out of India to the West. Improved transoceanic shipping, canals, steamships, and later rail lines carried not just raw materials and finished products, but also bacteria, virus, and subsequent illnesses. Cholera is called the “disease of the 19th century” because it is closely tied to increased global trade.

In its most basic trajectory, the epidemic began in 1827 in India and followed an almost linear path of international commerce. It reached Russian and Afghanistan in 1829 via the Silk Road; Poland, Eastern Europe, Paris, and England in 1831; Canada in early June, 1832; New York City, July 1832; and Lexington in the early summer of 1833. Of course there were hundreds of other cities, towns, and villages affected with cholera, some far worse than others. In America, New Orleans was the hardest hit – having a population of some 47,000, over 6,000 died in the epidemic.

The severity of the pandemic in a specific location depended almost exclusively on the water supply. In places with a less dense population, better sanitation, and most importantly, a water supply that did not draw from the same sources, the impact was lessened. In comparison to most other locations, Lexington was particularly hard hit – some 600 people died, which was roughly 7% of our population. Why?

Lexington, summer of 1833

According to Lexington writer James Lane Allen, “it had been a year of strange disturbances – a desolating drought, destructive tempests, killing frosts, and mortal fevers.” He went on to write that there were myriads of locusts in Virginia and Tennessee, Lake Erie was blocked with ice, and in Kentucky there were countless caterpillars. He concluded with, “...and then came nearer and nearer the dark angel of pestilence.”

In late May/early June, torrential rains caused flooding, which had the unfortunate effect of causing privies, then commonly dug to a depth of less than 2 feet, to overflow and spread raw sewage on the ground, the run-off flowing into Town Branch, a stream running through Lexington, or soaking into the ground and thus and into adjacent wells. Town Branch and adjacent wells were a major source of potable water for those living in Lexington, but it quickly became the source for cholera. And so it began – “ground zero” for the cholera outbreak was said to have been Postlethwait's Tavern, a very popular bar and 12-room hotel located on Main Street where Phoenix Park now stands.

For roughly two weeks, Lexington all but shut down, with many people fleeing. Stores closed, both of Lexington's weekly newspapers stopped publishing, medical care was absent, and many of the dead were left unburied. Cholera proved to be a violent and deadly centripetal force that pushed people away from the center and often killed those who remained. The Lexington Gazette, one of two local newspapers, declared on its front page, “The ravages of this terrific disease is in our city... It is impossible to ascertain at present how many are dead. A large portion of citizens are absent; houses are empty.”

“Babe, I don't feel well”: medical treatment for cholera in the 1830s.

If you were lucky, none of the handful of doctors in Lexington would have been available, because there was really nothing that they knew to do that would help you in the least; moreover, what they did would invariably make you much worse. Without an understanding of bacteria and virus (“germs”), most physicians accepted the miasmatic (“bad air”) theory of disease transmission, and that restoring a “balance of humors” in the body was necessary.

In an article in the Lexington Gazette, Nicholasville physician John Price detailed his treatment for cholera, which was commonly accepted medical practice at the time. The first course of action in treating cholera would be to place you in a dark room with the windows shut and curtains drawn (remember, miasma was thought to be the cause), give you some lukewarm aromatic tea and, if you'd recently eaten, a strong emetic to cause vomiting. Then you would be bled by the doctor literally taking a sharp instrument, say, a straight razor – unsterilized of course because there was no concept of germs – to cut open a vein in your arm to relieve “internal congestion.” When that didn't work, your feet would be placed in a bucket of hot water, opium would be given, you would receive an enema made with “chicken tea” (a.k.a. chicken broth), and finally an additional 16-20 ounces of blood would be let. If you lost consciousness, the physician would then try to arouse your “dormant energies” with camphor and morphine. Lastly, when all else failed, more bleeding would be done, leeches applied to your body, and a cloth soaked with ammonia and turpentine would be placed near your nose to try to bring you back from unconsciousness. All of that, mind you, while you are literally pooing and puking yourself to death.

Lexington's epidemic ends.

By the third week, the worst was over. On June 22, the Lexington Gazette reported, “The disease has greatly abated, but it is not yet deemed safe for those who have fled the city to return. The sum total of deaths from the commencement of the disease up to this date is most probably about 400. The population of Lexington is about 6,000. 400 deaths will be about 1/15 of our population, a proportion we believe unequaled on this side of the Atlantic, if we except the city of Montreal, Quebec.”

It should be noted, and as is invariably the case, that the poorest were slammed the hardest. The Lexington Gazette reported deaths in each of the city's wards, and enslaved Black people died at a much higher rate than Whites; for example, and keeping in mind that enslaved people constituted less than one-third of the city's population, “Ward #3. Whites 44 – Blacks, 61. Total 105.”

Within a period of weeks, some 600 Lexingtonians were dead. By early July, 1833, the epidemic was all but over. If strange and auspicious natural events heralded the arrival of cholera, the Lexington Gazette reported in its July 9 edition an almost miraculous phenomenon perhaps signaling it is end – a “brilliant” aurora borealis that lit up the night sky over Rochester, NY” … “the northern hemisphere is a bright flame of light.” The July 9 edition also included an advertisement by Transylvania University Law Class, stating: “The cholera having entirely ceased, the regular exercises of the law class will be resumed on Monday next,” and posted beneath the advertisement was another for “Mustard seed wanted...P.S. A child of 10 years old can make good wages at gathering the wild growth.”

Part 2: The legend of William Solomon

Just days before the cholera pandemic came to Lexington, another strange event took place – the auction of a man charged with vagrancy, a 58 years-old White man named William “King” Solomon. The law allowed persons found to be vagrant to be sold as an indentured servant to the highest bidder for a period of one year, the idea being that a locality wouldn't have to suffer an unemployed, penniless person in their midst and, too, the person who bought the vagrant would be able to put them to work without compensation but for room and board.

William Solomon was born in Virginia of well-to-do parents, but it seems that life hadn't been kind to him such that he found himself in Lexington working intermittently digging wells, cellars, and graves. He was a physically powerful man, and he liked alcohol such that rumor found that he only drank liquor, never water, and stayed drunk most of his waking hours.

According to various accounts, when the auctioneer began the sale of William Solomon, few were interested. James Lane Allen wrote that two medical students at Transylvania University placed a bid, thinking that if he died during his indenture, they would use his cadaver for dissection. But for William Solomon, something of a miracle occurred – a freed Black woman, known as Aunt Charlotte, who made her living selling pastries and vegetables, and who some say had known William Solomon when they were both in Virginia, was walking by the auction, stopped, and called out a high bid.

At the conclusion of the auction for William Solomon, Aunt Charlotte told him that he was free and that she bid on him out of pity, knowing that if she didn't, he would be worked to death by another purchaser. Perhaps disbelieving his great good fortune, William “King” Solomon drank himself into an unconscious stupor, not waking up for 48-72 hours. It was during that period that the cholera epidemic slammed Lexington with a vengeance.

It is said that when William Solomon awoke, there was panic and confusion in the streets, with many of those who had the means and ability to leave town quickly doing so. Many people had died, with their relatives leaving behind the corpses rather than burying them. Some accounts say that Aunt Charlotte begged Solomon to come with her, others say that she too had perished in the initial wave of death. But all accounts agree that rather than flee, William Solomon stayed behind and, without compensation or direction, began taking bodies to Lexington's burying ground, then at what is now 251 W. Third Street. He did this for days and possibly weeks on end until the epidemic subsided. And thus out of tragedy a hero was born. It is said that people were truly grateful for his deeds and stood in admiration of his resolution and courage. He sat for a portrait and became a local legend. When he died in November 1854, seventeen carriages accompanied the hearse to Lexington Cemetery, where he was buried in a “good coffin” purchased via citizens' donations, and in 1909 a new gravestone was placed in his honor.

[Notes of caution. There is very little primary source material concerning William Solomon and Charlotte. No one seems to know Charlotte's last name, there is wide disagreement on the price she paid for Solomon, and even when and how she died or where she is buried is unknown. Nearly all of what has been published consists of churned stories with few citations. All that said, I feel reasonably confident in saying that, yes, Charlotte purchased the indentured servitude of William Solomon, and yes, he did labor during Lexington's cholera outbreak to help bury many who perished. Beyond that, I'm skeptical.]