July 20, 2016

“The Destroying Angel:” New York’s 1832 Cholera Epidemic

by Ann Haddad

Disturbing News

"View of South Street, from Maiden Lane, New York City," by William James Bennett, ca. 1827. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

“View of South Street, from Maiden Lane, New York City,” by William James Bennett, ca. 1827. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In the harsh winter of 1831-32, Seabury Tredwell had cause for alarm. As he conducted his business at the seaport and in his warehouse on Pearl Street, he could not have avoided the terrifying news. It was spoken of at every turn, and reported daily in the newspapers: “King Cholera” was heading west! By mid-June, after cutting a path of death as it traveled west from India through Europe, cholera had crossed the Atlantic and reached Canada. If Seabury had kept a journal, most likely he would have written words similar to those of the former New York mayor and diarist Philip Hone, whose entry on June 15 reads:

“It [cholera] must come, and we are in a dreadful state to receive it.
The city is in a more filthy state than Quebec and Montreal.”

Read on…