Somehow, not many people know the story of, perhaps, the greatest non-wartime disaster to ever occur in Virginia. It’s been buried by the historic dust of time, by memories of blizzards, hurricanes, and fires, by inventions like airplanes and interstates, and early on, by Virginia’s cities, farms, and valleys becoming the battlegrounds of the Civil War.
It was interesting to read Kevin Myatt’s column about the mythology of Hurricane Camille in Cardinal News last month, with part of the storm’s legacy being that it has been featured in 11 books. The story of a much deadlier catastrophe, an 1855 yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk and Portsmouth, nearly vanished from the annals of Virginia and U.S. history. Until my book, “The Fever,” was released last month, the epidemic that killed more than 3,000 people had not been featured in a single book.
What time nearly erased was merely this: an epidemic that completely shut down a critical East Coast port for an entire summer and fall, sent thousands of residents fleeing in fright, and wiped out the cities’ emerging leadership class — a railroad founder, bank presidents, city officials, the postmaster, newspaper editors, and hundreds of shipyard workers and their families. One family of 12, every single member, was snuffed from existence.