20 REMINISCENSES. 



midst. The weather had been very peculiar for several days. An 

 easterly wind, without rain, blew steadily, and short chopping waves 

 kept continually breaking upon the shores. There seemed something 

 sad in the monotonous voice of the waters, and the monotone of the 

 wind, with no clouds to break the steady blue of the sky. Large 

 ships lay at anchor off the Island, freighted with troops from the 

 deadly climate of the gulf coast. Whispers began to grow into alarm- 

 ing reports that a case of yellow fever had appeared outside the 

 Quarantine walls. Soon the certainty spread that many more had 

 been taken down. Frightened families hastened away, and the rest 

 endeavored to keep as far as possible from the plague spots. We 

 remember walking one day, in the height of the epidemic, from Van- 

 derbilt Landing to Tompkinsville. Scarcely a person was met and 

 business seemed nearly at a standstill. It was no wonder that wea- 

 ried with opposition, and even after an act had been passed for re- 

 moval, and nothing had been done, that the people should rise in 

 their might and burn the accursed place to the ground. After it being 

 declared a nuisance by legal authority they only carried out the de- 

 cree of the local health board. The time was well chosen. There 

 were very few sick, and the few yellow fever patients were carried 

 out and all tenderly cared for, and strange to say, the very release 

 from walls which had become saturated with fever and disease 

 germs, and the freshness and vitality of the open air was the means 

 of restoring the most of them. Thus, happily after years of intoler- 

 able suffering, the pest house disappeared. To be sure we were ail 

 denounced as Sepoys, but the first newspaper published after the 

 event was boldly called by that name, bravely argued the right to 

 abate the nuisance and was the first to suggest the employment of a 

 floating hospital to be placed in the Lower Bay. 



Then as now there were notable representative clergymen who 

 were known all over the Island. St. Andrew's at Richmond had its 

 venerable pastor, whose long, white locks and benign face were a 

 passport to any home. The whole Island was his diocese. The sick 

 grew brighter at his coming and his blessing left a charm in the 

 household. When the aged could attend no longer the services of 

 the church he would have meetings at their homes and the neighbors 

 flocked in to hear his words. He was not afraid to tell them their 

 duty, and in the course of his long life he had baptized, married and 



