DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker records about the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1867 in Fayette County. Now, there are stories about Texas towns that fill you with pride — cattle drives, famous battles, big personalities. And then there are stories that just fill you with a quiet kind of dread.
This is one of those. From the time the first European settlers arrived in Texas, Yellow Fever was already a serious concern. It wasn't some distant threat from far-off lands — it was right here, workin the coastlines of North America every summer, epidemic after epidemic throughout the nineteenth century.
The disease traveled by mosquito, though nobody knew that at the time. Nobody knew much of anything about it, really. No identified cause.
No effective treatment. Just symptoms that came on fast and got worse in a hurry — fever first, then pain spreading through the extremities, then vomiting, then jaundice, then death. The mortality rate during outbreaks ran anywhere from thirty to eighty percent of those infected.
Thirty to eighty. You sit with that number a moment. Between 1839 and 1867, Galveston alone suffered at least nine yellow fever epidemics, each one claiming a large number of lives.
So when August of 1867 arrived and Yellow Fever came knocking on La Grange, people already knew what that knock meant. Many citizens left town hoping to stay ahead of it. You can't really blame them.
But within just a few weeks, the homes where sickness had taken hold were quarantined with Yellow Jack flags — that's what they called the warning marker, Yellow Jack — and the businesses closed up, and La Grange went quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet. The kind that settles over a place when something has gone terribly wrong.
The town appeared deserted. And here is where the story gets its heaviest weight. The disease did not discriminate.
Age, race, class — none of it offered any protection. The wealthy and prominent fell just as the poor did. Several doctors — the very people trying to fight this thing — were among the casualties.
The District Judge. The Sheriff. Both the district clerk and the county clerk.
Gone. In some cases, entire families were lost, because the caregivers who stayed to tend the sick fell ill themselves. Think on that.
The act of showing up for someone you loved could be a death sentence. When it was all over, La Grange had lost an estimated more than two hundred people. That was fifteen to twenty percent of the town's total population.
Not a statistic — a neighborhood. A congregation. A generation of neighbors.
If you find yourself in La Grange and want to feel the full weight of what that summer meant, the Old La Grange City Cemetery will show you. A large number of gravestones bear death dates from August through October of 1867, clustered together like a terrible chorus. But even those stones don't tell the whole story, because the outbreak was so overwhelming that many victims lie unidentified in mass graves in the northeastern corner of the cemetery.
No names. No individual markers. Just the ground that received them when the town had no more capacity to do anything else.
Those graves are still there. And the marker makes sure we don't walk past them without understanding what they mean — a once-devastating disease, and the early citizens of La Grange who bore the full force of it.
What the marker says
From the time of the first European settlers in Texas, Yellow Fever was a serious concern. Transmitted through mosquitoes, epidemics in the summer months were prevalent in coastal cities all over North America in the nineteenth century. At the time, the cause was unknown with no effective treatment. Symptoms rapidly progressed from fever and pains in the extremities to vomiting to jaundice to death. The mortality rate varied during outbreaks from thirty to eighty percent of those infected. Between 1839 and 1867, at least nine yellow fever epidemics in Galveston resulted in a large number of deaths. When yellow fever struck La Grange in August 1867, many citizens left town hoping to avoid the disease. Within a few weeks, as homes with "Yellow Jack" were quarantined and businesses closed, La Grange appeared deserted. In some cases, entire families were lost as caregivers fell ill after tending the sick. Indiscriminate to age, race or class, the disease struck the wealthy and prominent as well as the poor. Several doctors, the District Judge, the Sheriff, and both the district and county clerks were among its casualties. While yellow fever affected many communities, its toll on La Grange was catastrophic with fatalities estimated at more than 200, fifteen to twenty percent of the total population. Evidence of the epidemic may be seen in the Old La Grange City Cemetery where a large number of gravestones show deaths from August through October 1867. However, the outbreak was so overwhelming that many victims lie unidentified in mass graves in the northeastern corner of the cemetery. These victims remind us of the once- devastating disease and its effect on early citizens.