Rev. George Pickering, George Francis Train's grandfather.
Then came the terrible yellow-fever year. It is still known there as the year of the fever, or of the plague. This fearful epidemic swept over the city, and left it a city of the dead. It was a catastrophe recalled to me by that of Martinique. My family suffered with the rest of the city. I remember well the horror of the time. There were no hearses to be had. Physicians and undertakers had gone to the grave with their patients and patrons. The city could not afford to bury decently so many of its dead inhabitants. And the fear of the plague had so shaken the human soul that men stood afar off, aghast, and did only what they had to do in a coarse, brutal, swift burial of the dead.
There were no coffins to be had, and no one could have got them if there had been enough of them. Corpses were buried, all alike, in coarse pine boxes, hastily put together in the homes—and often by the very hands—of the relatives of the dead. One day they brought into our home a coarse pine box. I did not know what it was or for what it was meant. Then I saw them take the dead body of my little sister Josephine and put it hastily into the rough pine box. I was too young to understand it all, but I can never forget that scene; it starts tears even now. After nailing up the box and marking it to go "To the Train Vaults," the family sat and waited for the coming of the "dead wagon." The city sent round carters to pick up the numerous dead, just as it had formerly sent out scavenger carts to take away the refuse.
We could hear the "dead wagon" as it approached. We knew it by the dolorous cry of the driver. It drew nearer and nearer to our home. It all seemed so terrible, and yet I could not understand it. I heard the wagon stop under our window. Now the scene all comes back to me, and it recalls the rumble and rattle of those tumbrels of the French Reign of Terror: only it was the fever, instead of the guillotine, that demanded its victims. The driver would not enter the pest-stricken houses. He remained in his cart, and shouted out, in a heart-tearing cry, to the inmates to bring their dead to him. As he drove up to our window he placed his hands around his mouth, as a hunter does in making a halloo, and cried: "Bring out—bring out your dead!"
The long-wailed dolorous cry filled the streets, empty of their frequenters: "Bring out—bring out your dead!" Again at our home the cry was heard; and I saw my father and others lift up the coarse pine box, with the body of my little sister shut inside, carry it to the window, and toss it into the "dead wagon." And then the wagon rattled away down the street, and again, as it stopped under the window of the next house, over the doomed city rang the weird cry: "Bring out—bring out your dead!"
A few days later another rough pine box was brought to our home. Again I did not understand it; but I knew more of the mystery of death than I had known before. Into this box they placed the body of my little sister Louise. Then we waited for the approach of the "dead wagon." I knew that it would again come to our home, to get its freight of death. I went to the window, and looked up and down the street, and waited. Far in the distance, I heard the cry: "Bring out—bring out your dead!"
The wagon finally arrived. The window was thrown open, the rude box was lifted up, taken to the window, and thrown into the wagon, which was already loaded with similar boxes. They were in great haste, it seemed to me, to be rid of the poor little box. And the carter drove on down the street to other stricken homes, crying: "Bring out—bring out your dead!"
I now began to feel the loss of my sisters. Two had gone. Only one was left with me, my little sister Ellen, as frail and as lovely a flower as ever bloomed. When the next box came, and she, dead of the plague, was put into it, I thought it time for me to interfere. I went to the window and stood guard. Again came the terrible cry: "Bring out—bring out your dead!" And my last little sister was taken away in the "dead wagon."