REPORT.
The Committee appointed to investigate the causes and extent of the late extraordinary sickness and mortality in this town,
REPORT:
That they have carefully attended to the duties assigned them, and have examined all the wharves, the docks, and vessels, the buildings and lots near the river, as well as in other parts of the town, and find in their examination numerous local causes, which, under the co-operating influence of the late season, might, in their opinion, have produced the fever, independent of the supposition of its foreign importation.
Some of the most prominent we will mention, and first, the condition of the wharves, built with hewn timber, closely laid, confining the water within the outward dimensions of the wharves, and filled up with rotten logs, bushes, shavings, and other vegetable matter, covered lightly with swamp mud of earth, presenting to view an immense mass, in the most noxious state of decay. Two of these wharves, about 450 feet in length, and 30 to 40 in breadth, were commenced in the spring, and the work of filling them up with logs, mud, and bushes, was carried on during the summer, till the storm on the 28th July, and the sickness of the workmen put a stop to it. They were, however, nearly filled up to the length and breadth mentioned, and to the depth of four to ten feet, and the surface of about a third part covered with pieces of swamp marsh, cut in convenient sizes for the purpose, and marsh mud. When the committee viewed these wharves, the sight was most disgusting, and the smell so offensive, that they felt their health endangered by delaying about them.
The other wharves, five in number, also deserve a more particular notice. Three of them appear to be built upon the plan of the former; and with like materials, two are partly built upon piers, giving a more wholesome circulation to the water. One was built during the spring and summer, but chiefly destroyed by the storm of July, the others from one to four years since, each of them, affording a mass of decaying vegetable matter, from 200 to 400 feet in length, 25 to 30 in breadth, and 3 to 10 in depth, covered with a thin layer of earth, or mud. Such a quantity of noxious materials collected together in a state of decay, must necessarily produce miasmata, and mortal disease.
Water street is also observed to be filled up with the same kind of materials, in many places to the depth of from 4 to 6 feet, and computed together might afford a mass of such matter, several hundred feet in length, and fifty in breadth, thinly covered with earth. The lots adjoining this street, on one side, are found to have been chiefly filled up with rotten logs, green pine saplings, and pine tops, with a thin layer of earth, and might comprise more than an acre of ground, thus filled from one to two feet; and on the water side, the docks are observed to have been much clogged up with timber, drift logs, and old boats, which during the low summer tides, and north wind, collected together in the docks, great quantities of sea-weed, and other filthy matter, in a state of decay, particularly under the stores standing over the water. The prevalent north wind, and low tide, during the months of September and October, left the docks, and a large extent of marsh mud about them, exposed to the heat of the sun, and the water, variously obstructed about the docks and wharves, became itself stagnant and offensive.
The committee also observe that many old boats, or barges, damaged during the storm on the 28th July, were suffered to remain filled with water, as well as the schooners Sally and Piper, at the wharves south of the fort, during the months of August, September, and October, even to the time the committee visited them. The water in these boats and vessels, we scarcely need to add, was in a most putrid and offensive state. Several lots upon Water street were suffered to remain covered with stagnant water, filled up with old rotten logs, old casks, bushes, and, in short, seem to have been receptacles for refuse and offal substances of every kind.
The badly constructed foundations of the stores and buildings near the river, retaining beneath them much unwholesome matter, or stagnant water, affecting the inhabitants with their deleterious damps and effluvia, must have proved a fertile source of disease, under the influence of the late season.
To these causes we must add, the general condition of the back yards and enclosures in the town. All the prudential measures of an effective police seem to have been totally abandoned, and the committee are compelled to say, that every part of the town presented a striking proof of the extreme neglect of a large portion of our citizens to the ordinary duty they owe themselves and their neighbours—that of keeping their yards and possessions clear from every species of filth, which may be injurious to health. Ponds of water in various parts of the town were suffered to remain, undrained after the rains, and became stagnant, thus affecting the air with poisonous exhalations. Dead animals, heaps of oyster shells, and other offensive matter, were commonly observed through the town. Weeds were cut down, and suffered to decay without removal. A store upon one of the new wharves contained a large quantity of hides during the months of August and September, and the greater part of October, in a most offensive state—such an outrage against the health of the inhabitants is scarcely credible.