Welsh of Harpers Ferry

Evidence Category: The Evening Post

  • Harpers Fery Cholera

    HARPER’S FERRY, Aug. 9. — The sun is very oppressive. Six cases of cholera were reported in town to-day, and three at Bolivar Mill, but no deaths have occurred. Business has been suspended, and more than one-half of the inhabitants left the town.

    The following is from the correspondence of the Baltimore Sun of yesterday.

    HARPER’S FERRY, Aug. 8, 1850.
    Messrs. Editors– The cholera is still in our midst, and though now seemingly abating, within 24 hours seven deaths have occurred. Among others prominent in our community, we painfully record the death of Rev. Joseph G. Have, M. D.
    He literally fell as a martyr to his profession, as a practising physician, and in the triumphs of christianity. His remains will to-day be taken, by the Baltimore train, to his farm in Frederick county, to be interred in his family burying ground.

    HARPER’S FERRY, Aug. 8, 1850.
    Messrs. Editors– The excitement here is intense. There were about 15 hands at work in the Armory yesterday– so one of them told me– and to-day there are very few at work. People are running for doctors, ice, and every thing else which they think will be likely to do their sick and dying good, or to save them from death.

    Mr. Charles A. Mettee, of Baltimore, was attacked, after supper on Tuesday evening, and by eight o’clock next morning (Wednesday) he was a corpse. Some says that four and others that six died yesterday– but four certain– and last night a lady died and was taken off this morning in the cars for Frederick. Mr. Mettee was sent to Baltimore yesterday.

    Mr. Carroll, proprietor of the United States Hotel, at the Bridge, (where I am stopping,) went to bed last night, was taken at three o’clock, and at five this morning he was dead.

    New cases are reported here and there all about town, but I have no certain information of how many or whom. They are now cleaning and liming all the puddles, gullies, sinks &c. and the utmost excitement prevails.

    When the cars from different quarters arrive, the spe spectacle is both amusing and sad. Some go without their dinners sooner than land on this infected spot– some will not even look out of the cars for fear of snuffing in some of the cholera fever, and those who change from the through trains to the Winchester cars (in some cases) do so with the utmost vigilance, running, as though some terrible fiend was after them.

    The weather here is fine and not so excessively hot, though warm enough. Mr. Carroll will be buried this evening at 6 o’clock.

    I wanted to get a horse this morning to ride to Shepherdstown, but I could not get one, not even for the liberal price of $5. Every horse, cart, and carriage, is engaged to carry away families and sick folks.

    I shall leave here to-morrow, and I think and hope I may escape. I think I will get home safe.

    Yours, &c. BALTIMOREAN.

  • Dead of Cholera: McCarroll, Hays.

    Harpers Ferry, Aug. 8. — The cholera is spreading rapidly and is creating much alarm; six deaths occurred here last night. The public works are deserted, and the people are flying from the place in every direction. Mr. McCarroll, proprietor of an hotel, and Joseph G. Hays, died here this afternoon.

  • Cotton Factory Opening

    “THE BLOSSOM OPENING– That splendid water at Harper’s Ferry, the best, probably, in this country next to Niagara Falls, is beginning to be brought into use. A large cotton factory, one hundred by forty-five feet in the clear, and four stories in height, is being put up, under the superintendence of Mr. Giddings, for a company with a capital of forty thousand dollars. The machinery is building by Danforth, of Paterson, N. J. Sooner or later that splendid water power must come into use for general manufacturing.”

  • Priestly, Fatal Accident

    FATAL ACCIDENT.– As a man named Joseph Priestly, of Harper’s Ferry, in company with several persons, were going up the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, by some misstep he was precipitated over a ravine some ten feet deep, falling on his head, and breaking almost asunder his skull, which produced instantaneous death.

  • Railroad Bridge Collapse

    RAILROAD ACCIDENT.– We regret to state that about five o’clock yesterday morning, while a burden engine, without any lading attached, was passing over the railroad bridge at Harper’s ferry, one of the spans of the bridge gave way, and, with the engine and men employed upon it, fell into the bottom of the river.– Providentially no person was killed, and but one man slightly injured. We learn that within a month this bridge has been particularly examined and thoroughly keyed up and adjusted, and that only within a few days it has undergone the usual inspection, frequently made on all the bridges on the line of the road.– During the previous day eight locomotives, with trains of tonnage and passengers, and only the night before two of the engines, with heavy trains of burden cars, passed over without the slightest indication of weakness. — Globe.

  • Church Fire

    A letter from Harper’s Ferry, Va., states that the new church near Jefferson’s rock was consumed by fire on the night of the 7th inst. The flames originated in a school room.

  • Rowlland/Hefflebower Mill Burned

    FIRE AT HARPER’S FERRY.– The Frederick Examiner says, the mill of Rowlland & Hefflebower, at Harper’s Ferry, was burnt on Tuesday morning. There were 15 or 20,000 bushels of wheat and 3 or 400 bbls of flour consumed. Loss estimated at $40,000. Insurance about $15,000.

  • Dead: John O’Hara

    FATAL ACCIDENT. — We regret to learn, says the Baltimore Sun, that Mr. John O’Hara, a young man about twenty years of age, was killed on Tuesday evening. From what we can ascertain of the particulars, he was the book-keeper of Mr. Lester, the contractor for building a bridge on a branch of the road near Harper’s Ferry. The young man’s father resides in that neighborhood, and while the car was coming down the temporary railroad laid to a stone quarry, he attempted to jump upon the car; but he missed his foothold, and falling across the track the car wheels passed over his body, and severed it in two. The young man thus unfortunately deprived of life, is characterized by his acquaintance as having been a youth of fine talents and good education, amiable in his disposition, esteemed by those who knew him, and beloved by his friends.

  • Armory Consumed By Fire

    Fires. The workshop and machinery of the United States Armory, at Harper’s Ferry, were entirely consumed by fire on the morning of the 8th inst. Two hundred workmen were employed at this place, and their loss is estimated at from $10 to $20,000, in consequence of being thrown out of work; besides about $100,000 of public property, in which are included 700 finished muskets, entirely destroyed. The fire is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary.

  • O’Donovan; Chemist

    HARPERS FERRY, (Vir.) July 17.
    Medical Discovery.– Doctor T. C. Smith, of Dublin, lately obtained 5,800 premium from the English Parliament for the undermentioned recipe for Typhus malignant Fevers.

    Six drachms of powdered nitre, six drachms of oil of vitriol; mix them in a tea cup, adding to the nitre one drachm of the oil at a time. The cup to be placed during the preparation on a hot hearth or plate of heated iron, and the mixture stirred with a tobacco pipe. The cup to be placed in different parts of the sick room.

    Communicated for the benefit of the public by Mr. John O’Donovan, chymist, of this place, a gentleman who, since his short residence here, has rendered most essential services to many, by chymical discoveries, in some of the most obstinate cases which still continue to baffle the art of physic, particularly rheumatism and dysentery.