Page 9 - MFM Mar Apl 2021.indd

Quarantine, Disease, And Masonic Relief - 170 Years Ago
During The Sacramento Cholera Outbreak of 1850
Masons Took The Reins Of A Public Health Emergency
By Ian A. Stewart
Th e weeks following the March 19 shelter-in-place following week, another 44 were reported dead, with
order have felt not only incredible, but historic. Within the true number almost certainly higher, as many
the fraternity, there’s been a resounding call to arms others had exhibited symptoms like dysentery before
for members to live up to their Masonic obligation by death, likely as a result of unconfi rmed cholera.
reaching out to the vulnerable among us to provide
whatever relief they can. Almost overnight, Sacramento’s cemeteries
“appeared to be newly ploughed fi elds,” wrote a local
As unprecedented as the moment has felt, the history businessman in his memoir, Life Sketch of Pierre
of Masonry in California recounts an alarmingly Barlow Cornwall. Business ground to a halt and the
similar circumstance, more than a century and a city’s streets were deserted. From October 27 to 31,
half earlier, in which Masons responded to a public some 249 died of cholera, including 58 on Halloween
health emergency. Th at was during the great cholera Day. Reports of cholera death didn’t slow until the third
outbreak of 1850 in Sacramento and San Francisco, week of November—fi ve weeks aft er the fi rst case—
one of the most rapid, deadly, and grisly contagions and not because of medical intervention. Rather, it’s
ever—a horrifi c episode in state history, but one in been said, the disease slowed for the simple fact that
which California’s early Masons left an indelible mark there were so few people left to contract it. Among a
through their commitment to relief. Nearly 50 years city of 8,000, half of the town either died or fl ed. Later
later, their spirit would lead to the construction of the reports, accounting for all funeral and death records,
fi rst Masonic Widows and Orphans Home, in Union estimate that between 800 and 1,000 people died in
City, later to become the Masonic Homes of California. Sacramento of cholera in the space of about fi ve weeks.
Essentially, 17 percent of the city died in just over a
In the fall of 1850, however, such institutional month.
supports were few and far between. It was October of
that year that the fi rst traces of what would be known as San Francisco, mostly on account of its more
the Asiatic cholera were fi rst spotted in patients along transient population, was spared from the brunt of the
the waterfront of San Francisco, no doubt brought to outbreak. Still, estimates peg its death toll at between
the state by ship, among the 40,000 would-be gold 250 and 600, in a town of 10,000 (5 percent). San Jose
miners fl ooding the city each year. On October 11, lost 10 percent of its population to the pestilence over
1850, the fi rst reports of cholera-related deaths were the same time span.
made in San Francisco. By October 14, just three days
later, it was spotted in Sacramento. It would have been Remarkably, the cholera outbreak ultimately served
hard to miss: Cholera is among the most miserable as little more than a speed bump in the histories of
diseases on earth, with symptoms including diarrhea, the Bay Area and Sacramento. By late December
vomiting, and dehydration. Most cases ended in death of 1850, both regions were mostly back to normal,
within 36 hours. with business picking back up and the hunt for gold
proving as alluring as ever. Rather, the true legacy
Like a match to kindling, the disease erupted in of the outbreak is that it served as a catalyst for the
Sacramento, a town still reeling from a catastrophic formation of a more robust system of public health in
fl ood earlier that year, a fi re, and a violent squatters’ California—an eff ort that Masons helped lead.
riot. According to Prof. Mitchel Roth, writing in the
Pacifi c Historical Review in 1997, within a week of the Prior to the fall of 1850, medicine was practiced more
outbreak, 29 people were reported dead from the plague. or less ad-hoc in California. San Francisco had just
Th e city council, acting with surprising if misguided one public hospital. Sacramento had two. Physicians
force, ordered the mandatory burning of all garbage largely treated customers privately, in their own
(under penalty of a crippling $500 fi ne for any resident homes, or not at all. (Th e Gold Rush coincided with a
or business out of compliance), hoping to eradicate the period of broad skepticism of the medical profession.)
squalid grime believed to carry the disease. (Th e order
backfi red, leading only to an even greater tainting of One of the fi rst and most important changes to
the water supply.) Citizens were then ordered off the that arrangement came in December 1849, with the
streets and into virtual quarantine. Th e actions did opening of the jointly run Odd Fellows’ and Masons’
little to stop the spread of the disease, however. Th e Hospital in Fort Sutter — soon to become practically
Montana Freemason Page 9 March/April 2021 Volume 97 No. 2