Short Account of Malignant Fever in Philadelphia – Chapter I (1793), 
Philadelphia County, PA

Contributed to the PAGenWeb Archives by Marjorie B. Winter [marjw@cox.net]

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A   S H O R T   A C C O U N T,  Etc.

CHAP.  I  State of Philadelphia previous to the appearance of the malignant 
fever---with a few observations on some of the probable consequences of that 
calamity.

(Page 9 – of the original book) 
	BEFORE  I enter on the consideration of this disorder, it may not be 
improper to offer a few introductory remarks on the situation of Philadelphia 
previous to its commencement, which will reflect the light on some of the 
circumstances mentioned in the course of the narrative.

	The manufactures, trade, and commerce of this city, had, for a 
considerable time, been improving and extending with great rapidity.  From the 
period of the adoption of the federal government, at which time America was at 
the lowest ebb of distress, her situation had progressively become more and more 
prosperous.  Confidence, formerly banished, was universally restored.  Property 
of every kind, rose to, and in some instances beyond, its real value: and a few 
revolving years exhibited the interesting spectacle of a young country, with a 
new form of government, emerging from a state which approached very near to, 
anarchy, and acquiring all the flexibility and nerve of the best-toned and 
oldest of nations.  

	 In this prosperity, which revived almost extinguished hopes of four 
millions of people, Philadelphia participated in an eminent degree.  Numbers of 
new houses, in almost every street, built in a very neat, elegant style, 
adorned, at the same time that they greatly enlarged, the city.  Its population 
was extending fast.  House-rent had risen to an extravagant height; it was in 
many cases double, and in some (Page 10) treble what it had been a year or two 
before; and, as is generally the case, when a city is advancing in prosperity, 
it far exceeded the real increase of trade.  The number of applicants for 
houses, exceeding the number of houses to be let, one bid over another; and 
affairs were in such a situation, that many people, though they had a tolerable 
run of business, could hardly do more than clear their rents, and were, 
literally, toiling for their landlords alone.   Luxury, the usual, and perhaps 
inevitable concomitant of prosperity, was gaining ground in a manner very 
alarming to those who considered how far the virtue, the liberty, and the 
happiness of a nation depend on its temperance and sober manners.  Many of our 
citizens had been, for some time, in the improvident habit of regulating their 
expenses by prospects formed in sanguine hours, when every probability was 
caught at as a certainty, not by their actual profits, or income.  The number of 
coaches, coachees, chairs, etc., lately set up by men in the middle rank of 
life, is hardly credible.  Not to enter into a minute detail, let it suffice to 
remark, that extravagance, in various forms, was gradually eradicating the plain 
and wholesome habits of the city.  And although it were presumption to attempt 
to scan the decrees of heaven, yet few, I believe will pretend to deny, that 
something was wanting to humble the price of a city, which was running on in 
full career, to the goal of prodigality and dissipation.

	However, from November 1792, to the end of last June, the difficulties of 
Philadelphia were extreme.  The establishment of the bank of Pennsylvania, in 
embryo for the most part of that time, had arrested in the two other banks such 
a quantity of the circulating specie, as embarrassed almost every kind of 
business; to this was added the distress arising from the very numerous failures 
in England, which had (Page 11) extremely harassed several of our capital 
merchants.  During this period, many men experienced as great difficulties as 
were ever known in this city.   But the commencement, in July, of the operations 
of the bank of Pennsylvania, conducted on the most generous and enlarged 
principles, placed business on its former favourable footing.  Every man looked 
forward to this fall as likely to produce a vast extension of trade.  But how 
sleeting are all human views! How uncertain all plans sounded on earthly 
appearances! All these flattering prospects vanished like the baseless fabric of 
a vision.

	In July, arrived the unfortunate fugitives from Cape François.  And on 
this occasion, the liberality of Philadelphia was displayed in a most 
respectable point of light.  Nearly 12,000 dollars were in a few days collected 
for their relief.  Little, alas! Did many of the contributors, then in easy 
circumstances, imagine, that a few weeks would leave their wives and children 
dependent on public charity, as has since unfortunately happened.  An awful 
instance of the rapid and warning vicissitudes of affairs on this transitory 
stage.

	About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in 
among us, and nipped in the bud the fairest blossoms that imagination could 
storm.  And oh! What a dreadful contrast has since taken place!  Many women, 
then in the lap of ease and contentment, are bereft of beloved husbands, and 
left with numerous families of children to maintain, unqualified for the arduous 
task – many orphans are destitute of parents to foster and protect them – many 
entire families are swept away, without leaving a trace behind – many of our 
first commercial houses are totally dissolved, by the death of the parties, and 
(Page 12) their affairs are necessarily left in so deranged a state that the 
losses and distresses, which must take place, are beyond estimation.  The 
protests of notes for a few weeks past, have exceeded all former examples; for a 
great proportion of the merchants and traders having left the city, and been 
totally unable, from the stagnation of business, and diversion of all their 
expected resources, to make any provision for payment, most of their notes have 
been protested, as they became due. 

	For these prefatory observations, I hope I shall be pardoned.  I now 
proceed to the melancholy subject I have undertaken.  May I be enabled to do it 
justice; and lay before the reader a complete and correct account of the most 
awful visitation that ever occurred in America.  At first view, it would appear 
that Philadelphia alone felt the scourge; but its effects have spread in almost 
every direction through a greater portion of the union.  Many parts of Jersey, 
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, exclusive 
of the back settlements of Pennsylvania, drew their supplies, if not wholly, at 
least principally, from Philadelphia, which was of course the mart whither they 
sent their produce.  Cut off from this quarter, their merchants have had to seek 
out other markets, which being unprepared for such an increased demand, their 
supplies have been imperfect; and, owing to the briskness of the sales, the 
prices have been, naturally enough, very considerably enhanced.  Besides, they 
went to places in which their credit was not established – and had in most cases 
to advance cash.  And many country dealers have had no opportunity of sending 
their produce to market, which has consequently remained unsold.  Business, 
therefore, has languished in many parts of the union; and it is
(Page 13) probably, that, considering the matter merely in a commercial point of 
light, the shock caused by the fever, has been felt to the southern extremity of 
the United States.