The story of the plague in the Cumberland Mountains

Even though Dickenson County Historical Society has been closed for the past couple of weeks due to the recent coronavirus (aka covid-19 or the Chinese virus) situation, some of our volunteers have spent their time at home working on Stories of Yesteryear booklets and locating other stories for our weekly newspaper column. While searching the internet, our volunteer researchers stumbled across an interesting story about a pandemic that swept our area in 1884.
By presenting the story, we do not intend to depress anyone or to cause more fears than already exist. However, stories such as these are part of our past. These stories show us that our forefathers (and mothers) overcame many obstacles — even epidemics and pandemics!
One article told about a strange epidemic that was sweeping through the Kentucky counties of Pike, Letcher, Harlan, and Bell and the Virginia counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise, and Lee. That article led us to a few more articles concerning the epidemic.
In 1884, Dickenson County was only four years old as it was formed in 1880. During that early history, Dickenson County had no newspapers that we know of. To find our county’s history, many times we have to rely upon newspapers from all across the United States. And often, the area of Dickenson County was referred to in reference to surrounding counties. However, we do know that this epidemic happened in Dickenson County particularly in the Ervinton area. To relate the story of this epidemic, we must start in Kentucky where more information about the epidemic was found.

An article from the New York Sun was reprinted in the December 10, 1884, issue of the Evening Star newspaper. The article, which has been changed to indicate that it was written in the past, stated:

“Pike, Letcher, Harlan and Bell are the four counties in the extreme southeastern part of Kentucky which border on the state of Virginia, where it forms a big V between them and the state of Tennessee to the south. The border counties in Virginia are Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise and Lee.
“These eight counties form the district in which a most fatal plague has raged for very nearly two months, carrying off [killing] more people in proportion to the number of inhabitants than the cholera in its worst stages in France during the past year.
“The Cumberland range of mountains forms the dividing line between the two states... [Numerous creeks form] the Cumberland River which flows to the west; the Kentucky, which flows to the northwest, and the Big Sandy, that flows away to the north and empties into the Ohio at Catlettsburg, on the line between Kentucky and West Virginia.

“Perched on ledges on the mountain sides, or nestling in wooded hollows between the mountain top... were the log cabins of the inhabitants. There was always a piece of cleared ground, enclosed by a fence of brush and briers, near each house. In it were raised a patch of corn, another of potatoes, and some stalks of tobacco. A small drove of half-wild hogs ranged for “mast” in the woods around, and a few “critters” got their living in the same precarious way. Wheat was unknown, but corn, pork, and moonshiners’ whiskey were the mainstays of life, and chewing tobacco was its solace. Game abounded in the woods.
“Such water as they needed was obtained from the creeks and springs, and occasionally, where a family was less favorably situated than its neighbors, from a surface-water well.

“The Cumberland is only one of many high ridges that trend from southwest to northeast to Kentucky and Virginia; and in consequence, some of the rain storms that swept up from the Mississippi valley were intercepted, and droughts were not uncommon in summer.
“But when, in... September [1884], it was noticed that no rain had fallen for six weeks, the people who occasionally lounged in the few country stores to be found in that region, began to talk about the way the wells “had all gone dry” and to say that they had never seen the water so low in Poor Fork... (“The Poor Fork is a 45-mile tributary of the Cumberland River in Letcher and Harlan Counties, southeast Kentucky, in the United States. The river flows from its source at Flat Gap in the Appalachian Mountains, on the Kentucky–Virginia border, generally southwest to its confluence about a mile north of Harlan.” according to an online source.)

“No relief came with October. About the middle of the month, Joseph Day, a brother of County Judge Day of Letcher County, while on his way from Whitesburg Courthouse to his home on Poor Fork, in the southeastern part of the county, was taken suddenly with severe griping pains in the abdomen. [Griping pains are severe, sharp pains in the abdomen and bowels.] In less than an hour, his limbs become paralyzed; and friends carried him to his home.
“A high fever at once set in, with a burning thirst and a swelling of the throat. Then, he was taken with bloody flux, followed by vomiting of blood and mucous. In less than twenty-four hours, he was dead.

“He was the first victim of the plague. Before he had breathed his last [breath], some of those who had helped him home were taken in like manner, and from this point the disease spread by jumps throughout the region...

“The progress of the disease was not rapid at first. Little attention was paid to it. The houses were scattered along the streams, sometimes miles apart. To pass from one settlement to another, required a tedious trip on foot “over the divide” to the next stream.
“There was not a railroad or a telegraph line within eighty miles, as the bird flies, from the house of Joseph Day, at Poor’s Fork, and the mail service had never been expedited. A whole neighborhood [could have been] wiped out and the next neighborhood not hear of it for a week after.
“Springs which had never failed to pour out volumes of limpid (completely clear) water began to dry up. The water itself became bitter. The water hardly flowed through the north and the middle forks of the Holston... The leaves fell off the trees, until the forests became as bare as in midwinter, and the grass was burned up by the sun.
“People who had depended on wells had to bring water from great distances, in some instances as much as ten miles; and even then good water was hard to get. A few persons noticed that, when the water began to boil, a brick-colored sediment would settle to the bottom of the kettle.
“With the beginning of November, the disease spread rapidly.
“[People] told one story, of the sudden appearance of a bloody flux with new symptoms among their friends, which usually proved fatal within forty-eight hours. [Bloody flux is defined as dysentery or a disease in which the flux or discharge from the bowels is mixed with blood.] This almost produced a panic. Thereafter, the reports of the spread of the disease seemed to travel faster, and at length the outside world heard of the condition of affairs up in the mountains...”

What information we could find concerning how the plague affected Wise County, Buchanan County, and Dickenson County will be presented next week.

Because of the present Covid19 virus situation in our country, our office will be closed until further notice. However, our patrons are asked to use the contact information below and we will provide services whenever possible. All of our newspapers articles are reprinted in the Historical Society’s Stories of Yesteryear booklets. Currently, Volumes 1-12 are available for purchase. For more information about this article, or any of our publications, or to make corrections or additions to an article, to purchase a local history book, or to inquire about a Historical Society event, please contact the Historical Society office at 276/926-6355, P. O. Box 52, Clintwood, Va., 24228, or dchs1880@gmail.com. If no answer, please leave a message (which includes your name and phone number) and one of our volunteers will return your call. Or contact Edith Faye Redden at 926-4117.