USA > Louisiana > Louisiana; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, Volume II > Part 81
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was organized at Lake Charles in 1892, and almost at the same time Palmetto Camp, No. 2, was instituted at New Orleans. At first Louisiana was in a jurisdiction with Mississippi and Arkansas, then with Arkansas only, and was finally made a jurisdiction by itself, "Louisiana Jurisdiction, N." The first head consul of this jurisdiction was A. B. Booth, of Palmetto Camp, No. 2, who was elected when the jurisdiction was organized in 1905. He was suc- ceeded by Col. D. Hicks of Shreveport; the third head-consul was Rabbi L. Rosenthal of Live Oak Camp, No. 14, of Baton Rouge; and the present consul is A. B. Booth, who was again elected in 1908. The conventions of the order are held biennially for the election of officers, and the membership in May, 1909, was reported as being over 21,000 in the state.
Woodside, a post-hamlet in the southeastern corner of Avoyelles parish, is a station on the Texas & Pacific R. R., about 25 miles southeast of Marksville, the parish seat. It has a telegraph station and express office, and is one of the shipping and supply towns for the rich farming lands of the Atchafalaya valley, in which it is located. The population in 1900 was 51.
Woodworth, a town of Rapides parish, is located about 15 miles south of Alexandria, the parish seat, at the junction of the St. Louis, Watkins & Gulf and the Woodworth & Louisiana Central railroads. Being in a rich agricultural district, it is the principal shipping point and trading center for that part of the parish. It has a money order postoffice, express and telegraph offices, and in 1900 reported a population of 66.
World's Columbian Exposition .- (See Expositions.)
Wright, a post-village in the northwestern part of Vermilion par- ish, is a station on the Southern Pacific R. R., about 18 miles west of Abbeville, the parish seat. The population was 47 in 1900.
Wyatt, a money order post-village and station in the south- western part of Jackson Parish, is a station on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R., about 17 miles northwest of Winnfield.
Wynnville, a postoffice in the central part of Caddo parish. is also a station on the Kansas City Southern R. R., 6 miles northwest of Shreveport, the parish seat.
Y
Yellow Fever .- Pathologists describe this disease as a malignant fever, marked by yellowness of the skin, from which it takes its name, and, in the advanced stage, by the vomiting of a dark colored matter, whence the disease is sometimes called the black vomit. Its approach is usually foreshadowed by lassitude. loss of appetite, and mental depression. The attack generally begins in the night or early morning. the first stage being marked by a chilly sensation. This is followed by the hot stage, the temperature of the body often rising to 107 degrees, accompanied by acute headache, especially
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fever in New Orleans. The epidemic of 1847 carried off about 2,800, and there were over 800 deaths in 1848. In Aug., 1849, the disease again appeared, and it was not checked until November, though this time it was not so malignant as on former occasions, only about 750 deaths being reported, Then followed a cessation until 1853. In the spring of that year several vessels arrived at New Orleans with yellow fever on board, some of the sailors dying after the ships reached port, and to this source was attributed the frightful epidemic which followed. On May 27 the first patient was taken to the Charity hospital, where he died soon afterward. The board of health on July 2 reported 25 deaths for the week ending that day, and in the week succeeding the number of deaths was 420. During that week there was a death in the Charity hospi- tal every half-hour. The greatest mortality on any one day was on Aug. 22, when 283 deaths were reported. From that time there was an improvement, but frost came before the ravages of the disease were fully checked. The board of health established four temporary hospitals-one in each district-and the Howard Associ- ation (q. v.) opened two convalescent hospitals and three orphan asylums. Many attempted to escape on steamboats going up the river, but scores of them died on board. It was no unusual incident for a steamboat to tie up in the dead of night, send a detail of grave diggers ashore, and bury several bodies at some lonely spot on the Mississippi. The fatality was greatest among unacclimated persons-especially Irish, Germans, and people from the Northern states. Negroes and children ordinarily had but mild attacks. The creoles did not readily contract the disease, and generally recovered. Shortly after the epidemic a New Orleans physician wrote: "The native French and creole population of New Orleans, who live on little meat, bread, vegetables, fruits and light wines, and do not take much medicine, seldom fall victims to the yellow fever. * * * Until 1853 they were supposed to be exempt from its attacks. During the late epidemic, however. many of them took it and died."
The exact number of deaths during this fearful visitation will probably never be known. The total mortality of the city for the year 1853, according to the reports of the board of health, was 15,633, of which 7,849 died of yellow fever, though some writers insist that there were many deaths that never came to the notice of the board. In 1854 the fever reappeared and added nearly 2,500 to the death list. Gov. Hebert, in his message to the legislature that assembled on Feb. 15, 1855, said: "The general prevalence of that disease, during two successive years, in the most malignant form, seems to authorize the conclusion that, supposing it to have been at any time of foreign origin, it has now assumed a fixed habitation within our borders." At this session of the general assembly laws were passed creating a state board of health and reestablishing quarantine stations. Notwithstanding these pre- cautionary measures, another epidemic in 1858 cost about 4,800 lives. The enforcement of sanitary and quarantine regulations reduced the number of deaths in 1859 to 92, and in 1860 there were
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only 15 officially reported. In 1861, for the first year since 1795, not a single death occurred from yellow fever in New Orleans. During the next four years, while New Orleans was in a state of blockade and traffic with tropical countries was entirely cut off, there were but nine deaths.in the city traceable to yellow fever. With the restoration of the civil government and the resumption of trade with the West Indies, the fever reappeared, and in the epidemic of 1867 the board of health reported 3,107 deaths. This was the last epidemic of any consequence until that of 1878, which was almost unparalleled in its virulence.
Believers in the germ theory traced the beginning of the fever in 1878, as in 1853, to vessels from infected districts. On May 21 the Borussia arrived at the quarantine station with 5 cases of yel- low fever on board. The patients were taken to the quarantine hospital, the vessel was thoroughly disinfected and detained in quarantine for 15 days, when she was permitted to proceed on her way. In the meantime the Emily B. Souder arrived from Havana on the 23rd and was detained at quarantine only 10 hours. Two days later the purser of the vessel died under circumstances that indicated yellow fever, and the assistant engineer followed on the 30th. The disease spread slowly at first, only 7 deaths having been reported up to the middle of July. After that its progress was more rapid, and the climax being reached on Sept. 11, when 90 deaths were reported. The fever made its appearance at other ports and the epidemic spread to the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala- bama, Texas and Tennessee. Cairo, Ill., the cities and towns of Kentucky and Ohio, lying on the Ohio river were infected, and there was one death reported at Pittsburg, Pa. In Louisiana the number of deaths was 4,725, distributed as follows: New Orleans, 3,743; Baton Rouge, 196; Donaldsonville, 35; Dry Grove, 38; Gretna, 53; Labadieville, 30; Morgan City, 96; Pattersonville, 47; Plaquemine, 120; Port Eads, 10; Port Hudson, 9; Tangipahoa, 43; Thibodaux, 88; scattering, 217. The greatest mortality was at Memphis, Tenn., where the number of deaths was 4,200, nearly one-third of the total mortality of the country due to yellow fever that year. As an aftermath of the epidemic the legislature of Louisiana on April 21, 1879, passed the following joint resolutions :
"Whereas, During many months of the past year an epidemic pestilence of the most virulent character prevailed at the capital and throughout a large portion of the State of Louisiana, carrying sorrow, distress and death into thousands of homes; and
"Whereas, In the days of our mourning and sore trouble, mag- nanimous strangers in all sections of the United States and in many foreign lands voluntarily came to the relief of our afflicted people, with contributions aggregating $1,100,000; therefore, be it
"Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana in General Assembly convened, That the earnest, heartfelt thanks of the people of this Commonwealth be and are hereby tendered to all those large-hearted philanthropists
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who contributed so spontaneously and munificently to the relief of the Louisiana sufferers by the yellow fever epidemic of 1878.
"Be it further resolved, etc., That we, the representatives of the people of Louisiana, deem it right and proper to thus acknowledge and commend this unsurpassed philanthropy, and to place upon our statutuc-books this testimonial of gratitude, so that, in all time to come, those who follow us, while remembering the calamity that fell upon their ancestors, may be reminded of the noble gener- osity of the men, women and children of other states of the Union, and of distant lands, who came to their relief in the days of their affliction."
In recent years more attention has been given to quarantines and public sanitation, and while there have been several visitations of yellow fever, none have been of so serious a character as that of 1878, the epidemic of 1897 being so mild and the mortalities so few that the disease was given the name of "yellowoid."
Divers theories have been proposed by pathologists and scientists as to the origin of yellow fever and the manner of its communica- tion from one person or locality to another. In 1867 Dr. Warren Stone said, in a lecture at Bellevue college, New York: "It cer- tainly has not been imported in ships. The epidemic influence is wafted through the atmosphere in waves or cycles. It always makes gradual and regular approaches, so that in New Orleans we know when it is coming by its prevalence in the islands of the gulf and places south of us. * * I am perfectely convinced, be- * yond all doubt or hesitation, that personally it is not contagious ; I know that it is not. If the disease were contagious once, it would always be so, for it is the same disease in all places. * * There is no combination of filth, no combination of circumstances, calculated to deteriorate health and excite typhoid or typhus fever, that has anything to do with the generation of yellow fever. In- deed, the disease has always been more violent in the country, when once it prevails there, than in cities."
A writer in Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1878 puts forward this hypothesis: "The malignant form of this epidemic and its wide extent may have been due to the peculiarities of the seasons. A remarkably mild winter was followed by an intensely hot sum- mer. The climatic lines were carried a thousand miles north of their ordinary position. An unacclimated people as far north as the Ohio were exposed to the ordinary temperature of the Gulf States, while the Gulf States were tropical. In the West Indies the ravages of the fever were confined to a small body of foreigners, but here the disease had full sway. with equal climatic advantages, over an entirely unprepared population. A similar high temperature pre- ceded and accompanied the epidemics of 1793, 1798, 1819, 1839, 1847 and 1853."
In 1881, Dr. Carlos Finlay of Havana, Cuba, advanced the theory that the germ of yellow fever is disseminated by mosquitoes. In 1900, Dr. George M. Sternberg, surgeon-general of the U. S. army, appointed Maj. Walter Reed and contract-surgeons Agramonte,
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Carroll and Lazear, to investigate and report on the merits of Dr. Finlay's theory. An experiment station was established near Que- mado, Cuba, where exhaustive reasearches were made, the result of which conclusively proved the mosquito to be the intermediate host of the yellow fever bacillus. This conclusion has been cor- roborated by subsequent experiments carefully conducted in other places, and the most progressive physicians now accept the theory as the correct one regarding the spread of the malady in infected districts. The particular species of mosquito responsible for the transmission of the disease is the Stegomyia fasciata-or, as it is now known to scientists, the Stegomyia calopus. In general it is found in all parts of the world between the 38th parallels of lati- tude, but most abundantly in cities. It is essentially a house mos- quito, bites by day as well as night, and finds its breeding grounds in roof troughs, cisterns, or any chance receptacle of clean standing water. The larvæ and pupæ can be killed by a 10 per cent solution of salt water, and the old mosquitoes can be destroyed by general and thorough fumigation.
Dr. Finlay's theory was tested in New Orleans for the first time in 1905. No sooner did the fever make its appearance than the people began a systematic warfare on the mosquitoes, and the re- sults added fresh evidence that the insect is the chief distributor of the infection." The disease was quickly stamped out, and other states, accepting the doctrine that the fever is communicated by the mosquito, laid no embargo on freight, express or mail matter, in establishing quarantines against New Orleans, as had been the custom in former epidemics. In this way business was only slightly injured, passenger traffic alone being impeded. Edward Foster, vice-president of the Louisiana Society of Naturalists, writing in the New Orleans Picayune of June 8, 1908, of the warfare on mos- quitoes in that city and elsewhere, says: "The campaign of 1905 was on common sense lines and was a complete success. The energetic measures then adopted and the results attained have been taken to heart by the scientific public as demonstrating definitely and over a broad territory the historic experiments carried on by the American army surgeons in Cuba. Rio de Janeiro has prac- tically rid herself of the incubus of endemic yellow fever by just such common sense methods as were carried on here by our citi- zens in 1905. Vera Cruz, formerly a pesthole of the discase, is now free from it, and the same may be said of the route of the Panama canal, while epidemics in the French African colonies and elsewhere have been nipped in the bud."
Yellow Pine, a village in the southern part of Webster parisli, is a station on the Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern R. R., 10 miles south of Minden, the parish seat. It has a money order postoffice, an express office, and though the population was but 57 in 1900. it is a trading and shipping point for the rich agricultural district by which it is surrounded.
York, Zebulon, soldier, was lieutenant-colonel of the 14th Lonisi- ana when it went to Virginia in 1861. Early in the spring of the
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following year this regiment was on the peninsula in Gen. Long- street's division. During the Seven Days' battles, as colonel of the regiment, he led it all through that terrible ordeal. After the cam- paigns of the Second Manassas, Maryland and Fredericksburg, Col. York was sent to Louisiana to organize and drill conscripts in- tended for the Louisiana brigades in the Army of Northern Vir- ginia. After this he returned to the Army of Northern Virginia and took part in the Gettysburg campaign. On May 31, 1864, he received a commission as brigadier-general with temporary rank, and was assigned to the command of all the Louisiana troops in the Army of Northern Virginia. The Louisiana troops were with Early's corps, when he crossed the Potomac, defeated Wallace at the Monocacy, and advanced to the very suburbs of Washington. At the battle of Winchester, Sept. 19, 1864, Gen. York was severely wounded, losing an arm which incapacitated him for further service in the field during the campaign of 1864.
You, Dominique, a captain in the "Pirates of Barataria," has been described as "small, graceful, fair, of a pleasant, even attractive face, and a skillful sailor." In the battle of New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815, he commanded a battery, the guns of which were manned by cannoneers from the privateers of the Baratarians, and in his re- port of the battle Gen. Jackson commends Capt. You for "gallantry in the field." After that engagement he settled down to a quiet life in New Orleans, became a law-abiding citizen and a leader in local politics, though his past record still lingered in the memory of his fellow-townsmen, who often pointed him out to visitors as a "pirate." Capt. You died in 1830 and was buried with military honors at the expense of the city council. His tomb bears the emblems of the Masonic fraternity, and an epitaph which eulogizes him as the "intrepid hero of a hundred battles on land and sea ; who, without fear and without reproach, will one day view, un- moved, the destruction of the world."
. Youngsville, an incorporated town in the southeastern part of Lafayette parish, is about 3 miles southwest of Billeaud, the nearest railroad town, and 8 miles south of Lafayette, the parish seat. It is located in the great rice district of southwestern Louisiana, has a rice mill and other important industries, a money order postoffice, a large retail trade, and in 1900 reported a population of 200.
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Zachary, one of the largest incorporated towns in East Baton Rouge parish, is situated at the junction of the Yazoo & Missis- sippi Valley and the Zachary & Northeastern railroads, in the northern part of the parish. It is one of the large cotton shipping and trading centers of the parish, has a bank, a money order post- office, telegraph and express offices, good schools, fine mercantile
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establishments, cotton gins and other industries, and in 1900 re- ported a population of 465.
Zimmerman, a town in the northwestern part of Rapides parish, is situated on the west bank of the Red river and at the junction of the Texas & Pacific and Zimmerman, Leesville & Southwestern railroads, about 15 miles northwest of Alexandria, the parish seat. It is one of the largest towns in the parish and is a shipping point for the rich farming lands of the Red River valley and the pineries to the west and southwest, which are tapped by the Zimmerman, Leesville & Southwestern R. R. It has lumber industries, cotton- gins, a money order postoffice, telegraph and express offices, several good stores, and its population in 1900 was 350.
Zion, a post-village in the southeastern part of Winn parish, is a station on a branch of the Louisiana & Arkansas R. R., about 10 miles southeast of Winnfield, the parish seat. The poulation in 1900 was 100.
Zona, a village in the southern part of Washington parish, is a station on the New Orleans Great Northern R. R., 8 miles south- east of Franklinton, the parish seat. It is located in the famous "Ozone Belt," east of the Mississippi river, has large sawmills and other lumber industries, and in 1900 had a population of 61.
Zugg, a postoffice in the central part of Pointe Coupée parish, is about 2 miles east of McKneeley, the nearest railroad station, and 10 miles west of New Roads, the parish seat.
Zwolle, an incorporated town of Sabine parish, is one of the important lumbering towns that has grown up along the line of the Kansas City Southern R. R. It is located 11 miles northwest of Many, the parish seat, and nearly the entire population is en- gaged in some form of lumbering industry. It has a bank, a money order postoffice, telegraph and express offices, and is the trading and shipping point for the country between the railroad and the Sabine river. Its population in 1900 was 276. -
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