Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 - Response of Churches

Response of Churches

Church clergy continued to hold services, which helped keep up residents' morale. Rev. J. Henry C. Helmuth, who led the city's German Lutheran congregation, wrote A Short Account of the Yellow Fever in Philadelphia for the Reflecting Christian. He also left a diary. On September 16 he reported that his church was "very full" the day before. In one week in October, 130 members of his congregation were buried. On October 13, he wrote in his diary:

"Preached to a large gathering about Jes.26,1. I showed that Philadelphia a very blessed city - the Lord is among us and especially in our congregation. I proved this with examples of dead and still living people. Baptized a child. Announced that I could not be with the corpses, that the sick should be reported to me in the morning so that I could visit them in the afternoon."

The Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends at the Arch Street Meeting House drew 100 attendees, most from outside the city. The meetinghouse is not far from the waterfront where the epidemic had started. In their Yearly Epistle following the meeting, the Friends wrote that to have changed the time or place of the meeting would have been a "haughty attempt" to escape "the rod" of God, from which there was no escape. The Quaker John Todd, who attended the meeting, contracted the fever and died of it. His young widow, Dolley Payne Todd, later married James Madison, a Virginia congressman whom she met in Philadelphia and a future U.S. president.