Washington Square and the 1793 fever
They were told the fever would spare them. Then they were accused of profiting from it.
Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.
How the story begins
A famous doctor wrote to a Black preacher in September 1793 to tell him the fever would pass his people by. Yellow fever, Benjamin Rush told Richard Allen, "infects white people of all ranks, but passes by persons of your color." He wanted Black Philadelphians to stay and tend the sick. Allen and Absalom Jones organised it. Their people nursed and carried away bodies. On Rush's instructions the two men bled more than eight hundred patients.
The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.
Visiting
Public park, open 24 hours, free (National Park Service). Wayside signs in the square cover its use as a burial ground.
Sources
- Washington Square, Independence National Historical Park, NPS
- Washington Square visitor information, NPS
- Allen and Jones, Yellow Fever, 1794, NPS
- A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, Jones and Allen, 1794, National Library of Medicine copy
- Allen and Jones, Africans in America, PBS
- A Contemporary Black Perspective on the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic, Rana Hogarth, American Journal of Public Health, 2019
- Yellow Fever, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
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