Roanoke author documents 1855 epidemic in new book

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - A new title hitting bookstore shelves is the work of Roanoke author Lon Wagner. It tackles a chapter of Virginia history that is largely forgotten, but still relevant today.

The new window display at downtown Roanoke’s Book No Further challenges shoppers to take a closer look. “You thought COVID was bad?” the sign reads.

The book it highlights is ‘The Fever: The Most Fatal Plague in American History’ and it documents the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1855 in Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Wagner read from the book, during a visit with the author Tuesday morning.

“Normally by 10 a.m. on a weekday, in a shipbuilding town like Portsmouth, the air would be filled with the cacophony of workers hammering and sawing and shouting, the clamor of cart wheels and horse hoops clattering over cobblestone streets. He would have heard children playing, vendors calling out to hawk fruits and vegetables. There was none of that. The only thing Armstrong heard was a rooster’s lonesome echo.”

Wagner is a former newspaper reporter for The Roanoke Times and The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. It was during 15 years in Tidewater that he first learned about the epidemic and wrote a 14-part series.

“It was a long series for a newspaper, but as it turned out it just skimmed the surface,” Wagner said. “And that’s sort of what ignited my interest in this whole subject.”

A ship named the Benjamin Franklin had steamed into Hampton Roads in the summer of 1855, bringing the mosquito-borne illness with it. The virus would kill one in three people.

“It was essentially the Hurricane Katrina of 1855. It was covered in the New York Times, in the Baltimore papers and the Philadelphia papers. People came from all over the country to help the people in Norfolk. Doctors and nurses and pharmacists showed up and volunteers, because they were in such dire need,” Wagner said.

During a time of increasing concern for mosquito-borne illness, Wagner said there are lessons to be learned. But at its heart the book is a story about people dealing with life and death.

“And really it’s a story of what makes all great stories, heroes and villains and people struggling,” Wagner said. “Essentially it came down to the only things that mattered were whether you were going to live or die, and that’s the essence of human life, right?”

Book No Further has scheduled an Author Event with Wagner at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday September 21.

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