THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407060507
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
JOHN JONES, affectionately known as ``Yellow Fever Jack'' during his latter years, has been a sadly neglected Norfolk African-American hero. I discovered Jones' activities recently while browsing through the updated ``Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion'' that was originally ``Compiled by Workers of the Writers' Program of the Works Projects Administration in the State of Virginia'' in 1940.
Unfortunately, the scanty information on Jones that appears in that otherwise valuable compilation is largely inaccurate. But I struck gold at Kirn Memorial Library.
The guide says that Jones was eventually ``struck down by the plague,'' but I discovered that he lived until August 1868. At that time the Norfolk Virginian newspaper marked his passing with a three-paragraph obituary, then an almost unheard of honor for a African-American.
Anyone familiar with Norfolk is aware of the 1855 yellow fever epidemic, referred to by contemporaries as ``The Death Storm,'' which wiped out about 2,000 of the city's population. The names of any number of white heroes of the epidemic are readily available. Even so, all contemporary or later local accounts of the fever fail to mention the beyond-the-call-of-duty heroism that Yellow Fever Jack played during that time.
Although Norfolk's newspapers were forced to cease publication during the height of the epidemic, a now-unknown correspondent furnished Richmond papers with regular reports on the progress of the dread disease. In one of these communications, dated Aug. 28, 1855, I discovered the following:
``Among those who have rendered themselves conspicuous for faithful services in these trying times, we have to notice John Jones, a mulatto slave, employed by Messrs. O'Brien and Quick, who in his humble, but now highly important capacity of hearse driver, has by the unwearied and faithful performance of his really laborious duties, won for himself, the esteem and regard of the entire community. From the commencement of the disease, Jones has been actively employed night and day, in driving the ill-fated fever victims to the Cemetery. In many instances having to shoulder the coffins in which were the bodies of the dead, and place them in his hearse without any assistance whatever. All the friends of the deceased having fled panic struck from the corpses.
``Night and day the rattling of the dismal `car of death' could be heard rapidly driven by Jones, who sat in his seat `solitary and alone,' (except the silent passenger within,) puffing away at a long nine, and looking as cool and unconcerned as if he was driving a gay party to a festive picnic! So he has continued up to this hour - and it is fearful to contemplate how many poor wretches he has driven to their last homes since the sixteenth of July. Probably not less than five hindred! And with the prospects ahead, if he survives the epidemic, he bids fair to `charioteer' 500 more before the close of the awful drama! The people intend, by public subscription, to purchase the freedom of Jones should he be so fortunate as to pass safely through the fever, as a reward of his courageous, cheerful and faithful conduct in his `particular line,' throughout the epidemic.''
Contrary to the WPA guide, Jones did not die of yellow fever, but lived until Aug. 10, 1868, at which time his obituary stated: ``The citizens of Norfolk after the pestilence proposed buying John his freedom, but as the laws of the State required all manumitted slaves to leave the State, he preferred to stay as a slave.''
In summing up Yellow Fever Jack's community service during the epidemic, the obituary writer added: ``John has now passed away from all earthly care and a monument should record the good deeds he did whilst living.'' No record of such a memorial exists, but it is not too late to remember him now, even though 139 years have come and gone since that terrible summer of 1855. by CNB