In August 1892 Cholera was affecting Russian Jews arriving in Hamburg on their way to the United States.

"On the 17th of August the Moravia, a two-masted steamer of the Hamburg line, sailed from that city with 385 steerage passengers, and she brought with her a clean bill of health from the American consul, who certified that when the ship sailed there were no infectious or contagious disease prevailing in Hamburg. The American consul was deceived, like the rest of the world. The Moravia arrived in the lower New York Bay Tuesday night August 30th, and the next morning anchored near the Quarantine Station on Staten Island, and close by several other ships that Arrived Tuesday night.

When the health officer boarded the Moravia, he was blandly told by the captain and the ship's surgeon that the boat had a clean bill of health, and that they were in a hurry to get to the ship's dock. An examination of the surgeon's report showed that there had been twenty-four cases of "cholerine" and twenty-two deaths during the voyage. The health office ordered that the Moravia should steam to lower Quarantine, in the outer bay. A little examination showed that the "cholerine" on the Moravia was Asiatic cholera of the most fatal type.'

Harper's Weekly, September 17, 1892

Steerage passengers from these ships were taken to Hoffman Island and bathed while the ships were disinfected. Infected passengers to Swinburne Island. All passengers regardless of class were detained on board.

The Harpers article goes on to say:

"Here were nearly six hundred well people shut up in infected ships on which deaths from the infection were of daily occurrence, with the only water aboard that from the polluted Elbe. For many more days there was no practical solution of this problem, and from the ships came daily pathetic appeals for help and indignant protests against what the imprisoned passengers though official heartlessness and incompetency. Both appeal and protest were natural. Among the passengers were United States Senator McPherson, of New Jersey; Mr. E. L. Godkin, editor of the New York Evening Post; the Rev. Richard D Harlan, of New York,; and Mr. A. M. Palmer, the well know theater manager....... Lottie Collins the dancer and singer, who made famous the song "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay", was also among the Normannia's passengers.

In following days there were continued deaths on these three ships but only two new infected ships arrived - the Wyoming and the Scandia. All of the people who worked with the passengers on the ships and on the two island were cut off from "their family and loved ones" as long as there were cholera cases on the islands.

The big question was "What to do with the healthy passengers?". This turned into a first degree farce as first class passengers were moved from one boat to another, taken to a quarantine camp on Fire Island where they were opposed by locals before finally allowed to land and then transported back to the New York Harbor where they were finally permitted to disembark on September 17th in Hoboken piers.

In the end:

• There were a total of 120 deaths, 66 on board the ships and 44 in the Quarantine Station
• Something in the neighborhood of 5,300 immigrants where bathed and disenfected on Hoffman Island.

The twenty day quarantine period that was subsequently imposed on all incoming vessels greatly slowed immigration until the embargo was lifted in February 1893.

The 1892 cholora incident also had the unfortunate repercussion of instilling prejudice against Russian Jewish immigrants.

1. Hoffman Island 2. Swinburne Island 3, On board the Doctor Boat 4. The Consultation of Doctors on Hoffman Island 5. Immigrants on the 6 Hospital Swinburne Island &. Disinfecting Room, Hoffman Island

The man in the lower left is Dr. Jenkins, the chief health officer for the port of New York.

Many of the immigrants who arrived in Castle Gardens went on to live in the tenements of the Lower East Side. For more informaion on and images of life in the tenements, click on the image.