Mass Grave May Hold Victims of Epidemic

[Destructionator XV]

I'm posting this for Jason Firewalker; for some reason it isn't working for him.




(April 1) -- A mass grave unearthed Tuesday in downtown Montgomery,
Ala., is believed to contain bodies from an epidemic of yellow fever
that swept the city in the 1870s, police said.

Two buildings from
the 1940s were torn down at the site, and maintenance workers grading
the land in preparation for the construction of a new building
uncovered the remains, said Montgomery police spokesman Maj. Huey
Thornton.


The site is adjacent
to a cemetery, he said, and "based on the information we have from
historical documents kept by the actual cemetery ... it does appear
that it may be remains from a yellow fever epidemic in the 1870s."

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Officials from the
Alabama Archaeological Society and the Alabama Historical Association
were at the site and are expected to be able to confirm that, he said.


It was not
immediately known how many bodies might be buried at the site, Thornton
said, but authorities are reassuring the public there is no cause for
concern. The remains are clearly too old to suggest any recent
activity, he said.

According to an
article posted online by the Mississippi Project of the American Local
History Network, an extensive outbreak of yellow fever occurred in
1878, spreading across eight states but particularly affecting Alabama,
Louisiana and Mississippi. Some 16,000 people died from the disease
that year alone, according to the article.


http://news.aol.com/article/epidemic-mass-grave/408404