The ship Empire State, Captain Briggs, arrived at Quarantine on Sunday last, having on board, during her passage, 33 cases of small pox, eight of whom died on the passage and 25 of whom were sent by the Health Officer to the Marine Hospital. This ship brought into port five hundred and sixteen passengers. This vessel and her passengers have been detained at quarantine for the purposes of cleansing, ventilation and fumigation" (another ship had brought in cases of yellow fever). (13.2)

     The Brooklyn Eagle commented on 1 May that "The packets from Liverpool are bringing liberal instalments of that...loathsome disease, the small pox, to the quarantine hospital. The Empire State, from Liverpool, reports 33 cases on the voyage, 8 of which proved fatal. We do not wish to become alarmists; but with these facts before us we would urge the necessity of cleaning the streets wherever they require it, and removing everything calculated to produce atmospheric impurities and lead to the introduction of pestilence and disease."



This engraving shows the expansive New York Marine Hospital and quarantine complex at Tompkinsville, Staten Island, in 1858. Luther was forced to stop here twice due to outbreaks of smallpox on his ships.



Large ships likely docked at this pier, which appears to have been to the right and out of view of the first image.



The residents near the complex were angered at the constant presence of the diseased immigrants nearby. They formed an angry mob and burned the buildings late in 1858.


      The New York Times reported that 1856 was a particularly bad year for ship damage and losses, and lists Empire State with $5,000 in losses. What they were isn't specified, but the ship had only one known arrival in New York in that year. Perhaps it, too, was damaged in the storms that sank Eudocia. The report refers generally to cargo loss due to "long and boisterous passages" aside from direct damage to ships. It has yet to be found when Luther left New York for that trip, but it was probably the most difficult time of his life. On 26 December of the previous year, his daughter Mary died. A notice in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle says she had scarlet fever and was in her 4th year (meaning she was 3). If so, this would mean that Mary, born about 1839, had died and another daughter was named for her. It would also mean that Mary the 2nd and Harry were twins. This is far less likely than the newspaper making a typographical error, intending that she was in her 14th year. Almost a month later, Harry died. The children were both placed in a recieving vault in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, then buried on 5 June 1856 after their father bought a plot for them. More information may have been found in their death records, but the Borough of Brooklyn has managed to lose such records for 1855 and 1856, along with many other valuable municiple records.
     In the Summer of 1858, Luther was sailing on a calm sea with dense fog when the steam frigate Niagara appeared and they nearly collided, coming within shouting distance of each other. Had they collided, not only would hundreds of immigrants lives have been at risk, but it may also have temporarily ended a milestone in technological advancement. Niagara was two days away from successfully participating in the laying of the first transatlantic cable, thus allowing telegraphic communication between England and the US. With its partner, the English ship Agamemnon, they had just survived a severe, week-long storm. When they reached a prescribed point in the ocean, literally in the middle of the North Atlantic, two pieces of cable were spliced and the ships proceeded in opposite directions until they reached land.

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13.2. 27 April 1856. The New York Daily Times had a briefer report on the first page of its 29 April issue titled "Small Pox on an Emigrant Ship."

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150 Years Ago Sickly ships seek safe harbour NEW YORK — Smallpox and yellow fever have come to shore. The ship Empire State arrived in a pestilent state, with 25 of her 516 passengers suffering from highly contagious smallpox — plus eight dead felled by the disease during passage. All aboard, including the skipper, Captain Briggs, were detained in quarantine while the ship was cleaned, ventilated and fumigated. On the same day the ship General Taylor came to shore with half her crew dead from yellow fever. Captain Waterman warned that the crew caught the fever at Port au Prince in Haiti and that the new strain ravaging the Caribbean was even infecting sailors acclimated to the tropics. Source: New York Times April 30, 1856 this isn't in the Daily Times. Is it from the Evening Times? description of Empire State in Rockingham (NH) Messenger, 8 March and 12 April 1849.