THE PEST HOUSE
Hades Inside a Paradise
Although pest houses have been around for centuries, Dublin had its own pest house in the first two decades of the 20th Century. The unforeseen, dramatic increase of malaria, small pox, and other dangerous communicable diseases forced the newly created Laurens County Board of Health to institute dramatic measures to curtail the spread of infectious diseases primarily in the city of Dublin. To insure the spreading of an epidemic, the city of Dublin chose a five acres tract along a bluff on the eastern side of the Oconee River, just above where the old river ferry crossed the river.
In the winter of 1903, a small pox outbreak was raging in nearby Washington County while the epidemic in Danville was waning.
A committee composed of Dr. Charles Hicks, Dr. J.M Page, Dr. T.H. Hall, O.H.P. Rawls, and V.L. Stanley, took a trip over the river into what was yet to be called East Dublin. The group was looking for an isolated area, which ironically was a healthy location, something akin to a resort. The committee almost immediately satisfied with the site, with excellent drainage, well above the flood plain and ornamented with tall pines, mammoth magnolias, sweet bays, and hardy beech trees on good ground which gently sloped to the water’s edge.
Today the site is located near the intersection of Ferry Street and Manning Street at the point where an old Indian trail running from Indian Springs to Savannah crossed the river. To ensure that the construction crews were safe, buildings, which were originally termed “jails,” were constructed and then moved into place.
Once the buildings were in place, crews quickly began to clear the scrubby trees and undergrowth in an effort to at least make the surroundings pleasant. Officials and inmates were very pleased to discover many springs on the property, especially a mineral springs near the top of bluff, one which produced a flow of healthy, clear water at 40 gallons per minutes. This spring was encased with cement to provide a seemingly endless supply. The springs fed a black cement pool for patients to bath in the healing mineral waters.
The site was so beautiful that the Dublin Times recommended that once the smallpox scourge was eliminated, the city should convert the property into a riverside, half-mile long park with excellent fishing, boat landings, and walking trails, much like local officials are pursuing today.
Physicians and health officials were pleased with the sanitary conditions and implored the public to practice safe health habits in a strong public effort to rid the county of small pox forever.
Just as the pest house was going into operation, John Holder, in custody abating trial for the murder of John Cheney, contracted small pox. Holder, in a precautionary measure, was transferred along with all of the jail’s inmates, to the pest house.
By the end of his fifth day in the pest house, Holder decided he had to get out of the place. Holder was recaptured by lawmen with bloodhounds in short order. His accomplice remained at large
“The buildings are good and comfortable the patient has nice, new beds and mattresses. The rooms are kept well supplied with fuel. The rations served are both healthy and tasty. The house is furnished and the convalescents are given as much good, plain food as they want. The city and county are to he congratulated upon securing the services of such a physician as they have. The superintendent does all in the power of man to make life 1n the hospital pleasant as possible, besides doing his professional work. He furnishes his patients papers and magazines to read. In fact, he makes the patient feel contented and at home. To those who may, like myself, get small pox. It is my advice to go at once to the hospital, for you can do better cared for there than elsewhere. The officials in charge have spared no expense to obtain comfort for the patients, and one who has been there can appreciate their work In that direction.” Wrote W.E. Mayo, a local man and a victim of smallpox, had nothing but laudatory comments about the pest house.
Fears were so real, that in the early spring of 1911, one man in town, showing signs of small pox, was captured and ordered to remain standing in the center of the courthouse squre
Hardy Smith, Jr. and Frank Wyatt, of Johnson County, cared not too much for each other. The two men had their difficulties before. Wyatt, a carpenter, and Smith, a warehouseman decided to settle their differences by several games of poker. In a effort to keep the location of the game a secret, the two combatants decide to play in the pest house, where no one, but no one, would ever dream of looking.
In front of a crowd of witnesses, a fight broke it. Wyatt thrust his knife deep into Smith’s abdomen. With Smith writhing on the ground seemingly mortal by those in attendance, Wyatt made his way to have a physician examine his wounds. After leaving the doctor’s office, Wyatt turned himself into Sheriff J.J. Flanders. Smith eventually recovered from his grave wounds.
In 1950, the city council of Dublin decided to finally abandon the land and grounds of the former pest house. Dr. J.L. Smalley held title to some of the property for decades before conveying it to A.T. Williams. Today the site and the area around it are occupied by home sites on what was once a hades surrounded by paradise.
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