Grave Diggers

In fall 1832, a Cholera epidemic hit Louisville and Frankfort, Kentucky. Winter slowed the spread but by June 1833 the epidemic reached Lexington. Between July and August, the disease claimed 500 out of a population of 6000, including 3 doctors. Christ Church Parish, the owners of the Cemetery, lost a third of their members to the disease. About third of the population vacated the city, including the grave diggers. Henry Clay (US Senator, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Secretary of State) stayed. William King Solomon, a vagrant, odd jobs man and town drunk, took over the duties of the grave digger. Kentucky novelist, James Lane Allen, wrote a short story, King Solomon of Kentucky in Flute and Violin and other Kentucky Tales. Solomon died in 1854 and was buried at Lexington Cemetery. Two other grave diggers work during the epidemic: London Ferrell, a free African American minister, and the only non-white buried in Lexington Cemetery and a young US Army Lieutenant and future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Another Cholera epidemic swept through Lexington in 1849. Spanish physician Jaime Ferran (1852-1929) developed a cholera vaccine in 1885. It is the first vaccine to immunize people against a bacterial disease. - AsNotedIn