Rose Hayward and the Cholera Ship: Part 3
Seventeen Days of Quarantine in New York Harbor
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Release Date: September 30, 2025
Pest ship refugees
“During the long days we could see the Statue of Liberty in the Upper Bay – liberty while we had none.”
As Rose and her fellow cabin passengers stood on the upper deck and watched the Rugia’s steerage passengers steam toward quarantine stations on Hoffman and Swinburne islands, they breathed a sigh of relief. After tense days and nights of living with the constant threat of cholera from “the poor unfortunates below”, their pleas had been answered – they had the ship to themselves.
Almost immediately, New York health department workers boarded the Rugia and began the arduous task of disinfecting the lower chamber of horrors in which so many had suffered and died of the dreaded “blue death”.
As bedding, linens, clothing and personal effects left behind by steerage passengers — as well as those who had died or been taken to hospital — were loaded up and hauled away, Rose and the other cabin passengers were escorted to the upper deck saloons to wait out the ship’s disinfection in relative comfort and safety.
Workers quickly swarmed the lower deck, scrubbing every surface with solutions of harsh chemical disinfectants — carbolic acid, chloride of lime and bichloride of mercury.
Then began the fumigation process. Cast iron pots filled with smoldering sulphur dioxide were placed in tubs of water and left to burn for six hours in the sealed off steerage quarters. As the noxious gases filled the bowels of the ship, the disinfecting vapors penetrated every nook and cranny, and the air became thick with the smell of rotten eggs and burning matchsticks.
Before long, however, the rancid stench drifted upward to the cabin areas. And then to the saloon where Rose and her peers had sought temporary refuge.
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Three days later, New York City Health Director, Dr. William Jenkins, announced quarantine protocols were working – no new cases of cholera had been reported among cabin passengers of either the Rugia or Normannia.
About that same time, work began on renovations to turn a recently decommissioned frigate into a Quarantine ship for up to 320 asymptomatic cabin passengers like Rose. The upgrade included various room configurations, from private staterooms for two to four people, to rooms containing four bunks each, to large dormitory-type rooms under the poop which could hold up to 24 people without crowding. In addition, the old warship was fitted with a 16-bed hospital and associated provisions for nurses and attendants, and a kitchen capable of cooking 120 meals at one time.
Health officials noted, “An ample supply of provisions of all kinds has been placed on board and the refrigerators are filled with meat and vegetables.” 1
All that was missing were the passengers.
The dream of liberty
Sometime on September 15, a dozen days after they’d been refused entry to New York’s Upper Bay, and six days after steerage passengers had been transferred off the ship, Rose and the other cabin passengers of the Rugia were welcomed aboard the newly refurbished Quarantine ship, New Hampshire. They arrived with just the clothes on their backs and whatever personal items they’d had with them during the voyage – everything else having been removed earlier and sent to a Quarantine station to be fumigated, disinfected and stored.
And although the New Hampshire was still under the yellow flag of contagion, the mood among passengers had improved.
Having been together the better part of a month – a ten-day crossing and then the long and still-unfinished Quarantine – tenuous bonds had begun to form between Rose, George and the other 98 former cabin passengers from the Rugia, more than half of whom were Americans.
Small groups met for meals, men gathered to talk politics and business, woman shared stories of home and family as they strolled the upper deck. Much time was passed clustered along the ship’s railing gazing wistfully toward the distant shore where just six year’s earlier American’s abiding symbol of friendship and liberty had been installed.
“We could see the Statue of Liberty in the Upper Bay,” Rose would later recall bitterly. “Liberty, while we had none.”
And at night, all eyes turned skyward in anticipation of the grand finale of Henry J. Pain’s “Carnival of Venice” a spectacular fireworks display that lit up the sky over nearby Coney Island: a subtle reminder to Rose that outside her floating prison, life went on.
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And so the days passed for Rose and her upper deck shipmates: Exiled in full view of New York City, and branded “pest ship refugees” by the local press.
At some point, Dr. Jenkins offered to move the Rugia’s passengers to a hotel compound on Fire Island which had been converted into a Quarantine station. When informed the facility would house both cabin and steerage passengers, however, they’d unanimously refused. The end of their quarantine period was at hand, and they were content to wait it out aboard the New Hampshire among people they trusted. 2
Three days later, their wait was over.
“At last, we were transferred to the Cepheus and as we walked down the gang plank each of us had to take the hand of Dr. Jenkins. Just think of it! His hand which was in cholera most of the time!
“ We all perfectly hated him and when a heavy woman rolled against him and nearly knocked him over, there were loud shouts of gratification.”
Weary from their long and uncomfortable confinement, Rose and her fellow passengers reached the Hamburg-American Packet Company’s dock in Hoboken, NJ at 7 p.m. on September 19. They stepped off carrying little more than “handbags and parcels done up in shawl straps”, with high hopes of clearing customs, being reunited with their trunks and heavy baggage, and putting the 16-day nightmare behind them.
“Naturally, they expected that when they reached land their troubles would at last be over; but as they came down the dock they were beset by a horde of Customs Inspectors, under the direction of a flighty, fussy young person, who announced himself as Inspector Steinert, and in stentorian tones he announced that no person would be allowed to take any of his baggage ashore that night except the articles absolutely essential for the toilet.” 3
What should have taken thirty minutes, stretched long into the night, forcing passengers to find nearby accommodations, and leaving behind their baggage which, according to reporters on the scene, had been “thrown together in a promiscuous heap on the dock,” until the next morning when Customs Inspectors could “assure themselves.. by the light of the sun that there are no foreign tin plates or bales of carpet wool concealed among the linen of the travelers.” 4
Like most of the other former passengers of the Rugia, Rose and George spent the night in Hoboken, and returned the next day to collect their trunks, both of which had gone through the disinfection and fumigation process weeks earlier. The damage to Rose’s beautiful Parisian gowns and the gifts she’d thoughtfully collected during their travels was complete.
“They poured boiling water on a rare cut glass piece that I was bringing home as a gift to Mrs. O-, and broke it into pieces,” she would later recall. “And they ruined all my party dresses, one a perfectly beautiful white cheviot, too… and a yellow and white party dress that I had made in Paris.”
Weeks later, back home in Wisconsin, Rose sat down and spoke with a reporter. The experience of being quarantined on a cholera ship, she said, was dreadful, and encompassed “horrors which no one can know.”
Yet, the lasting image, the one she kept going back to, was the Yellow Jack, the flag of contagion, which had flown over and around her throughout the entire ghastly ordeal.
“Those yellow flags!” she said. “They were always before our eyes. Why I never will wear a yellow dress or anything yellow ever again!”
Copyright 2025 Lori Olson White
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End Notes
Much of the content for this pieces originates from “Kept in Quarantine: Mrs. Hayward, Nee Case, Tells of a Terrible Experience. Seventeen Days on Board a Cholera-Infested Vessel. Burial at Sea – a Yellow Flag – Dr. Jenkins – Liberty – Fireworks,” which appeared in the Iowa County Democrat, Mineral Point, WI, on October 14, 1892, P. 7.
1 “Progress of the Cholera: The Scourge on the Scandia. Normannia Passengers Transferred to the Stonington. New Cases in the Lower Bay – Fire Island Secured for Quarantine Purposes. Work Begin on Sandy Hook Camp,” New York Tribune, New York, NY, September 11, 1892, P. 1.
2 “All’s Well at Quarantine: More Ships Come in and are Detained, but Bring No Cholera Cases,” New York Tribune, New York, NY, September 19, 1892, P. 1.
3 “No End to Their Troubles: How the Rugia’s Passengers were Received by Customs Inspector”, New York Times, New York, NY, September 20, 1892, P.3.
4 “No End to Their Troubles: How the Rugia’s Passengers were Received by Customs Inspector”, New York Times, New York, NY, September 20, 1892, P.3.
You've portrayed the entitlement so well. After tense days and nights of living with the constant threat of cholera from “the poor unfortunates below”, their pleas had been answered – they had the ship to themselves." An entire ship renovated - including being fully stocked with good food - just to hold these upper class quarantinees. "When informed the facility would house both cabin and steerage passengers, however, they’d unanimously refused. . ."
The breathing deeply at being released from the threat turning into not being able to breathe because of the toxic smoke.
Complaining that they had no liberty (while on a ship custom converted to be comfortable for them) with no regard for the fellow passengers who were not so lucky.
Not wanting to touch the doctor who had saved them, cheering when he was knocked over (reminds me of Fauci in some ways)
And not to say that her experience wasn't horrible for her, but this statement "The experience of being quarantined on a cholera ship, she said, was dreadful, and encompassed “horrors which no one can know.” feels so incredibly out of touch. Talk to people who were in steerage if you really want to know those horrors . . .
Gripping. And painful to read too, as it's way too easy to see how this mindset holds.
This has been another great series Lori. You have highlighted the sense of entitlement beautifully. What an irony it was for them to be overlooking the Statue of Liberty when their freedom was taken away.