In 1855, the City of Norfolk was struck with a yellow fever epidemic when the captain of an American steamer ignored the quarantine of the port authorities and pumped the ship’s bilge water into the Elizabeth River. The ship had just returned from the Dutch West Indies where the epidemic raged, and the bilge water was teeming with infected mosquito larvae. Soon the larvae hatched and the disease began to spread.

At the height of the epidemic, between 50 and 80 people died each day. Despite the dangers, eight sisters of the Daughters of Charity, who had come to Norfolk in 1839 to operate the St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, offered to nurse the ill and dying door-to-door and in makeshift hospitals. A wealthy patron of the orphanage, Ann Plume Behan Herron, opened her home to the Daughters of Charity to use as a hospital. The sisters’ mission continued even after Miss Herron’s death when her family honored her last wish and deeded the home to the Daughters of Charity.

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