Department of State, Washington,
June 2, 1865.
The proceedings already adopted in Bermuda for the punishment of some of
the parties implicated in this diabolical scheme, and the requirements
of common humanity so fully recognized by all British communities,
render it hardly necessary for me to point out to you the expediency of
your communicating with the authorities of Bermuda on the subject, with
a view to their adoption of such measures as will subject all the guilty
parties to the severest punishment which can be lawfully applied to
them.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your
obedient servant,
Hon. SIr Frederick W. A. Bruce,
&c., &c., &c.
Major General Dix to Mr. Seward
Headquarters Department of the
East, New York
City,
May 31, 1865.
Sir: The bearer, Frederick Buckstorf, from
Bermuda, will deliver to you some papers showing that four trunks of
clothing infected with yellow fever are now in this city, and that
they were brought here by Rainey, a colored barber, now in
Bermuda.
I have thought the matter of such urgent importance as to warrant my
sending him to you, with a view to the adoption of such measures as
may be necessary to secure this city from a great calamity,
especially as the matter is beyond the reach of my own authority
Rainey being in a foreign country.
Respectfully, yours,
JOHN A. DIX, Major
General.
Hon William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
[Enclosure.]
Office of the Superintendent
of the Metropolitan Police, New York,
May 29,
1865.
Statement of Frederick
Buckstorf.
I reside at 172 Ludlow street, rear building. I arrived here on
Thursday last from Bermuda, in the brig T. H. A. Pitt. I left
Bermuda on the Thursday previous. One day before leaving, Mrs.
Swan, the wife of E. C. Swan, who has been tried and sentenced
in Bermuda for having in his possession clothing infected with
yellow fever, told me that she had been told by certain parties,
(one of them was the cook of the Hamilton Hotel, a negro woman,)
that a negro barber named Joseph H. Rainey, who went with Dr.
Blackburn last October to Halifax, and from there alone to New
York, on his return from New York told the cook that he had
taken charge of four trunks for Dr. Blackburn, containing
infected clothing, and bottles containing black-vomit that had
been collected by Dr. Blackburn; and that he, Joseph H. Rainey,
had left the same in New York, where they were to be opened and
exposed in June next. I also heard from several parties in
Bermuda that Rainey had left Bermuda without means, and on his
return he started a barber’s shop; and it was known that he was
possessed of funds. Mr. Allen, United States consul, told me
that when Rainey applied to him for a passport for New York, he
said he was going by the way of Halifax; that Mr. Allen thought
at the time it was strange, that he should take such an
expensive route, as the fare was forty dollars to Halifax, and
the fare was only twenty dollars to New York in a
sailing-vessel.
[Page 169]
[Enclosure.]
Office of the Superintendent
of the Metropolitan Police, New York,
May 29,
1865.
Statement of Matilda
Swan,
I arrived here in New York on Thursday last in the brig T. A. C.
Pitt, from Bermuda. My husband is Edward C. Swan; he was
arrested in Bermuda some weeks since for having in his
possession trunks of infected clothing; they were sent to his
house by Dr. Blackburn. My husband has been tried, convicted,
and was at the time of my leaving Bermuda awaiting his sentence.
A few days before I left Bermuda, while I was boarding at the
Talford hotel—I was standing at the kitchen door—I heard the
cook, a negro woman, say to a Mrs. Emery, that if she, the cook,
had been called on, she would have exposed the whole matter, and
that a man named Rainey, a colored barber, was the man who Dr.
Blackburn had employed to take four trunks of infected clothing
to New York, and that they were in New York now, and she
believed that they would certainly have the yellow fever in New
York this summer, and that Dr. Blackburn had paid him to take
the trunks to New York, and had started him in business in
Bermuda, and had sent Rainey’s family from Canada to
Bermuda.
