He also knew that the quarantine was a farce. Twice a week friends and family could visit those being detained at the hospital, and hundreds came and went on ferry boats between the island and the city. Rags and discarded bedding from Tompkinsville were sold to ragpickers and peddlers and found their way into the city before nightfall. Hundreds of emigrants awaiting clearance dug hovels for themselves on the thirty acres of hospital grounds rather than risk being contaminated within the filthy, overcrowded buildings where health care was at a minimum. Many ships failed inspection for unsanitary conditions only to have their passengers held “for their good as well as native Americans” in conditions far worse.
An old salt as well as an experienced businessman, Captain Bailey realized all too well the economic reasons for holding a thousand people at a time in relative captivity. While detained at Tompkinsville, emigrants needed to purchase the necessities of life: coffee, tea, and food stuffs. Cook pots, blankets, medicines, preventatives, and the like were offered at outrageous prices by the bands of peddlers and hawkers who paid the health officers a generous stipend to be “allowed” to ply their trade in Tompkinsville.
Callie craned her neck to see over Patrick’s shoulder as the Yorkshire sailed through the narrows. To the right was the low, flat land of New York City, buildings and wharves clearly visible along the harbor where ships’ masts on South Street stood like a never-ending forest. To the right were the ancient, crumbling walls of Fort Wadsworth, and beyond that, hundreds of ships lying at anchor. She heard the order to weigh anchor, and the sails reefed. The Yorkshire bobbed in the choppy waters of Upper Bay like a cork on a string. All eyes were turned to the Island of Manhattan, the place of their future, the hope of their new beginning. Tears brimmed, and all wondered if the great city of the western world would swallow them in one greedy gulp. Or would they find the promised land?
Hardly a spit away from Manhattan at the narrows was the shore of Staten Island, a narrow beachfront from which rocky ledges rose into shallow cliffs. Beyond the cliffs Callie could see the greens and golds of trees in full autumn array. She could smell God’s good earth and hear the sounds of voices carrying over the water. Small boats and steamers scooted back and forth between the anchored ships. Peddlers and merchants manned these small rivercraft, selling their goods to the passengers. Ready-made clothes, fresh bread, God blessed milk!
“Tis the American way!” Patrick beamed. “Free enterprise! And wonderful it is!”
Callie didn’t think it wonderful that half-starved people should be charged prices they could scarcely afford. Nine shillings for a pint of milk, she had heard, seven for a loaf of bread. More than a month’s salary for her labors at the mill in Dublin.
A pilot boat putted toward the Yorkshire, several officious looking gentlemen with stern expressions on their faces standing in the stem—the doctor and the government health officials. As expected, a line was thrown to the pilot boat, and a Jacob’s ladder thrown over the side of the Yorkshire. Everyone watched dourly, silently; their futures depended upon these men.
Within minutes word spread that the Yorkshire was to be held in quarantine. Loud curses and hopeless wails went up among the people. They had traveled thousands of miles and were within sight of their destination only to be held back and denied entrance. They were to complete an orderly disembarkation to the beach where they were to await further medical examination. Typhus was said to be aboard the Yorkshire..
As ordered, pokes and baggage were brought from below. Patrick carried Paddy and steadied Beth through the crowd. Shouts and cries filled the air; defeat and havoc prevailed. “Don’t become separated!” Patrick shouted above the din, warning Callie.
Even as Patrick warned her, rough hands seized Callie’s shoulders, propelling her toward the Yorkshire’s rail, wresting her baggage from her and tossing it to a boat below. “Over the side, girlie,” the shipmate growled. Callie was half-lifted, half-thrown over the rail to grab hold of one of the many rope ladders leading down to the skiffs that hugged the Yorkshire’s side. She hung there, like a spider in a web, too terrified to move, too muddled with confusion and the horror of the murky waters far below. “Go on with you! First your feet, then your hands!” the shipmate instructed, already tossing someone else’s poke down to the boat.
The ladder swayed; the skiff seemed miles below her, but move she must, for a man was climbing down the same ladder as she. She felt first with one foot and then the other, holding on for dear life. Hands were reaching up for her, steadying her last few steps. Even when she sat in the bobbing skiff, Callie’s panic would not subside. All around her were shouts and terrified cries. Children and babies were lowered by ropes; many fell into the water to be picked up at the point of drowning by small boats that circled the area. Like rats chased from their hidey-holes, the passengers left ship. Callie worried for Beth in her bulky condition. Above, the seamen were shouting and pushing, forcing people over the side.
It was only minutes, but to Callie it was a lifetime before the skiff in which she sat was filled to capacity and made its way to shore. She held tightly to her poke, clasping it to her. It was all she had in this world: a few changes of clothes, a small bit of food, and her letters to Peggy.
There were piers built out into the water at the foot of the cliff where the large brick hospital building stood, but none of the skiffs docked there. Instead they pulled up on the beach, and their passengers had to step out into knee-deep water and wade to dry land.
Callie collapsed on the hard-packed, rock-strewn beach. She sat like a broken puppet, repelled by the sights and sounds and the experience of climbing down the rope ladder into an unsteady boat. She was terrified to the core, weak and shaken.
It was an eternity later when Patrick found her, huddled and shivering. “Callie! Callie! Beth sent me to find you . . .” Patrick sank down onto the beach, hard pebbles biting into his knees. He was astounded at finding Callie like this. Bright, tough little Callie James was stiff with fear, shaking and trembling as though the fires of hell had revealed themselves to her. The sight overwhelmed him.
“Callie! Callie! Pull yourself together!” He gathered her into his arms, held her while she burrowed against his chest. “Callie, Beth needs you. You’ve been the strength for all of us.” He soothed her, patting her back, smoothing her long chestnut hair back from her whitened face.
“That’s a girl,” he said when he felt the tremblings soften. “That’s our Callie. You’ll be fine, won’t you? You don’t want them to take you to the hospital, do you? There’s a shelter down the beach a ways where I’ve left Beth and the boy. Come along with me, Callie. Please?”
Callie nodded her head. No, she didn’t want them to take her to the hospital. All she wanted was to see her mother, play with the children . . . but that was impossible. Patrick led her along the beach to find Beth. The light October breezes lifted the strands of hair that had escaped their braid and freshened her cheeks. She would be strong, she told herself over and over. She must be strong.
People milled up and down the beach. Entire families seemed to have set up camp on the beaches and along the sloping cliff. Men, women, children, most of them dressed in little more than rags, littered the beach. The hospital sat high on the hill, various out buildings lining the road down to the water’s edge. Out in the bay more than twenty ships rested at anchor, their passengers within sight of New York City but prevented from going there.
When Beth saw Callie, she threw her arms around her. “Oh, I thought we’d never find you! Someone said a woman drowned before a boat could fish her out of the water . . . Oh, Callie, I thought it might have been you!”
“Hush, Beth,”
