In 1849, a steamship named after President James Monroe headed from St. Louis to Council Bluffs, Iowa. The passengers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Philadelphia. At St. Louis, they were joined with a group of California gold diggers from Jeffersonville, Indiana. But their trip was interrupted when cholera broke out on board. Local fourteen-year-old James McHenry discovered the steamship after it landed at Jefferson City and observed the dead and dying victims along the riverbank. Author Gary Elliott details the history of the outbreak in the city and its far-reaching effects.
A resident of Jefferson City, Missouri, Gary Elliott is a land surveyor by profession. He enjoys playing the piano, camping and hiking, as well as researching his (or anyone's) family history. He has authored The History of the Jefferson City and Cole County Councils of the Boy Scouts of America, 1910-1929 (Morris Publishing, 2010) and They Came and They Went: A Brief Account of Hannibal Missouri's Early Jewish Community and the B'nai Sholem Cemetery (Along with Those Interred There) (Art Bookbindery Inc., 2017). He loves the challenge of separating the fact from the fiction. In this story, Gary has expanded his interest in history to try to unravel another historical event. He feels that "there is always a story to be told, and one does not have to be a professional writer to tell it."