Cholera Cemetery: Mass Grave
Sandusky, Ohio
357 victims of Sandusky's 1849 cholera epidemic were buried here in a pit, killed over a period of only 68 days. At the time, people blamed the disease on "dissipated habits" -- mostly drunkenness -- not realizing that it was in fact caused by drinking water that had been contaminated by leaking outhouses and cesspits. Additional victims fled the city for the supposedly safer countryside, but they drank the same contaminated water, died, and were buried elsewhere.
Subsequent cholera epidemics in 1852 and 1854 took even more lives in Sandusky, but its citizens never figured out why they were dying.
The graveyard features a metal "Cholera Cemetery" entry arch and a pillar honoring the "unselfish faithfulness" of those who tended to the sick.
According to local lore, the corpses in the Cholera Cemetery were buried by the town drunk, who was immune thanks to his preference for alcohol over water.