Plagues and Pestilence: A Walking Tour 2025

In the early 1800s West Chester billed itself as an elegant and healthful place, but the reality was very different. Words like cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, rabies, and smallpox struck fear into the heart of every West Cestrian, especially those with small children. Treatments were almost worse than the diseases–bloodletting, blistering, and mercury were all part of the early medicinal arsenal. This tour will explore how diseases impacted families, how they changed burial practices, and how the borough’s medical and scientific minds worked to overcome the King of All Fears–Death.