23.0 — John Hayward, the death cart and the bell…
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe 1722
Part of a series — A Journal of the Plague Year — An Annotated Text
23.1 — gravedigger and bearer of the dead
This brings these two men to a further remembrance….
..the name of one was John Hayward, who was at that time undersexton of the parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street.
By undersexton was understood at that time gravedigger and bearer of the dead.
This man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in form;
and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the dead-cart and the bell to fetch the dead bodies from the houses where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and houses;
for the parish was, and is still, remarkable particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very long way;
which alleys now remain to witness it, such as White’s Alley, Cross Key Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, White Horse Alley, and many more.
Here they went with a kind of hand-barrow and laid the dead bodies on it, and carried them out to the carts;
which work he performed and never had the distemper at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death.
23.2 — His wife at the same time was a nurse to infected people,
and tended many that died in the parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers; yet she never was infected neither.
He never used any preservative against the infection, other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco.
This I also had from his own mouth.
23.3 — she snuffed vinegar up her nose
And his wife’s remedy was washing her head in vinegar and sprinkling her head-clothes so with vinegar as to keep them always moist, and if the smell of any of those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed vinegar up her nose and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes, and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth.
It must be confessed that though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage; I must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion nor prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any business which they could get employment in, though it was the most hazardous.
Such was that of tending the sick, watching houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and, which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their graves.
23.4 — a blind piper..the dead cart had not taken him yet, but that they had promised to call for him next week.
It was under this John Hayward’s care, and within his bounds, that the story of the piper, with which people have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was true.
It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and usually walked his rounds about ten o’clock at night and went piping along from door to door, and the people usually took him in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would pipe and sing and talk simply, which diverted the people; and thus he lived.
It was but a very bad time for this diversion while things were as I have told, yet the poor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved; and when anybody asked how he did he would answer, the dead cart had not taken him yet, but that they had promised to call for him next week.
23.5 — ‘Why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you.’
It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had given him too much drink or no —
John Hayward said he had not drink in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals than ordinary at a public-house in Coleman Street —
and the poor fellow, having not usually had a bellyful for perhaps not a good while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and fast asleep, at a door in the street near London Wall, towards Cripplegate, and that upon the same bulk or stall the people of some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing a bell which they always rang before the cart came, had laid a body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking, too, that this poor fellow had been a dead body, as the other was, and laid there by some of the neighbours.
Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with the instrument they used and threw them into the cart, and, all this while the piper slept soundly.
From hence they passed along and took in other dead bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart; yet all this while he slept soundly.
23.6 — At length the cart came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mount Mill;
and as the cart usually stopped some time before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it,
as soon as the cart stopped the fellow awaked and struggled a little to get his head out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the cart, he called out,
‘Hey! where am I?’
This frighted the fellow that attended about the work; but after some pause John Hayward, recovering himself, said, ‘Lord, bless us! There’s somebody in the cart not quite dead!’
So another called to him and said, ‘Who are you?’
The fellow answered, ‘I am the poor piper. Where am I?’
‘Where are you?’ says Hayward.
‘Why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you.’ ‘But I an’t dead though, am I?’
says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John said, they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about his business.
I know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart and frighted the bearers and others so that they ran away;
but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all;
but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above I am fully satisfied of the truth of.
23.7- one cart went through several parishes
It is to be noted here that the dead-carts in the city were not confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through several parishes, according as the number of dead presented; nor were they tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes, but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the burying-ground in the out-parts for want of room.