To her sister Euphrosine, Madame Jean-Joseph Jouve

Portrait of  Taylor by James Lambdin (1848)

September 1, 1849 ~ Philippine writes to her sister Euphrosine, "During the cholera epidemic this year the President of the United States, General Taylor, sent a message to every state in the Union, ordering the First Friday of August to be kept as a day of prayer, with all public work stopped, in order that the people might humble themselves before God and obtain a cessation of the epidemic."

Taken from the book: Through the Year with Philippine Duchesne

By the end of July cholera was rampant throughout the United States. President Zachary Taylor declared August 3, 1849, as nationwide day of "Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer." The following proclamation by New Jersey Governor Daniel Haines was published in the Paterson Intelligencer, August l, 1849.

PROCLAMATIONBy the Governor of New Jersey.
WHEREAS the President of the United States, in consideration of the prevailing pestilence, has set apart FRIDAY, the third day of August next, and recommended that it be observed throughout the United States, as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer; and whereas I believe that the people of this State recognize the obligations of a Christian nation publicly to acknowledge their dependence upon Almighty God, and humbly to bow beneath the strokes of his afflictive providence, and fervently to supplicate his mercy; I do therefore hereby cordially respond to the sentiments expressed by the Chief Magistrate of the Union, and unite with him, in recommending to all the citizens of the State, the due and proper observance of the day named; and that abstaining from their worldly pursuits, they assemble themselves in their respective places of public worship, there with humble confession of sin and thankful acknowledgment of past mercies, unitedly and fervently to implore the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, to remove from us the scourge with which we are afflicted and speedily to restore to us the inestimable blessing of health.
Given under my hand at the city of Trenton, the twenty-sixth day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty nine.
DAN’L HAINES