Lines on the Death of Hilary Baker

Broadside verse, within an elaborate ornamental border, on wove paper with a Brandywine Mills watermark. 9-1/2x8 inches. [Philadelphia: R. Aitken?, 1798].

Thirty line elegiac poem below the above title, beginning: "The dire disease which through our city sheads / Its mortal poison e'er our quilty heads, / At length has levell'a in the silent dust, / The man whom foes and friends alike could trust ...

During the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1798, Philadelphia Mayor Hilary Baker stayed within the city, rather than fleeing to the country with most of the city's wealthy and elite. He contracted yellow fever and died on September 25, 1798.

The ornamental border is very elaborate and similar to one on a broadside elegy on the death of George Washington issued in 1800 by Robert Aitken (Evans 37079). This broadside is unrecorded.

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