How a Gravedigger Became a Hero: King Solomon and the 1833 Cholera Epidemic

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the summer of 1833, Lexington, Kentucky, was brought to its knees by a cholera outbreak. Entire families were lost in a matter of days, and fear spread faster than the disease itself. When the dead outnumbered the living willing to bury them, one man stepped forward. His name was Solomon. Most people in town dismissed him as a drunk gravedigger. But in the middle of the crisis, he dug without stopping, gave the dead their dignity, and kept the city from collapsing under the weight of its own fear. Kentucky journalist Sam Terry tells the story of King Solomon, the unlikely hero whose redemption came in the middle of one of the deadliest epidemics in American history.

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