<P> The state legislature cut short its September session after a dead body was found on the steps of State House . Governor Mifflin became ill and was advised by his doctor to leave . The city's banks remained open . But, banking operations were so slowed by the inability of people to pay off notes because of disruptions from the epidemic that banks automatically renewed notes until the epidemic ended . </P> <P> The mayor Matthew Clarkson organized the city's response to the epidemic . Most of the Common Council members fled, along with 20,000 other residents . People who did not leave Philadelphia before the second week in September could leave the city only with great difficulty, and they faced road blocks, patrols, inspections and quarantines . On September 12, Clarkson summoned fellow citizens interested in helping the Guardians of the Poor . They formed a committee to take over from the Guardians and address the crisis . </P> <P> On the 14th, Clarkson was joined by 26 men, who formed committees to reorganize the fever hospital, arrange visits to the sick, feed those unable to care for themselves, and arrange for wagons to carry the sick to the hospital and the dead to Potter's Field . The Committee acted quickly: after a report of 15 - month - old twins being orphaned, two days later the Committee had identified a house for sheltering the growing number of orphans . As noted above, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones offered the services of members of the Free African Society to the Committee . </P> <P> When the Mayor's Committee inspected the Bush Hill fever hospital, they found the nurses unqualified and arrangements chaotic . "The sick, the dying, and the dead were indiscriminately mingled together . The ordure and other evacuations of the sick, were allowed to remain in the most offensive state imaginable...It was, in fact, a great human slaughter - house ." On September 15, Peter Helm, a barrel maker, and Stephen Girard, a merchant and shipowner born in France, volunteered to personally manage the hospital and represent the Mayor's Committee . </P>

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