New Jerusalem During the American Civil War and Late 19th Century

In the American Civil War, New Jerusalem's finest formed a company of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. Twenty-seven young men died in the struggle; a memorial in Christchurch Cemetery commemorates their sacrifice.
After the Civil War, Missituk College became a full-fledged university. Gas street-lighting was nearly complete by 1870. Visitors were frequent enough that a cab service existed, working out of the rail depot. In 1873, New Jerusalem created a municipal police department after members of a then-illegal fraternity got drunk at Doc Howard's Bar and sparked a riot that damaged many shops and stores along Church Street. A law was soon after passed limiting the proximity of taverns in the campus area.
In 1882, a strange meteorite landed west of New Jerusalem, on a farm belonging to Noah Forester. Professors from the University investigated the meteorite but were unable to learn its true nature. In the end, the Forester family succumbed to a strange disease that eventually left the area barren and scorched.
Unprecedented spring rains in 1888, coupled with offshore storms that drove the sea up the Missituk's estuary, swelled the river far over its banks. The worst flooding ever recorded in New Jerusalem caused extensive damage to the riverside mills. Southwestern New Jerusalem, as far as part of the University campus, was inundated, damaging the basement archives of the library, and destroying irreplaceable acquisitions.
In the next years, new concrete drains and levees eased the danger of a second killer flood. A little later, trolley lines were installed, and the first homes turned from gas light to electricity. Telephone lines appeared. Before the end of the century, a public sanitary water system was completed.
As though to spite these efforts, in 1905 a terrible cholera epidemic swept New Jerusalem, killing many in the sudden plague. Among the many victims was Dr. Albert Haley, then dean of the Missituk School of Medicine and a public benefactor loved by all. A statue to his memory was erected on campus and presently overlooks the town he loved.
New Jerusalem's textile mills never fully recovered from the flood of 1888. New England had lost much of the trade to the South; most of New Jerusalem's firms, underinsured against the disaster, never reopened.