On Sept. 10, 1918, two hundred sick sailors were admitted to the new emergency hospital. Meanwhile, Chelsea Naval Hospital, just north of Charlestown, quickly filled with influenza patients, two-dozen of whom had already died from pneumonia caused by severe cases of influenza.

The approximately 2,500 non-ill sailors at Commonwealth Pier were relocated to tent barracks at the muster field in Framingham as a means of removing them from harm’s way.

The 200 sailors – expected to board a train for the training station at the Charleston Naval Yard in South Carolina – were kept in place so as not to transmit influenza to the South.  It was a futile attempt, but there was little else naval officials could do. Meanwhile, Camp Devens, an Army installation of some 50,000 men and located just 45 miles northwest of Boston, was in the midst of its own massive epidemic. Boston was surrounded on all sides.