James Chisholm was the rector of St. Johns Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, Virginia.

In 1855, an aggressive yellow fever epidemic swept through tidewater Virginia. Many of the regions wealthy citizens were able to escape the area to avoid exposure and contamination. In most cases the physicians and clergy who served them departed as well. This left the areas poor bereft of doctors, caregivers and, in some cases, the basic provisions of food and water to sustain life.