Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART I CALENDAR OF CORK EMIGRANT SHIP SAILINGS 1815-60

notwithstanding the low rate of Canal tolls, passed the Lachine rapids. Last year two Durham boats were lost in that passage, and we have been credibly informed that the Dundas struck three times a few days ago on the rocks and the Commerce nearly the whole way. Ten new Durham boats have arrived from Prescott and its neighbourhood since the opening of the Canal. This intelligence is truly gratifying to the friends of Provincial improvement and is a precursor of the benefit yet to arise to this Province and this City in particular, for when the Rideau, Welland and Grenville Canals are finished, the whole produce of the country bordering on those water communications will descend to Montreal through the Lachine Canal’ ( The Ships List ). The Grenville Canal, 9 km with 7 locks, built by French Canadians and Irish emigrants 1818-33 would bypass rapids on the Ottawa River between Bytown (Ottawa City) and Montreal. * Typhus Report on Irish Vessel In September 1827, the brig James , destined for Quebec entered Halifax harbour from St. John’s, Newfoundland, with 120 passengers ‘of the most wretched description’. The emigrant vessel originally left Waterford with 160 passengers but was forced to stop in St. John’s after five passengers died at sea from typhus fever. The James left St. John’s on 29 August; its load lightened to 120 passengers. Thirty-five passengers, either already dead or too sick to continue the voyage, remained in Newfoundland to be buried or cared for by medical officers there, while the master of the James chose to carry on to Quebec. Once the vessel left Newfoundland, typhus fever broke out again, forcing the ship to land in Halifax. Nova Scotia’ Sir James Kempt to Lord Goderich, September 7, 1827 There arrived this day in the brig James from Waterford One Hundred and twenty Passengers of the most wretched description, all of whom , as well as the whole Crew . . . are labouring under Typhus Fever. One hundred and sixty embarked in Ireland—five died at Sea, —and the Vessel being obliged to put into St. John's, Newfoundland for Medical Assistance and Provisions, thirty-five were left behind there too ill to proceed ( The Ships List ). Nova Scotia’s Lieutenant Governor James Kempt, in another letter to Viscount Goderich, stated that all passengers, including the crew, were infected with typhus fever, blaming the ‘scanty nourishment during the voyage . . . the crowded and filthy state of the ship and . . . a want of medical assistance’. Kempt was definite in his criticisms of Irish ships and of the fact recent repeal in Parliament of the act “for regulating vessels carrying passengers,” recounting that five other ships had arrived over the summer months, overcrowded and disease-ridden, forcing him to create a hospital ‘expressly for the reception of these poor emigrants’. He stated that several Halifax residents had already developed symptoms of fever, expressing his overall concern for the health of the town’s inhabitants. By November, it was clear why Kempt was so worried. The death toll in Halifax amounted to over 800 out of a population of 11,000, largely as a result of the typhus fever outbreak (Fowler 2018, 51). The threat of transmittable disease in the 19th century forced Halifax, along with other ports in Nova Scotia and throughout British North America, to create measures to accommodate the disembarkation of emigrants carrying potentially infectious diseases in an attempt to protect the well-being of resident settlers as well as new arrivals. Although Kempt stated in November 1827 that the health of the town had improved, and that the emigrant hospital was no longer needed, he used the typhus outbreak to accentuate the need for more regulation regarding emigrant ships, ideally in the form of parliamentary acts. In November, a report