Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART I CALENDAR OF CORK EMIGRANT SHIP SAILINGS 1815-60

* Emigrant Saga at the Grosse Île Quarantine Station, Quebec begins In 1847 , Grosse Île below Quebec became the epicenter of the Famine tragedy . In 1846 fewer than 100 of the 150 sick beds on the island had been filled at any one time, yet the medical superintendent, Dr. George Douglas , learning of continuing famine in Ireland, expanded the capacity to 200 hospital beds and sufficient sheds to shelter 800 healthy quarantined passengers in 1847. Between 14 May and 19 May 1847 four ships deposited 285 sick and 1200 healthy passengers on the island. Two days later another five ships arrived with 1700 passengers, 500 of them sick (Charbonneau & Sévigny 1997, 3). And so, the season began. ‘On Friday, May 14, 1847, a sailing ship, Syria , anchored off Grosse Île in an area known since 1832 as the quarantine pass. It had taken Captain Cox and his 245 passengers 46 days to travel from the large port of Liverpool, England, to this small island and its quarantine station, 34 kilometers east of the port of Quebec. On reaching Grosse Île, the captain declared that nine emigrants had already died, while 52 others were suffering from dysentery and the terrible disease known as ship fever, or typhus. Two weeks later, over half of the vessel’s passengers were in hospital on the island. The sinister procession of sick and dying emigrants had begun. Involving mostly frail, destitute Irish, it came to an end 171 days later, on Monday, November 1, when the Lord Ashburton left the quarantine station for Quebec City. All the tragic events of the 1847 navigation season took place during this six-month period, when about 400 vessels unwittingly took part in this ghastly cortege. They transported a good portion of some 100,000 emigrants who left that year for Quebec City, the gateway to Canada. In 1847, nearly 2 emigrants in 10 died on ships crossing the Atlantic or sailing up the St Lawrence, or even after they reached Grosse Île or major Canadian cities. This singularly tragic odyssey, involving mainly Irish emigrants, made a lasting impression individuals and society as a whole. The massive influx of newcomers not only had an immediate impact on the history of the communities along the river but eventually took on legendary proportions on account of its evocative power and its place in people’s memories. No other location in Canada is so closely associated with this sad, but memorable period than Grosse Île quarantine station – that isolated outpost to which the authorities entrusted the impossible mission of averting a nation-wide health catastrophe’ (Charbonneau & Sévigny, 1997,1). * Deaths of Quebec-bound Emigrants Perhaps the most notorious Ship, Virginius , Capt. Austin, arrived at Quebec from Liverpool with 476 passengers, 186 sick and 158 deaths – ultimately the death count came to 267 ( 56.09% died ). Most of these passengers were Irish. The Master, Mate, and all but six crew also became ill. Death rates were notably higher on the Cork-Quebec and Liverpool-Quebec routes. ‘The two deadliest voyage routes in 1847 were Liverpool to Quebec (27,051 Irish passengers) with 15.36% mortality and Cork to Quebec (10,205 Irish passengers) with 18.66% mortality: fatality rates approaching that 20% of ‘Coffin Ship’ legend. Limerick , Ireland's second busiest emigration port in 1847, lost only 3.28%, while Sligo , which shipped half as many, lost 11.18%. Belfast and Dublin , the third and fourth busiest emigration ports, lost 4.36% and 7.72% respectively’ (Sutton 2022, 357). ‘Terrible and sad as many of their stories were, the 37,256 people who traveled from Liverpool and Cork to Quebec in 1847 represent slightly over one-third of the 98,479 Irish who sailed to North America that year and less than 2 percent of the over two million who emigrated during the Famine at large’ (McMahon 2021, 160). McMahon further stated that of the 33 ships that sailed from Cork to Quebec in 1847, just seven were responsible for 45% of the deaths, and two barques, Avon and Bee had mortality rates of 55.28% and 46.88% (ibid., 156-7).