« Previous page | Start of chapter | Book contents | Next page »
CHAPTER VIII....continued
Let us follow the Irish emigrant--'the faithful Irish'--farther up the St. Lawrence.
In the grounds of the General Hospital of Kingston there is an artificial mound, of gentle swell and moderate elevation, the grass on which is ever green, as if owing to some peculiar richness of the soil. When verdure has been elsewhere burned up or parched, on this soft-swelling mound greenness is perpetual. Beneath that verdant shroud lie mouldering the bones of 1,900 Irish immigrants, victims of the same awful scourge of their race--the ship-fever. With the intention of pushing on to the West, the goal of their hopes, multitudes of the Irish reached Kingston, 350 miles up the St. Lawrence from Quebec; but the plague broke out amongst this mass of human misery, and they rotted away like sheep. So fast did they die, that there were not means to provide coffins in which to inter them. There was timber more than sufficient for the purpose, but the hands to fashion the plank into the coffin were too few, and Death was too rapid in his stroke; and so a huge pit of circular form was dug, and in it were laid, in tiers, piled one upon the other, the bodies of 1,000 men, women, and children: and even to the hour when I beheld the light of the setting sun imparting additional beauty to its vivid greenness, there was neither rail, nor fence, nor stone, nor cross, nor inscription, to tell that 1,900 of a Christian people slept beneath the turf of that gigantic grave.
Twenty years ago Kingston was a small place, with little more than half its present population; and the Irish, who now form an important portion of its community, were then comparatively few in number. But in no part of British America did the Irish display a more heroic devotion to humanity and country than in that city, from which the greater number of the inhabitants had fled in terror, at the presence of the migratory hordes who brought pestilence with them in their march. The Irish of the town stood their ground bravely; and not only were their houses thrown open to their afflicted countrypeople, and their means placed unreservedly at their disposal, but they tended the sick and dying, and ministered to them in the holiest spirit of charity. Among the best and bravest of those who succoured the plague-smitten of that dreadful time were three Irish Protestants--Mr. Kirkpatrick, then Mayor of Kingston; Alderman Robert Anglin; and Mr. William Ford, afterwards Mayor--who were in the sheds both day and night, and by their ceaseless efforts to relieve the sufferers inspired others with increased courage and still greater self-devotion.
Father Dollard, an Irish clergyman, had to bear the chief share of the priestly duty; and from the first moment that the fever broke out, until the earth was beaten down on the top of the grave-mound, he was in the midst of the danger. So shocking was the condition in which the unhappy people reached Kingston, the last resting-place of many of them, that the clergymen, three at the most, had to change their own clothes repeatedly in the day. One of the three priests, who had been only just ordained, died of the contagion.
When the plague abated, and the danger no longer existed, the inhabitants returned; and now there began an unseemly scramble for the orphan children of the Catholic parents who slept beneath the mound in the grounds of the Hospital. The Irish Catholics of the surrounding locality strained every resource in order to afford a home to the orphans of their native country and religion, and through their charity the greater number of them were well provided for; but others of a different faith secured a certain proportion of the children, who are now perhaps bitter opponents of the creed of their fathers.
The same scenes of suffering and death were to be witnessed in the city of Toronto, as in the other cities of Canada during those memorable years 1847 and 1848. Sheds were constructed, and hearses and dead-carts were in hourly requisition. The panic was universal; but the humane and high-spirited, of all denominations, did their duty manfully. Two and three coffins were constantly to be seen on the hearse or waggon used for bearing the dead to the grave-pit outside the town. One day the horse drawing this hearse got restive, and, breaking from his conductor, upset the three coffins, which, falling into pieces, literally gave up their dead. This occurred near the Market Square, about the most public thoroughfare in Toronto, and at once a crowd assembled, horror-stricken but fascinated by the awful spectacle. Every effort was made to repair as speedily as possible the momentary disaster; but it was some time before the three wasted bodies of the poor Irish could be hidden from sight. The priests, as in all similar cases, were ceaselessly at work, with the usual result--the sacrifice of several of their number.
Among the losses which the Catholic Church had to deplore during this crisis was that of a venerable Irishman, Dr. Power, Bishop of Toronto. He was implored by his people not to expose a life so valuable to his flock; but he replied, that where the souls of Christians, and these the natives of his own country, were in peril, it was his duty to be there. 'My good priests are down in sickness, and the duty devolves on me. The poor souls are going to heaven, and I will do all I can to assist them,' said the Bishop. And, in spite of the most earnest and affectionate remonstrance, he persevered in performing the same labours as the youngest of his priests. The Bishop prepared for his post of danger by making his will, and appointing an administrator. The letters of administration were lengthy, and of much importance, embracing necessarily the financial and other concerns of the diocese. This document, most precious from its association with the voluntary martyrdom of the venerable Prelate, is preserved among the episcopal archives of Toronto. It was commenced with a bold firm hand; but as it proceeded amid frequent interruptions--his visits to console the dying being their chief cause--the writing became more and more feeble, until one might mark, in the faint and trembling characters of the concluding lines, the near approach of death, which soon consigned him to the tomb, another martyr to duty. Rarely, if ever, has a larger funeral procession been seen in Toronto, and never has there been a more universal manifestation of public sorrow than was witnessed on that mournful occasion. Every place of business in the streets through which the procession passed was closed, and Protestant vied with Catholic in doing honour to the memory of a holy and brave-hearted prelate.
Partridge Island, opposite the city of St. John, New Brunswick, was the scene of more horrors, more destruction of human life. In fact, wherever an emigrant ship touched the shores of the British Provinces, or sailed into their rivers, there is the same awful carnage to be recorded.
A portion of the survivors pushed on to the West, their march still tracked by fever, and marked by new-made graves. The majority stopped at various places on the way, or spread over Central and Western Canada, many settling on Crown lands placed at their disposal by the Government, but others hiring themselves as farm labourers, not having, as yet, the energy to face the forest, and engage in a struggle for which disease and sorrow had rendered them for a time unequal. But in half a dozen years after might be seen, along the shores of the lakes, and on the banks of the great rivers and their tributaries, prosperous settlements of those fever-hunted exiles, who, flying in terror from their own country, carried plague and desolation with them to the country of their adoption. It was remarked of them that, though they bravely rallied, and set about their work as settlers with an energy almost desperate, many seemed to be prematurely old, and broke down after some years of ceaseless toil; but not before they had achieved the great object of their ambition--made a home and realised a property for those who, with them, survived the horrors of the passage, and the havoc of the quarantine and the fever-shed.
Even to this day the terror inspired in the minds of the inhabitants through whose districts the Irish emigrants passed in the terrible years of 1847 and 1848 has not died out. I was told of one instance where, little more than a year since, whole villages were scared at the announcement, happily untrue, that 'the poor Irish were coming, and were bringing the fever with them.' It was scarcely a subject for the pleasantry of the wag.
As explorers and pioneers, the Irish have been as adventurous and successful as any others in Canada. As lumbermen, they have pushed far in advance of the footsteps of civilisation. Twenty-five years since they were to be found in the forests along the banks of the Moira, which empties itself into the Bay of Quinte, cutting down the great trees, 'making timber,' then guiding it down the rapids, and bringing it to Quebec. And among the most fearless and daring, as well as skilful, of the navigators of the tremendous rapids of the St. Lawrence are the Irish. The Canadian, though dexterous with the axe, is occasionally rather apt to depend on his prayers in a moment of emergency; whereas the Irishman, who, to say the least, is fully as pious as the Canadian, acts on the wise belief that Providence helps those who help themselves. At the head of the Ottawa, which is the great lumbering centre of Canada, the Irish have principally settled the town of Pembroke, in which reside many who, once enterprising lumbermen and bold raftsmen, are now living at their ease, in the enjoyment of their hard-earned wealth. There is one in particular, who went miles up the river beyond Pembroke, and brought his family into the almost impenetrable forest. Twenty years ago he was a raftsman, earning 16 dollars a month, and he is now one of the richest men on the river. Within twelve miles of Pembroke, at Fort William, a station belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, the keenest competitors with the Company in the purchase of furs are Irishmen. Following up the Ottawa, to French River, which empties itself into Lake Huron, along that river and the small tributaries of the Ottawa, are to be found thriving Irish settlements of not more than six years' date. In fact, the Irish have penetrated everywhere, and have proved themselves bold and self-reliant, and, even perhaps in a greater degree than the other nationalities, have displayed the most wonderful faculty of adapting themselves to every possible circumstance. This faculty, whether of adapting themselves to natural circumstances or to political institutions, specially distinguishes the Irish race.
« Previous page | Start of chapter | Book contents | Next page »