Great Famine Voices

Why do so many people associate Strokestown with Irish Famine and emigration? The reasons are manifold. In November 1847, at the height of the Great Famine, the landlord of Strokestown Park, Major Denis Mahon, was shot on his way home from Roscommon. Over 100 years later, Major Mahon’s ancestor, Olive Pakenham Mahon, sold Strokestown Park to Jim Callery, a local businessman who needed land in the town to expand his thriving business. Although now owner of the house, Jim allowed Olive to remain resident for many years. Jim tells the story much better than I do.He can take over…more

The Past Whispers
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Memorial Stone on Partridge Island, N.B.

©2018 The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Partridge Island Quarantine Station

The Partridge Island quarantine station was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1974 because of the significant role it played in immigration to Canada, and more specifically to the Maritime Provinces, in the 19th century.


The heritage value of Partridge Island Quarantine Station National Historic Site of Canada lies in its historic role as a 19th-century quarantine station as illustrated by the site, setting and landscape of the island and the quarantine-related remains it contains. Partridge Island was one of two major quarantine stations in 19th-century Canada. 

Established in 1830 to protect Canadian citizens from contagious diseases carried by in-coming ships, the station provided treatment for immigrants and crew members who were ill, as well as purification facilities for the healthy passengers aboard the ships. This station was active during a particularly early and busy period of Canadian immigration. During 1847, 2000 Irish immigrants fleeing from the potato famine were quarantined here during a typhus epidemic. 601 of them are buried in a mass grave on the island. Passengers quarantined on this island eventually settled in New Brunswick, Upper Canada and the United States.


Partridge Island continued to be used as a quarantine station until 1941. It was occupied for the military defence of Saint John during both World Wars, and also used as a light station. All buildings on the island were demolished in 1955 and 1998-1999. Today the site contains remnants of buildings and structures associated with its important role as a 19th-century quarantine station, including those of the doctor’s residence (built ca. 1872), the 2nd class immigrants, marine officers’ and smallpox hospitals (1899-1901), a low water wharf, and a cemetery containing graves from the 1847 typhus epidemic.

Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, May 1974, June 1983, June 1984; Commemorative Integrity Statement, March 2001.


Partridge Island continued to be used as a quarantine station until 1941. It was occupied for the military defence of Saint John during both World Wars, and also used as a light station. All buildings on the island were demolished in 1955 and 1998-1999. Today the site contains remnants of buildings and structures associated with its important role as a 19th-century quarantine station, including those of the doctor’s residence (built ca. 1872), the 2nd class immigrants, marine officers’ and smallpox hospitals (1899-1901), a low water wharf, and a cemetery containing graves from the 1847 typhus epidemic.

 

  

Partridge Island, N.B.

The Celtic Cross Memorial

Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick within the city's Inner Harbour.

The island is a provincial historic site and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974. It lies on the west side of the mouth of the Saint John River
Partridge Island was first established as a quarantine station and pest house in 1785 by the Saint John Royal Charter, which also set aside the island for use as a navigational aids station and a military post. Its first use as a Quarantine Station was not until 1816. A hospital was constructed on the island in 1830.

It received its largest influx of immigrants in the 1840's during the Great Famine, known as the "Irish Potato Famine", when a shortage of potatoes occurred because of potato blight striking Ireland's staple crop, causing millions to starve to death or otherwise emigrate, mainly to North America. During the famine, some 30,000 immigrants were processed by the island's visiting and resident physicians, with 1196 dying at Partridge Island and the adjacent city of Saint John during the Typhus epidemic of 1847. During the 1890's there were over 78,000 immigrants a year being examined or treated on the island.

A memorial to the Irish immigrants of the mid-1840's was set up on the island in the 1890's but by World War One it had deteriorated. In 1926 the Saint John City Cornet Band approached Saint John contractor George McArthur who agreed to lead a campaign to build a suitable monument. The Celtic Cross memorial to the Irish dead of 1847 was dedicated in 1927. 

This was restored and rededicated in 1985. In the early and mid-1980's the Saint John Jewish Community, the Loyal Orange Lodge, the Partridge Island Research Project, and the Partridge Island & Harbour Heritage Inc., a company that was registered in 1988 and dissolved in 2004 erected memorials to the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish immigrants buried in one of the six island graveyards, as well as a monument to all of the Irish dead from 1830 to the 1920's.

©2018 The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved