A pest house, plague house, pesthouse or fever shed was a type of building used for persons afflicted with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox or typhus. Often used for forcible quarantine, many towns and cities had one or more pesthouses accompanied by a cemetery or a waste pond nearby for disposal of the dead.
Fever sheds were built in several communities across Eastern Canada in 1847, to quarantine sick and dying Irish immigrants, who contracted typhus during the voyage to the New World during the Great Famine.[ citation needed ]
In Montreal, between 3,500 and 6,000 Irish immigrants died in fever sheds in a quarantine area known as Windmill Point. Three sheds were initially constructed, 150 feet (46 m) long by 40 to 50 feet (15 m) wide. As thousands more sick immigrants landed, more sheds had to be erected. [1] The number of sheds would grow to 22, with troops cordoning off the area so the sick could not escape. [2]
In Toronto, during the summer of 1847, 863 Irish immigrants died of typhus at fever sheds built by the Toronto Board of Health at the northwest corner of King and John Street. There were at least 12 sheds, 22 metres long by 7.5 metres wide. [3] [4]
Partridge Island, New Brunswick, just outside the main harbour of Saint John, was chosen as the location for a pest house and quarantine station as far back as 1785. In 1847, with a large influx of Irish migrants, the typhus epidemic quickly filled the fever shed with sick and dying. By the 1847 typhus season, 2115 people had died in New Brunswick, with 1196 dying at Partridge Island and in Saint John. [5]
There are eight surviving pest houses, including:
Deddington, Oxfordshire has a Pest House Field. [7]
Richmond, London has a Pesthouse common.
There is an extant pest house in Leiden, the Pesthuis (nl), built in 1661 to accommodate many patients, although it has never served this purpose.[ citation needed ]
Epidemic typhus, also known as louse-borne typhus, is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters where civil life is disrupted. Epidemic typhus is spread to people through contact with infected body lice, in contrast to endemic typhus which is usually transmitted by fleas.
Miramichi ( ) is the largest city in northern New Brunswick, Canada. It is situated at the mouth of the Miramichi River where it enters Miramichi Bay. The Miramichi Valley is the second longest valley in New Brunswick, after the Saint John River Valley.
Events from the year 1847 in Canada.
Irish Canadians are Canadian citizens who have full or partial Irish heritage including descendants who trace their ancestry to immigrants who originated in Ireland. 1.2 million Irish immigrants arrived from 1825 to 1970, and at least half of those in the period from 1831 to 1850. By 1867, they were the second largest ethnic group, and comprised 24% of Canada's population. The 1931 national census counted 1,230,000 Canadians of Irish descent, half of whom lived in Ontario. About one-third were Catholic in 1931 and two-thirds Protestant.
John Street is a street in Downtown Toronto. It runs from Stephanie Street and Grange Park in the north to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street in the south. It is home to a number of Toronto's cultural institutions, including buildings for the CBC, CTV, Toronto International Film Festival. The National Post has described it as "Running directly through the entertainment district, its spine connects many great cultural institutions, popular retail outlets, restaurants and soon-to-be-built condos." The City of Toronto has dubbed the street a "Cultural Corridor" and a report calls it "the centrepiece of the Entertainment District."
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.
Grosse Isle is an island located in the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada. It is one of the islands of the 21-island Isle-aux-Grues archipelago. It is part of the municipality of Saint-Antoine-de-l'Isle-aux-Grues, located in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of the province.
Rémi Gaulin was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop who spent time in the service of Bishop Joseph-Octave Plessis. Plessis ordained Gaulin in 1811 and appointed him curate to Alexander MacDonell in Upper Canada. In 1815 he became a missioner in Nova Scotia. In 1840 he succeeded Macdonnell as bishop of the Diocese of Kingston.
Goose Village was a neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its official but less commonly used name was Victoriatown, after the adjacent Victoria Bridge. The neighbourhood was built on an area formerly known as Windmill Point, where thousands of Irish immigrants died from disease in 1847 and 1848. The entire neighborhood was demolished in 1964 as part of preparations for Expo 67, to be replaced by a football stadium and parking lot.
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
Death or Canada is a two-part Canadian–Irish docudrama which was broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One in November/December 2008. In the UK on The History Channel UK in January and February 2009 as Fleeing The Famine. The film was also featured as part of the celebrations for Toronto's 175th anniversary.
Ireland Park is located on the shores of Lake Ontario on Éireann Quay, adjoining the Canada Malting Silos, at the foot of Bathurst Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Officially opened in the summer of 2007, Ireland Park commemorates the tens of thousands who fled Ireland during the Great Famine. In 1847, over 38,000 Irish men, women and children landed at Rees's Wharf on the shores of Toronto, fleeing famine and eager to start a new life. Although Toronto only had approximately 20,000 residents at the time, the city welcomed the newcomers with open arms. Over 1,100 new immigrants did not survive to make Canada their new home, with many perishing in fever sheds during the Typhus epidemic of 1847. Ireland Park is a tribute to all the Irish ancestors who came with only hope, for a new life in a promising country.
The Irish Commemorative Stone is a monument in Pointe-Saint-Charles, island of Montreal, Quebec commemorating the deaths from "ship fever" (typhoid) of 6,000 mostly Irish immigrants to Canada during the immigration following the Great Irish Famine in 1847-48. It is a 30-tonne, 10-foot high boulder.
Looshtauk was an Irish emigrant ship, captained by John M. Thain, sailing from the Port of Liverpool to the Port of Quebec on April 17, 1847. 462 passengers boarded at Liverpool. Typhus was caught by two male passengers in Liverpool and broke out during the crossing. Scarlet fever also erupted.
The typhus epidemic of 1847 was an outbreak of epidemic typhus caused by a massive Irish emigration in 1847, during the Great Famine, aboard crowded and disease-ridden "coffin ships".
The history of Saint John, New Brunswick is one that extends back thousands of years, with the area being inhabited by the Maliseet and Miꞌkmaq First Nations prior to the arrival of European colonists. During the 17th century, a French settlement was established in Saint John. During the Acadian Civil War, Saint John served as the seat for the administration under Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour. The French position in Saint John was abandoned in 1755, with British forces taking over the area shortly afterwards.
Diseases and epidemics of the 19th century included long-standing epidemic threats such as smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, and scarlet fever. In addition, cholera emerged as an epidemic threat and spread worldwide in six pandemics in the nineteenth century. The third plague pandemic emerged in China in the mid-nineteenth century and spread worldwide in the 1890s.
Grasett Park is situated at the corner of Adelaide Street West and Widmer Street in downtown Toronto, Canada. It is a public space that commemorates Dr. George Robert Grasett who, in the summer of 1847, gave his life to care for Irish migrants fleeing the Great Famine, many of whom arrived in Toronto sickened or dying from typhus, then known as ship fever. At the time, Toronto had merely 20,000 residents, and thus struggled to accommodate the more than 38,000 migrants who arrived in 1847 alone.