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- According to his granddaughter, Edna Armstrong Bolten, Edward was on his way from Ireland to Toronto to work for his brother, James Aikenhead, in the hardware business. The ship was quarantined on an island in the St. Lawrence river due to an outbreak of typhoid fever. Edward helped care for the sick, as he did not contract the disease. Gentlemen he met persuaded him that better opportunities awaited him in New York than in Toronto. He went there and was hired as a clerk with R. G. Dun.
The sad tale of a Canadian island
By: John Fitzgerald
On May 17, 1847, the Medical staff on the island of Grosse Ile on the St Lawrence River at the Canadian entrance made a dreaded discovery. The first ship from Europe – the first of the season after the river had thawed following the cold winter – arrived at the port. Named ‘The Syria’, the ship was filled with Irish famine refugees, over half of them dead or dying from typhoid fever. In the following months, 36 more ships arrived bearing an additional 13,000 desperate immigrants, many of whom were dying from fever or starvation. It was the beginning of a long, sad history of the island and one of the grimmest chapters in Irish-Canadian history.
Grosse Ile, known as the Great Island, lies on the St Lawrence River, 30 miles east of Quebec City. Its role as an immigrant screening and quarantine station began in 1832 when the Canadian Government established a small facility there in response to a cholera outbreak in Europe. Hundreds of immigrants, mostly English and some Irish, died on the island while in quarantine. After two years the outbreak subsided and the island became a quiet place in admitting new arrivals to Canada. From 1835 to 1845, some 21,000 were processed through the center with only 23 deaths recorded. But all that changed with the arrival of the Irish Famine in 1845.
The worst year was undoubtedly 1847 when nobody has any idea of the numbers of people that died on Grosse Ile. It is generally accepted that the poorest of the Irish immigrants headed for Canada as the cost of the passage was considerably cheaper. In 1847, an estimated 100,000 immigrants arrived in Grosse Ile, ten times the normal average.
The arrivals were in a desperate state. Weakened by malnutrition – even before they boarded the ‘Coffin Ships’ – they spent between 35 and 90 days crossing the Atlantic in crowded, unsanitary conditions. In 1847, 200,000 died at seat, prompting people to describe the Irish-American route as the longest graveyard in the world. When these wretched people arrived at Grosse Ile it was ill-equipped to deal with such a humanitarian disaster.
There were only a handful of doctors and nurses on the island and less than 150 beds. The staff and volunteers worked tirelessly and erected tents and sheds to handle as best they could the rising numbers that were dying from typhoid.
They wrote several letters to the Canadian Government, begging for help, but were ignored. Likewise, the British Government washed their hands of the problem.
By the summer of 1847, 2,500 patients were housed on the island. The conditions were so bad one of the doctors contracted fever and was lucky to survive. While the conditions on the island were bad nothing compared to the conditions on the ships docked in the St Lawrence waterway, waiting to be unloaded. Unable to handle the volume arriving, the officials on the island ordered the ships to set anchor and wait until room became available on the island. It was heart-breaking for those on board as they had not a drop of water to drink or no medication.
The day of December 31 was taken from his wife, Alice Chambers Aikenhead's diary.
According to his granddaughter, Edna Armstrong Bolten, Edward Aikenhead was on his was to Canada to work for his older brother, James, in the hardware business when his ship was detained at an island because of typhoid. Edward was not stricken and helped care for those who were. He men business men who convinced him that better opportunities awaited him in New York.
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1834 - 1919 (84 years)