Typhus

Ottawa Outbreak

June 1847 - https://ottawafamilytree.net/2014/03/18/sources-on-irish-immigrants-to-canada-and-the-1847-typhus-epidemic/

  • The typhus outbreak also hit Bytown (Ottawa). With the arrival of over 3,000 Irish immigrants, the fever first appeared in June 1847. The sick were initially cared for by the same community of Sisters, the Grey Nuns. As the numbers of sick swelled, “fever sheds” had to be erected in Ottawa too. Approximately 200 died in quarantine. The Rideau Canal was even shut down in an effort to prevent further spread of the outbreak.”
  • “Typhus felled many of these new immigrants. The typhus epidemic of 1847 was an outbreak of typhus caused by a massive Irish emigration in 1847, during the Great Famine, aboard crowded and disease-ridden ships known as “coffin ships.”

Connection to timber trade

https://ottawariver.org/pdf/08-ch2-6.pdf

  • “Timber shipping firms benefited from the arrival of settlers. Rather than return to Canada with empty holds, some shipping firms provided cheap passage for emigrants, especially during the 1830s and the 1840s. The converted timber ships were very dangerous and immigrants were crammed aboard with little or no regard for comfort or sanitary arrangements. This enterprise ended with the age of steam in the 1860s.”
  • “Cramped sleeping quarters led to the spread of disease. In the summer of 1847, the arrival of over 3,000 Irish immigrants brought a typhus epidemic to Bytown. Canal traffic was curtailed in August, and a separate Emigrants Hospital was built in Ottawa. Of the 619 victims treated, 167 died (Brennan).”

The Shannon - bringing Irish immigrants from Montreal to Ottawa

http://www.bytown.net/steamer.htm

  • “Another early steam boat on the Ottawa River and the Rideau River, the Shannon at Entrance Bay in 1836. Photo Source: Ottawa Old and New, by Lucien Brault, PhD., 1946, Ottawa Historical Information Institute, page 97. Note: Ten years later, during the great Irish famine migration, the steam ship Shannon, brought thousands of typhus victims from Montreal to Ottawa. The white house on the hill on the left belonged to Colonel John By. The artist here is William Henry Bartlett.”

https://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/107799/data?n=2

  • steamboat information

Canadian Responses to Typhoid and data tables on Bytown!

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0101348

http://www.cchahistory.ca/journal/CCHA1935-36/Gallagher.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41977180?seq=1