The memory of the Irish

Centre d’histoire de Montréal

Saturday, 21 October, 2017 18:24

UPDATE
Saturday, 21 October, 2017 18:24

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The ” Black Stone “, not to forget

Photo Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain collection, LC-B2 – 2133-12.

ca 1900-1910

Imagine this scene : the son of irish immigrant, you are working on the construction site of the future Victoria bridge. In digging near the Pointe-Saint-Charles, a day of 1857, you and your colleagues – mostly of irish descent — well know that you are near a common grave. This is where are buried about 6,000 people, almost all of the Irish catholics, the victims of the typhus epidemic that hit Montreal during the massive arrival of the latter in 1847, so there are barely 10 years old. For the community that has taken root in Goose Village not far away, we must act. A monument was installed by the owners of the site upon completion of the work, in 1859. This rock of 27 tons, the first monument erected in Canada in memory of the victims of typhus, does not specify, however, their origin, mostly catholic. It remains easily accessible to visitors who must cross the street Bridge at their own risk to see it up close.

Tragic episode

Photo Courtesy of the McCord museum, N-0000.392.2.2

ca 1858-1859

The typhus epidemic that affects Montreal in the summer of 1847 accompanied, unfortunately, a massive wave of immigration from Ireland. If a lot of Irish catholics come to Montreal as early as 1815, the Great Famine that is raging on the Emerald isle from 1845 throws hundreds of thousands of them on the seas. Weakened and crowded on ships where the sanitary conditions are deficient, the typhus is said quickly. A quarantine at Grosse Île, however, is not enough to sort all the healthy and arrived in Montreal, the disease has often attained. Mayor John Easton Mills, which will itself inevitably a victim of the typhus, the building of shelters to receive the newcomers and the Grey Nuns carry relief to the sick. At the time of the construction of the Victoria bridge, we renovated these buildings, visible in our photo, to turn them into housing for the workers and their families, approximately 400 people.

A book industrial colossal

This small locomotive is modest in the face of the behemoths that will be built just 50 years later in the factories of Montreal. It was, however, entitled to the honours : it is a pioneer ! It reminds of the first models of steam locomotive, designed in the early Nineteenth century by the Englishman George Stephenson and his son Robert. The latter will be precisely one of the engineers involved in the construction of the Victoria bridge. The first version of this bridge tubular frame prefabricated in England imitates the bridge of Britannia, Wales. This tube was then based on 24 pillars reinforced peaks ice-breaking iron. The new technology of the railroad, revolutionizing transportation, and England ready here his expertise to his colony in canada. The name of Stephenson will therefore not only associated with the development of locomotives, but also to the emergence of Montreal as the hub of a transport network, which then became international.

Photo Ben Pelosse

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