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Hospital Island (St. Andrews)

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Coordinates: 45°07′15″N 67°00′41″W / 45.12083°N 67.01139°W / 45.12083; -67.01139
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Hospital Island
Hospital Island and Hardwood Island, in an 1889 chart
Map
Geography
LocationBay of Fundy
Coordinates45°07′15″N 67°00′41″W / 45.12083°N 67.01139°W / 45.12083; -67.01139
Administration
Canada
ProvinceNew Brunswick
CountyCharlotte County

Hospital Island (previously Little Hardwood Island[1]) is a small three-acre (12,000 m2) island in the Passamaquoddy Bay located northeast of Saint Andrews, New Brunswick.[2] In 1842 it was established as a quarantine port for newcomers to the region, predominantly Irish emigres fleeing the potato famine,[3][4] with an estimated 400 patients having died on the island.[5] The buildings and burial ground spread over 20% of the island's surface.[1]

Quarantine station

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In 1832, a ship offloaded newcomers with Asiatic Cholera, leading to the demand for a quarantine island to be transferred to the Justices of Charlotte.[1] On April 11–12, the Sessions of Charlotte County passed the resolution the island would be made a quarantine station and to finish construction on "the pest house" extant on the island.[6] By May 1, the brig Susan put ashore to quarantine its Irish newcomers.[7] At this time, the concern was smallpox.[8]

In 1841, Boyd brought a petition from James Allanshaw seeking to authorise the sale of Hospital Island and a new piece of land purchased for a hospital.[9]

When typhus became the main concern,[10] by February 1842, a ship of European immigrants brought an epidemic of cholera, highlighting the need for a new quarantine station.[3] Officials were further concerned since the local population depended on the many islands in the bay for their livelihood, and an earlier scare with cholera eight years earlier had seen the much larger 130-acre (0.53 km2) Navy Island, then dubbed Saint Andrews Island,[3] transmit the disease to the mainland.[3] Little Hardwood Island, as Hospital Island was then known, was chosen for being distant from the mainland and of no apparent use,[3] with the island having been dubbed a "miserable lump of reddish sand"[11] and "the most worthless island" in the area at the time.[5] Its trees were cut, and the first facility built which measured 49 by 26 feet (15 by 8 m).[3]

1847 letter from D. W. Jack, staffed on Hospital Island[12]

In July 1847, the ship Magna Charta disembarked its passengers at Hospital Island, and the St. Andrews Standard reported that of 77 passengers, 10 had managed to escape the ship, 30 were sick with cholera, and two adults and two children had recently died.[3] A second, larger, facility on the island was also built in 1847 which was 59 by 26 feet (18 by 8 m) and two storeys plus a basement.[3] A separate home was built for the island doctor, an island keeper's residence, a shed and it was furnished with a sailboat for their use.[3] The original structure was relegated to overflow usage during busy summer months.[3] Dr. Samuel Frye, who had been involved with the earlier failed quarantine station at Navy Island and also ran a quarry on Cailiff Island, died serving at Hospital Island in 1847.[13][14]

In 1848, Margaret Baldwin, the widow of Thomas Baldwin, and Margaret Tufts, the widow of Benjamin Tufts, made successful petitions to the New Brunswick courts for financial assistance as their husbands had been employed on the island and died of typhus.[15] In 1848, the barque Star again landed its Irish emigrants on Hospital Island, where 48 of them died and were buried.[3][16] The chief Emigration Officer James Boyd travelled to the island in August 1848 to "break up the establishment at Hospital Island", taking away the final twelve residents to stay at a nearby farm.[17]

In 1857, the Health Board again petitioned to close the Hospital Island station and purchase more suitable land on a different island to serve as quarantine.[18] In 1859, the island's chief keeper Lachlan Hanlyn died of jaundice.[19]

In 1865, the Saint Croix Courier reported that the steamship Atlantic, arriving from Brest, France, saw 50 to 60 cholera cases develop on Hospital Island wherein 15 died.[3]

Hospital Island was viewed but not visited, for the 1870 geological survey of the region.[20]

Legacy

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hospital Island, Bay of Fundy.

In 1995, a stone Celtic cross memorial facing Hospital Island was erected on the mainland Saint Andrews, as a tribute to the Irish immigrants who died while being quarantined there.[21][22][23] It is unclear whether the island has been used as a burial site for patients who died during quarantine.[5]

By 1997, the island had been privately owned by George Matthews who, as well as cultural association members, had previously failed to find human remains.[5] No portion of the historic buildings remain, and the island is now privately operated as a bird sanctuary.[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b c https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_00951_74/761
  2. ^ "Hospital Island". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved March 27, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mitcham, Allison (2013). Islands of New Brunswick: Living between the tides. Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing. ISBN 9781771080224.
  4. ^ "The Famine Irish in New Brunswick". Irish America. April 29, 2023. Retrieved March 10, 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d McKinley, Steve (July 3, 1997). "'This Is Quite A Pleasant Little Island'". Saint John Times Globe. p. 3. Retrieved March 8, 2025.
  6. ^ "Old New Brunswick". davidsullivan.ca. Retrieved March 10, 2025.[unreliable source?]
  7. ^ The New Brunswick Courier, Saint John, New Brunswick, May 12, 1832
  8. ^ https://www.standrewscivictrust.ca/windrose.html
  9. ^ https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_00951_54/50
  10. ^ https://www.standrewscivictrust.ca/windrose.html
  11. ^ Rees, Jim. "Surplus People", 2014
  12. ^ Papers relative to emigration to the British Provinces of North America and to the Australian Colonies : Part 1: British provinces in North America, London: Her Majesty's Printer, 20 December 1847 – via Archive.org
  13. ^ "Windrose". Canada's Historic Places. Retrieved March 10, 2025.
  14. ^ Report on Frye's Island, Also Called L'Etang Island, N. W. Shore of the Bay of Fundy, Its Mineral Resources, As Seen on a Cursory Examination, Accompanied By the Report of Professor Baily
  15. ^ Campbell, Gail C. (1989). "Disfranchised but not Quiescent: Women Petitioners in New Brunswick in the Mid-19th Century" (PDF). Acadiensis. 18 (2). Department of History of the University of New Brunswick. ISSN 1712-7432.
  16. ^ Rees, Jim. Surplus People: From Wicklow to Canada (PDF). Collins Press. pp. 4–7. ISBN 978-1-84889-204-0.
  17. ^ Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Volume 38, 1849
  18. ^ https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_00951_74/762
  19. ^ The St. Andrews Standard. : The St. Andrews Standard : Vol. 26, no. 12 (March 23, 1859)
  20. ^ Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress 1870-1871, pgs 120+, https://archive.org/details/report-of-progress-gsc_1870-1871/page/n5/mode/2up
  21. ^ The Famine Irish in New Brunswick. YouTube. Irish Heritage Trust. April 24, 2023. Retrieved March 10, 2025.
  22. ^ Morgan, Sandy (June 1, 1995). "Celtic Cross Dedicated To Memory Of Irish Immigrants". The Daily Gleaner. p. 19. Retrieved March 8, 2025.
  23. ^ "Celtic Cross (1847)". Town of Saint Andrews. Retrieved March 10, 2025.
  24. ^ Dickinson, Barbara. "Hospital Island: St. Andrews-By-The-Sea". barbaradickson.ca. Retrieved March 10, 2025.
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