A Scandinavian Heritage. Joan Magee
Brydges, manager of the Great Western, was questioned concerning the presence of immigrants in the freight cars, he stated that it was not unusual in America for immigrants to travel this way, and they usually preferred to travel with their baggage because they would then be close to their food, which they always brought with them in their trunks. They could also take out their bedding at night and sleep upon their baggage. However, the Commissioners concluded their report as follows:
It is our duty to call attention to the improper use of such means of conveyance when passengers and their baggage are accumulated in the same vehicle. We look upon it as a bad and inhuman practice.4
This practice, however, did not stop for some time, and the victims of a tragedy which occurred three weeks later, on 2 July 1854, were also travelling in freight cars. They were Norwegian emigrants en route to the United States who chose to travel by the Quebec route in May and June of 1854. They had reached Hamilton by the end of June. On the last leg of their journey through Canada, Hamilton to Windsor, tragedy struck. By examining official records in both Norway and Canada, it is possible to trace their journey from the fjords of Norway to Windsor, where about 68 died, victims of cholera.5
These cholera victims must remain anonymous, for not a single name has survived the years, since no ship’s passsenger lists were kept for such ships from Norway at the time, nor were names listed as emigrants entered Canada. When they died of cholera the terror of this disease was so great that their bodies were hurriedly buried in unmarked graves. As a result it is not possible to identify their former homes in Norway by searching for their names in parish records, where they would have been carefully recorded at the time of departure for America.
The Hamilton station of the Great Western Railway and one of the trains of the early 1850s. Hamilton was the seat of the Railway, which extended from Niagara Falls to Windsor, “passing through the flourishing towns of Hamilton, Dundas, Paris, London, & c., and connecting at Detroit with Mail and Express trains for Chicago, Rock Island, Burlington, St. Paul’s, St. Louis . . .and all points west and southwest.”
It is probable, however, that these emigrants came from villages along the Sognefjord near Bergen, for at that particular time, 1854, many left that area. Having sold all their possessions except for the few necessities which they brought together with food in their baggage, they made their way to the docks in Bergen. There they camped until they could obtain passage on a ship bound for America.
It is evident from an examination of ship arrivals at Quebec that some of the future cholera victims took passage on 7 May on the brig Columbus, a new ship from Larvik, Norway. This brig had been built there the previous year for a group of local businessmen who were eager to take part in the profitable new triangular trade route via Quebec. The Columbus had a weight of about 280 tons [253,394 kgm], and had only one deck. It was not a large ship, and was only 100.7 feet [30.7 metres] in length, 26.2 feet [8 metres] in breadth, and 15.8 feet [4.8 metres] in depth. Onto this single deck crowded 165 passengers determined to obtain passage, for the crowds were growing on the Bergen docks, and the ships left only at the rate of about one each week. Loaded with ballast the Columbus set sail for Quebec with its 165 passengers. Its master was Captain H. Pedersen, a Norwegian.
A week later on 12 May others found passage on the brig Condon, a British ship with a British master, Captain Stranger. It was not at all unusual for such British ships to take part in the transportation of emigrants. When the Condon arrived in Quebec it was reported to have ballast and 502 passengers on board. With such crowding it is obvious that they must have suffered under exceedingly unhealthy conditions.
Late in June the Columbus and the Condon arrived in Canada almost at the same time, and the passengers were landed at Grosse Isle, the quarantine station. There they mixed freely with passengers from other ships as they cleaned their baggage, washed their clothing and bathed themselves before again boarding their ships. Having been pronounced free of disease they were permitted to continue their voyage to Quebec, where the Columbus arrived on June 24, and the Condon, the following day. From Quebec the Norwegians, together with immigrants of many nationalities, continued their journey down the St. Lawrence to Montreal.
Unfortunately they had arrived in the middle of a heat wave, and their suffering from the heat alone must have been intense. In addition, their arrival coincided with an outbreak of cholera, brought to Quebec by passengers of a ship from Liverpool, the Glenmanna, which had had six deaths from cholera on board during its ocean crossing. The captain of the Glenmanna had not reported these deaths to the Quebec authorities, as he was legally bound to do, and had allowed the ship’s passengers to land as usual at Grosse Isle. There they mingled with the passengers from the John Howell, which had lost none aboard during the crossing. Both the Glenmanna and the John Howell proceeded to Quebec city on 17 June, and were pronounced free of disease. Although the passengers remained on board ship, they were allowed to visit the town, and a number of them did so. On 20 June cholera broke out on board the two ships, then it broke out in town. By 22 June, the disease was reported in Montreal, and by the next day, in Hamilton. When the Norwegian emigrants from the Columbus and the Condon followed the same route a few days later a cholera epidemic was well under way in each centre through which they passed.
When they arrived in Montreal near the end of June conditions were so deplorable that the following comment appeared in the Montreal Gazette of Tuesday 4 July 1854:
Health of the City
Emigrants arriving here are not properly cared for, but are left on the wharf all day exposed to the broiling sun, and drinking filthy river or canal water. It is a disgrace to our humanity . . .
On Friday 30 June the Norwegians arrived in Hamilton, planning to board the Great Western Railway to continue their journey by rail to Windsor, then to Detroit. In Hamilton all was in turmoil as the Railway attempted to deal with a great increase in passenger traffic which taxed its facilities to the utmost. It was its first year of full operation of the Niagara Falls-Windsor Line, and construction was still in progress at certain places on the line. Already in the month of June 1854, which was then drawing to a close, the Railway had carried a total of 4891 emigrants, even though the great heat of the summer and the unusual sickness which prevailed through the continent were said to have seriously affected the traffic.6 Emigrants were placed in such railway cars as were available, and were sent on their way. A railway official, C.J. Brydges, explained this in the following way:
These buildings, dating fom the 1840s, housed steerage passengers landed at the Quarantine Station on Grosse Isle. There they were required to clean themselves and their belongings after the rigours of the ocean passage, while meantime their ship was cleaned and inspected. After quarantine those free of disease were allowed to rejoin their ship and proceed to Quebec.
View of Detroit from the Great Western Terminus in Windsor, circa 1860. This watercolour by an unknown artist shows the terminus of the first railway to serve Windsor, the Great Western Railway. On 17 January 1854, the first passenger train to come through to Windsor from Niagara Falls arrived at this terminus. Five months later Norwegian immigrants were among the passengers travelling on this newly opened route through Canada West to the western States.
Have not had a sufficient supply of second class cars to accommodate emigrants . . . and have in consequence been compelled to despatch them in freight cars, generally speaking separate from their luggage, but sometimes they have gone together with their luggage.7
When the large number of Norwegian emigrants reached Hamilton on Friday, 30 June 1854, and took passage to Detroit in the cars of the Great Western Railway, they were placed in two second-class passenger cars and at least three freight cars, and on Saturday were forwarded towards their destination. On the average at least 50