As word of these conditions and their concomitant death rates continued to spread, a physician by the name of Andrew Combe set out to investigate by contracting to sail aboard one of the immigrant vessels. Like Whyte and De Vere before him, Combe observed the conditions in which his adopted ship’s 360 passengers were kept, which included what he described as “vitiated air, filth, and moral depression.” He found no attempt whatsoever to stop the spread of disease, nor any attention to hygiene or cleanliness.6
But what was most upsetting to Combe was the lack of sustenance provided to the emigrants on the ships—and the fact that no authority seemed to care. The focus of his critique landed squarely on the colonial secretary and his earlier comments on sustenance. “Earl Gray himself seems not to be fully aware of the facts of the case,” Combe complained. “His Lordship is reported to have said, that ‘those emigrants had gone out in ships as well provided as such vessels usually were, but they had embarked in such a state of health that in some cases the very change to a better diet on board the emigrant ships had caused fever to break out among them.’ ” That, insisted Combe, was patently false. While there may have been plenty of food aboard any one of these ships, it wasn’t being offered to the passengers in steerage, who were required to provide their own, save for the paltry pound per day of flour or oatmeal mandated by Parliament. Consequently many of the passengers had grown so weak they could no longer rise from their bunks, even to relieve themselves. Combe observed dozens of such individuals unable to do anything other than lie in their own waste for days on end. Could anyone really be surprised, asked the doctor, that so many of these emigrants were now dying? Why was no one in England doing anything to stop this?7
The answer to that last question was still a long time in coming. Combe, who would die shortly after his return from New York, would not live to hear it. Instead he endured criticism from politicians and fellow physicians alike, many of whom spoke out publicly against his call for disease prevention and nourishment.
Of the few doctors willing to side with Combe, one was of particular interest to Attridge and Donovan. Although just thirty years old, Richard Blennerhassett had already distinguished himself as a talented doctor and a forward thinker. He came from a long line of civic-minded doctors and, as part of the Protestant elite, his family maintained a reputation for philanthropy and a dedication to human rights. His grandfather, who shared his forename, was credited with creating a medical dynasty that would live on for generations. Like his descendants, the elder Richard chose to dedicate his career to serving the poor. By the time Attridge was preparing to set sail, Richard’s father, Henry, known throughout Ireland as “the poor man’s doctor,” had assumed responsibility over the region’s fever hospital, and his considered dealings with the conditions there had won him the respect of patients and civic leaders alike. Years later these attentions would be memorialized in an obituary that praised his “large & enlightened views. Unfettered by class distinctions, he was the very antithesis of all that is illiberal in politics or religion.”8
This sort of distinction appealed to Donovan and Attridge; so too did Henry Blennerhassett’s ability to deal with the town leaders of Tralee in all matters related to famine relief. Henry’s son Richard promised to be no less praiseworthy. Already he and his brothers had won the affection of townspeople, who relished the boys’ exuberance and skills as hunters, athletes, and sailboat racers. Like his father, Richard had received a sterling education, including medical training at the esteemed Edinburgh University, where he graduated with a degree in medicine in 1845.9 While there, he had attended classes in botany and chemistry, as well as clinical medicine, midwifery, surgery, and pharmacology. He was required to learn dissection and surgery and pass a battery of written exams.10 This was still an era when textbooks admitted that the cause of ailments such as fever continued to elude the medical establishment, and bleeding was still a recognized treatment; nevertheless the information Richard learned there greatly surpassed the misinformation driving most medical conversations of the time.11 Since graduating, he had developed his skills even further, completing a residency in Dublin, the seat of administrative power in Ireland. While there he chose to study obstetrics. He also learned enough to rue the policies of Edward Twisleton and his new Central Board of Health, which was also situated in Ireland’s capital. Richard Blennerhassett wasn’t swayed by theories of noxious smells or that the low morals of the Irish were somehow responsible for their present suffering. Nor did he have much patience for ineffectual policies and political decisions.
But what really interested Donovan and Attridge was the young doctor’s subsequent work aboard a coolie ship. Certainly a man of his stature and impressive academic pedigree could have secured a whole host of comfortable positions in Dublin or another metropolitan center, where he would have tended to the minor ailments of the rising merchant class. Blennerhassett instead chose employment aboard the Bussorah Merchant, a vessel hired to transport indentured workers from Calcutta to the sugarcane plantations of Demerara, a region of South America in what is now Guyana. His reasons are cause for speculation even today. Some descendants maintain that he fathered an illegitimate child with a young woman who worked as a servant in Tralee; others contend he developed a particular interest in infectious diseases while in medical school; still others cite the family’s consistent commitment to public health. Given how little time Blennerhassett spent at his family’s home once he entered school and that there was no reason not to acknowledge the child, probably one of the other two reasons, or a combination of them, is the best explanation behind his decision to board this ill-fated ship.
What is clear is that what Blennerhassett saw while on board the Bussorah Merchant would haunt him for the rest of his life. Shortly after setting sail for Demerara, many of the 250 coolies on board began showing signs of illness. Within a week, the vessel had witnessed its first casualties. The cause this time was not smallpox or even typhus but cholera, which had again been sweeping through Asia and leaving in its wake thousands of victims.
Hindu law prohibited the coolies from touching their dead, and the crew of the Bussorah Merchant had already seen enough sickness to fear contagion themselves. So, with no one to assist him, Blennerhassett found himself in the grisly role of undertaker as well as ship’s surgeon. Each evening, under the cloak of darkness, he would drag the bodies of the dead above deck and cast them overboard, a laborious process he repeated fifty-one times before the vessel eventually reached its port. He returned to Ireland with a sadness about him that he would never shake during what remained of his short life and an unwavering commitment to ensure that the fate of those aboard the Bussorah Merchant would never be repeated.
During his time in Calcutta and aboard the coolie ship, Blennerhassett learned a great deal about epidemiology, especially the truth behind Combe’s theory of vessel management: ships and their passengers must be kept clean and supplied with ample fresh air, water, and food. Just as important was the ability to sequester ailing passengers, lest they infect the healthy. That was just the sort of thinking Nicholas Donovan wanted aboard his new ship.
There was no time to lose if the Jeanie Johnston was to sail that season; although spring had not yet taken hold, rumors of yet another failed potato crop were increasing the hysteria throughout the west of Ireland. Death rates continued to mount as cottiers throughout Ireland succumbed to starvation.
It wasn’t starvation that was killing many of Blennerhassett’s peers, but rather the lingering presence of typhus. In the prior twelve months, two hundred Irish doctors and medical students had perished—a figure three times higher than that of previous years.12 Once again County Kerry seemed to be hit particularly hard; in the region surrounding Tralee alone, thirty-seven doctors had contracted typhus while tending to the sick, and seventeen had died, leaving nine widows and thirty-five orphans.13 Staying there, it seemed, was no safer than climbing aboard an immigrant ship.
14
; Fare Thee Well
1848
THE PLACARDS started appearing around town on Daniel and Margaret Reilly’s anniversary. They hung on gates outside parish churches; they graced the facades of banks and markets. Each offered the same tantalizing promise: emigration to Quebec aboard a brand-new “fine, fast copper-fashioned ship.” Fare for a single passenger was £3 10s—nearly a full £2 less than ships of similar size leaving from Limerick and Cork. This ticket was far from cheap—about $300 today and no less than half of Daniel’s average annual income. But even if it had been ten times that, Daniel probably would have found a way to pay. He knew the man whose name appeared on these advertisements: when Donovan bragged about the soundness of his vessel, the copious stores of food on board, and the presence of a physician from town, Daniel believed him.
Daniel Reilly was precisely the kind of passenger Nicholas Donovan was hoping to attract: young, healthy, with enough capital to provide for the voyage and his life in North America, and likely to survive an Atlantic passage. Even better, he had people ready to help him on the other side.
In early April, Tralee continued to be plagued by snow, hail, and thunderstorms—often all three on the same day. “No tender bud or leaf or flower,” wrote the editor of the Kerry Evening Post, “no shrub or plant appears to give promise.”1 It was an apt description of a region still beset by hunger and suffering. At night, thieves would steal into gardens and fields, their shovels and trowels shrouded in burlap or rags to deaden the sound of digging. Mindful of the rise in vegetable thefts, landowners dug giant pits known as “man traps” eight feet deep and filled with water to catch would-be thieves; they also hired armed guards to protect even the most inconsequential vegetables: a few turnips here, leftover cabbage heads there. All had become increasingly valuable as yet another season of famine wracked the countryside.
Daniel wasn’t about to allow a similar fate to befall his family. Hat in hand, he arrived at the grand offices of Nicholas Donovan, this time not as someone selling grain but as someone hoping to buy a future with the money he had spent his life accruing. In exchange for nearly all his savings, he was given two adult tickets to sail aboard the Jeanie Johnston. They were filled with more legalese than he had ever seen in his life and included the Jeanie’s departure date and time. Perhaps more important, they also mandated regulations concerning logistics for the Reillys’ time aboard. Each full-fare passenger would be allotted ten cubic feet of luggage space (about the size of today’s average kitchen refrigerator) for their personal possessions. They would be given a pound per day of legally mandated oatmeal and rice rations. Everything else, from bedding and utensils to additional food and household items that would get them started in the New World, would be their responsibility—as long as it fit in a medium-size chest.
With the departure date less than a week away, Daniel and Margaret didn’t have much time to collect their things. It must have been difficult to leave behind the plows and scythes and other farm tools collected over a decade of hardscrabble farming. Their kitchen table and Robert’s crib would have to remain behind as well. What they did take was humble at best: a feather mattress on which they would all sleep, dinner plates, a pipe, sewing scissors, and Margaret’s brass thimble. There were goodbyes to be made, knowing that they would never see most of their family and friends again. They visited Margaret’s father, who was too old to consider a transatlantic crossing; they promised her brother John they’d send for him as soon as they could. Back home, Daniel packed their trunk. Margaret bundled Robert in as many of his clothes as she could, all the while doing her best to ignore the signs that another baby was on its way.
• • •
Beginning on April 18 and amid yet another storm of hail and sleet, the Jeanie’s ticket holders started to assemble near the large waterfront windmill in the nearby town of Blennerville. The size of the ship’s keel was substantial enough that Captain Attridge was unable to sail into the harbor, let alone up Donovan’s canal, so smaller sloops and pull boats would be used to ferry the passengers out to the ship. As they began to arrive, Donovan called his crew to the aft of the boat. There, as was customary for such voyages, he addressed the men, explaining the nature of their trip and reminding them of the rules of conduct that would define their time aboard.
Even with this homily from their captain, those crew members sent to assist with the transport of the passengers from the docks were unprepared for the deeply affecting scene awaiting them. Many of the passengers’ families had joined them for the short trip to Blennerville, hoping to defer their farewells as long as possible. Some of the bystanders were keening the haunting chant for the dead that marked many wakes in the region. Few tried to hide their tears. Passengers were crying too; not only were they saying good-bye to loved ones, but it appeared that many would have to say good-bye to their livelihoods as well. Unaware of just how restrictive the space requirements aboard the ship were, they brought spinning wheels and cumbersome carpentry tools, thinking this would ease the struggle of finding work in North America. They were disappointed to learn at the docks that there would be no room aboard for such things.
Directing the assembly and dismissal of the passengers was Richard Blennerhassett. He insisted on a thorough examination of each passenger before he or she was allowed to step aboard the waiting boats—or at least as thorough an examination as propriety would allow. He peered into throats, ears, and eyes; he took pulses and checked for fever, making mental notes about which passengers seemed particularly weak or susceptible to disease. It was a sizable task: eighty-seven men, seventy-two women, and thirty-four children would make the trip.
Blennerhassett, though, was relieved. For the most part, the majority of the passengers seemed relatively well-fed and healthy. It would still be a challenge to keep them well, but at least he wasn’t beginning with too many severe cases.
There were exceptions, of course. Of particular concern to the young physician was Margaret Reilly. Barely twenty years old, she stood with her young son looking visibly uncomfortable; even with her concealing layers of clothes, Blennerhassett could see that she was not just pregnant but dangerously close to her delivery date. Why Donovan had agreed to allow a woman in this condition on board was a mystery to him. What was clear was that he would soon be forced to assist in the delivery of this baby. He watched her carefully and instructed the crew to do the same. Had he known about the contractions Margaret had already begun experiencing, no doubt he would have delivered more thorough instructions. But for now, it was all Blennerhassett could do to get her safely settled in the bunk she would call home for the next two months.
The short trip on the sloop ferry from Blennerville to the Jeanie Johnston was the first time Margaret Reilly had ever been on a boat, and she wasn’t sure she liked the experience. As they tacked their way into the bay, she could see the imposing masts of the Jeanie rising above all of the other vessels anchored there. At nearly 150 feet, they were the tallest things she had ever seen in her life. And that was just the start of novelty for the young mother. Once on board, she, Daniel, and Robert were met by Thomas Campion, who confirmed their names on the passenger list created by Donovan’s clerk and checked their belongings. They also met Gabriel Seldon, the first person of color they had ever seen. Margaret couldn’t help but stare. There were accents strange and foreign and the oddities of life on a vessel—hatches and lifeboats and the unfamiliar, pulsing feel of a tide beneath her feet. She and Daniel did their best to settle in.
And then they waited.
By Friday, April 21, all of the passengers had been brought aboard. Attridge was still loading his final delivery of provisions, so Donovan allowed family members as well as interested community members the unprecedented opportunity to visit passengers on board. Doing so was a strategic move that he hoped would result in more positive press. He encouraged visitors to examine the well-built bunks, to tour the decks and even the galley of the ship, taking note of her outstanding design and craftsma
nship.
The Jeanie’s captain didn’t care one way or the other about press coverage, and he would have preferred to avoid the extra inconvenience of so many people coming and going. But Attridge was visibly relieved to see that the boarding and settling of the passengers had gone smoothly. As the last of the visitors made their way back to land, he could tell that his crew was on edge. Below them was the din of two hundred nervous individuals, none of whom had ever been at sea. Sailors prided themselves on their emotional reticence and stoicism. There was little time for anything other than sleep and work aboard, and the only expression of feeling usually came from singing shanties or the occasional fight among frustrated crew members. The scene in the Jeanie’s hull was a different matter entirely. Families danced and sang, re-created elaborate prayer services, or continued their laments. There were periods of uproarious laughter followed by sobbing. There was, in short, entirely too much emotion for the comfort of the crewmen.
• • •
Later that night, Attridge was summoned by Blennerhassett. Margaret Reilly had gone into full labor and was progressing rapidly. The two men made their way down into the hold of the ship, using a greasy oil lamp and the ship’s navigational lantern for illumination. The male passengers had done their best to cloister themselves away from the drama, but the women aboard, most of whom had already witnessed dozens of births, stayed nearby. Neither the captain nor the doctor minded.
As a ship’s surgeon, Blennerhassett carried the standard-issue pocket dressing case, which contained a small assortment of medical equipment, including forceps, scissors, and suturing needles. He would need all three to assist the terrified Margaret in her delivery. Even with the added illumination of the oil lamps, visibility in steerage was dim, and the greasy light cast thick shadows across the straw-filled bunk. Margaret labored throughout the night, pushing against the strange doctor and captain for leverage. Just before dawn came the abrupt cry of a newborn child. Mercifully, the birth came off without complications. Blennerhassett received the baby, checked his health, and introduced him to his young mother, who lay exhausted in her bunk.
All Standing Page 10