More than 150 people were taken to a makeshift hospital established at the town’s insane asylum. The entire business district had been leveled—the nexus of some forty-four blocks destroyed by the storm. One hundred eighteen houses were totally demolished by the storm; another 110 were damaged beyond repair. Washed-out bridges and downed telephone lines cut off most contact to the rest of the world.
The next day, Fergus Falls began to bury its dead, beginning with four-year-old Sissenine June Slettede, who was crushed when her family home collapsed. Governor J. A. A. Burnquist declared martial law and dispatched Adjutant General Rhinow to oversee relief efforts. Chief among Rhinow’s concerns was finding food for the town’s seven thousand residents, who were already complaining of hunger. The irony of his solution would hardly have been lost on the Grand Hotel’s one-time bartender: to feed Fergus Falls, Adjutant General Rhinow requisitioned a freight train filled with potatoes.2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN on the shoulders of giants. Two of the tallest are Eileen Reid Marcil and Helen O’Carroll: it is because of their painstaking research that I have a story to tell. Eileen provided invaluable insights into the world of North American shipbuilding and maritime culture during the nineteenth century which she shared generously (along with bowls of beef stew and sterling conversation). Helen served as the official historian for the Jeanie Johnston Project, and no one knows more about the original owner and crew than she. Her investment in the vessel and the people associated with it is astounding, as is her selflessness in sharing that expertise with others. Thank you also to Dorothy Titera and Christine McKay, who provided essential genealogical information concerning the Reilly family. Fred Walker, the naval architect for the re-creation of the Jeanie Johnston, graciously advised on technical aspects concerning the vessel; Todd French and Dennis Gallant, two first-rate Maine boatbuilders, answered innumerable questions concerning hull shapes, rigging, and boat speeds. Melanie Dobbs contributed hugely to my understanding of 1850s Indiana, and Andy Bielenberg was instrumental in my education concerning Irish famine economics; his publications on the subject are the finest I have read, and he always made sure I was well fed while in Cork. Thanks also to Paul Roberts and Florence Keating, who very graciously shared stories about their remarkable family.
When it comes to Herculean efforts, no one deserves more credit than the world’s librarians and archivists, who toil too often without recognition and without whom books would not exist. Be sure to hug one of these amazing people the next time you have the opportunity—particularly if you are so fortunate as to cross paths with the magicians at the Otter Tail County Historical Society, Unity College’s Quimby Library, the Belfast (Maine) Free Library, the National Library of Ireland, the Tralee branch of the Kerry Library, and the talented staffs at the national archives of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
A very special note of appreciation to the brilliant minds and eyes that helped to craft these pages, including Murray Carpenter and Andrew Lawler, two writers whose work I admire and whose friendship I cherish. Chip Blake, editor-in-chief at Orion, was with me when this book was born and has remained an invaluable advisor and friend. Hannah Kreitzer, my indomitable research assistant, always found the answer to even my most esoteric questions concerning mustache styles and the weather forecast for fin de siècle Minneapolis. Thank you also to Wendy Strothman and Lauren MacLeod of the Strothman Agency—by far the best in the business—along with Hilary Redmon, Leah Miller, Edith Lewis, and Judith Hoover, my editors at Free Press, who took an idea and turned it into a narrative. It’s a real honor to work with you all.
Finally, thank you to all of my friends and family who supported me in so many ways during this wonderful journey, particularly Colin Gowland, who did more to shuttle along this manuscript than he will ever know.
KATHRYN MILES is a professor of environmental writing at Unity College. She is the author of Adventures with Ari and dozens of articles that have appeared in publications including Alimentum, Best American Essays, Ecotone, Flyway, Meatpaper, and Terrain. She lives—and sails—in Belfast, Maine.
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NOTES
1. The Gathering Storm
1. Christine Kinealy, A Death-Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland (London: Pluto Press, 1997).
2. Neil E. Stevens, “Phytopathology: The Dark Ages in Plant Pathology in America, 1830–1870,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 23 (Sept. 15, 1933): 435–48.
3. L. Rawtorne, The Cause of the Potato disease ascertained by proofs; and the prevention proved by practice (London: British Library, Historical Print Editions, 1847), 4.
4. Asenath Nicholson, Annals of the Famine in Ireland, edited by Maureen Murphy (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1998).
5. IFC 1072: 1–64; Cathal Póirtéir, Famine Echoes (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1995).
6. Shelley Barber, ed., The Prendergast Letters (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), 98.
7. Thomas Campbell Foster, Letters on the Condition of the People of Ireland (London: Chapman and Hall, 1846).
2. A Great Hunger
1. Evan D. G. Fraser, “Food System Vulnerability,” Ecological Complexity 3 (2006): 328–35.
2. London Times, Nov. 3, 1845.
3. Robert James Scully, End of Hidden Ireland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
3. Ships, Colonies, and Commerce
1. Henry George Grey, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s Administration (London: R. Bentley, 1853).
2. Hansard Parliamentary Debates 84 (3d series) (1846), 1343–419.
3. Kinealy, A Death-Dealing Famine, 77.
4. Colm Tóibín and Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Famine: A Documentary (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001).
5. Charles Trevelyan, The Irish Crisis (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1848), 85.
6. John O’Rourke, The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (Dublin: James Duffy, 1902).
7. Hansard, 84, 1343–419.
8. London Times, Dec. 19, 1845.
9. Gerald Moran, Sending Out Ireland’s Poor (Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2004).
10. Information Published by His Majesty’s Chief Agent and for the Superintendence of Settlers and Emigrants in Upper and Lower Canada: For the Use of Emigrants (Quebec City: Thomas Cary, 1832).
4. Dominion
1. Eileen Reid Marcil, The Charley-Man: A History of Wooden Shipbuilding at Quebec 1763–1893 (Quebec City: Quarry Press, 1995), 44.
2. Kerry Evening Post, Aug. 10, 1850.
3. Marianna O’Gallagher, Grosse Île: Gateway to Canada (Ste-Foy, Québec: Carraig Books, 1984).
5. Phoenix Rising
1. Le Fantasque (Quebec City), Dec. 10, 1840.
2. Reid Marcil, The Charley-Man, 66.
6. Ship’s Fever
1. Quebec Mercury, Apr. 20, 1847.
2. André Charbonneau and André Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île: A Record of Daily Events (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1997).
3. “Lecture of Public Health, Addressed to the Students of the Theological Department of the Kings College,” Medical Times, Sept. 6, 1851, 243.
4. Anne Hardy, The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 191.
5. W. O. Henderson, Industrial Revolution on the Continent: Germany, France, and Russia 1800–1914 (London: F. Cass, 1961), 24.
6. Robert J. Carlisle, ed., An Account of Bellevue Hospital with a Catalogue of the Medical and Surgical Staff from 1736 to 1894 (New York: Society for the Alumni of Bellevue Hospital, 1893).
7. E. Harold Hindman, “History of Typhus Fever in Louisiana,” American Journal of Public Health 26 (Nov. 1936): 1117–24.
8. Charles Lee, ed., The New York Journal of Medicine, vol. 9 (New York: J. & H. G. Langley, 1847).
9. Southern Patriot (Charleston, South Carolina), June 11, 1847.
10. Public Ledger (Philadelphia), June 2, 1847.
11. Homer Folks, The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children (New York: Macmillan, 1902).
12. Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), May 31, 1847, 13. Trenton (New Jersey) State Gazette, June 14, 1847.
7. Discord on Downing Street
1. Dispatch from Earl Grey to the Earl of Elgin, Dec. 31, 1846, in Emigration: Papers Relative to Emigration to the British Provinces in North America, presented to the Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty, February, 1847 (London: Printed by W. Clowes for HMSO, 1847).
2. Hansard Parliamentary Debates 89 (3d series) (1847), 355–423.
3. James S. Donnelly Jr., The Great Irish Potato Famine (Phoenix Mill, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2002), 57.
4. Barber, The Prendergast Letters.
5. Twisleton to Trevelyan, Feb. 27, 1848, Treasury Papers, T.64 369 B/1, UK National Archives, Kew, England.
6. Hansard 90, 3–19.
7. Quoted in J. A. Jordan, The Grosse Île Tragedy and the Monument to Irish Fever Victims (Quebec City: Telegraph Printing Co., 1909).
8. Visitations from a Vengeful God
1. O’Gallagher, Gateway to Canada, 52.
2. John Francis Maguire, The Irish in America (New York: D. & G. Sadlier, 1868).
3. Bill Trent, “Grosse Île: Island of the Dead,” Canadian Medical Association Journal131 (Oct. 15, 1984), 960–68.
4. Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île.
5. Robert Whyte and James J. Mangan, Robert Whyte’s 1847 famine ship diary: The journey of an Irish coffin ship (Cork, Ireland: Mercier Press, 1994), 29.
6. Ibid., 35.
7. Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île, 87.
8. J. M. O’Leary quoted in Jordan, The Grosse Île Tragedy, 41.
9. Father Taschereau, May 1847 letter to the bishop, quoted in Marianna O’Gallagher, “Children of the Famine,” Beaver 88.1 (2008): 50.
10. O’Gallagher, Gateway to Canada, 147.
11. Ibid., 150.
12. Anonymous eyewitness account published in Journal de Quebec, June 17, 1847, and reprinted in Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île.
13. Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île, 90.
14. Gary Thomson, “Island of Sorrows,” Beaver 71.1 (1991): 35.
15. Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île, 23.
16. O’Gallagher, Gateway to Canada, 51.
9. A Course for Disaster
1. Quebec Mercury, May 15, June 5, 1847.
2. Report from P. O’Neil, passenger aboard the Birman, reprinted in Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île.
3. Edward Laxton, The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 125.
4. Ibid.
5. Herman Melville, Redburn (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849).
6. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The English Notebooks (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), entries dated Aug. 20, 25, 1853.
7. Eileen Reid Marcil, “John Munn,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/009004–119.01-e.php?BioId=39301 (accessed July 27, 2010).
8. London Times, Sept. 17, 1847.
9. Mersey Reporter, http://www.merseyreporter.com/history/historic/irish-immigration.shtml (accessed March 12, 2011).
10. Hansard Parliamentary Debates 94 (12 July 1847), 180–82.
11. Illustrated London News, June 12, 1847.
12. Letter from Grey to Dr. Andrew Combe, printed in London Times, Sept. 10, 1847.
13. Jordan, The Grosse Île Tragedy, 53.
10. Pestilence and Plague
1. Kerry Evening Post, July 21, 1847.
2. Tralee Chronicle, Mar. 27, 1847.
3. Quoted in Tóibín and Ferriter, The Irish Famine, 40.
4. Tyler Anbinder, “From Famine to Five Points: Lord Lansdowne’s Irish Tenants Encounter North America’s Most Notorious Slum,” American Historical Review107.2 (2002): 351–87.
5. Tralee Chronicle, Mar. 27, 1847.
6. Kerry Evening Post, Jan. 16, Nov. 6, 1847.
11. An Audacious Plan
1. Tralee Chronicle, Feb. 6, 1847.
2. Cormac O’Gráda, Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 146.
3. Tralee Chronicle, Dec. 19, 1846.
4. Tralee Chronicle, Feb. 23, 1848.
5. Kerry Evening Post, Oct. 24, 1847.
12. Signing On
1. Charbonneau and Sévigny, 1847: Grosse Île, 21.
2. The Jeanie Johnston Project, a decade-long initiative to re-create this historic ship, was begun in 1994 and employed historians, naval architects, and shipbuilders from around the world. The new vessel undertook a historic transatlantic voyage in 2002 and is, at the time of this writing, a floating museum in Dublin.
3. Les Archives Judiciaries, Fond 1845, Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales Quebec.
4. Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years before the Mast (New York: Signet Classics, 2009).
13. The People’s Physician
1. “Riots in London,” Kerry Evening Post, Mar. 10, 1848.
2. Kerry Evening Post, Apr. 18, 1848.
3. Kerry Evening Post, Mar. 25, 1848.
4. Kerry Examiner, Mar. 25, 1848.
5. Originally printed in Liverpool Mercury, Aug. 28, 1847.
6. Andrew Combe, letter, Sept. 10, 1847, reprinted in London Times, Aug. 9, 1847.
7. Ibid.
8. Kerry Evening Post, Feb. 20, 1861.
9. The Jeanie Johnston Project: A Dream Rebuilt (Tralee, Ireland: Jeanie Johnston Project, 1999).
10. Medical Times: A Journal of English and Foreign Medicine 2 (1840).
11. William Cullen, First Lines of the Practice of Physic (Edinburgh: Reid & Scott, 1802); Robert Thomas, The Modern Practice of Physic (London: John Murray, 1809).
12. O’Gráda, Black ’47, 95.
13. Kerry Evening Post, Nov. 27, 1848.
14. Fare Thee Well
1. Kerry Evening Post, Mar. 28, 1848.
2. Kerry Examiner, Apr. 26, 1848.
3. New York Star, quoted in Quebec Mercury, May 1, 1848.
4. Laxton, Famine Ships, 239.
5. Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo, Daily Life in the Age of Sail (West-port, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 95.
6. Tralee Chronicle, Apr. 29, 1848.
15. At Sea
1. Alan Villiers, The War with Cape Horn (New York: Scribner, 1971).
2. Bryan Barrass and D. R. Derrett, Ship Stability for Masters and Mates (Burlington, MA: Elsevier, 2006).
3. Personal interview, Dec. 12, 2010.
4. Laxton, Famine Ships, 13.
5. Laxton, Famine Ships, 26.
6. Volo and Volo, Daily Life in the Age of Sail, 95.
7. M. F. Maury, Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: C. Alexander, Printer, 1851).
8. Ibid., 304.
9. Alan Villiers, Cruise of the Conrad (New York: Scribner, 1937), 268.
10. Volo and Volo, Daily Life in the Age of Sail, 95.
11. The Jeanie Johnston Company, The Jeanie Johnston: The Story of a Proud Irish Emigrant Ship, pamphlet (Tralee, 2002).
12. Volo and Volo, Daily Life in the Age of Sail, 99.
13. Ibid., 94.
14. Dana, Two Years before the Mast, 11.
16. Dead Reckoning
1. Lloyd’s List and Shipping Gazette, May 9, 1848.
2. This re-creation of the crew’s experience is based on conversations with Nicole Gardiner and other crew aboard the re-created Jeanie Johnston, July 2009.
3. Lloyd’s List and Shipping Gazette, May 11, 1848.
4. Kerry Evening Post, June 7, 1848.
5. “Extract of the First Letter from Capt. John Richards, of the Bark Astoria, and Not Yet Published,” Quebec Mercury, June 3, 1848.
6. Lloyd’s List and Shipping Gazette, May 25, 1848.
7. Ibid.
17. Quarantine
1. Jordan, The Grosse Île Tragedy.
2. Report from British North America, Letter from LNC Murdoch dated 3 June 1848, National Archives (Britain), CO 386/83.
3. Ibid.
4. Quoted in Maguire, The Irish in America.
5. Quebec Mercury, June 9, 1848.
18. Passing Customs
1. Quebec Mercury, June 9, 1848.
2. Thomson, “Island of the Sorrows,” 35.
3. Merna M. Foster, “Quarantine at Grosse Île,” Canadian Family Physician 41 (May 1995): 841–48.
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