The development of the Festival Centre and Tower at the northwest corner of King Street West and John Street has provided an opportunity to search for archaeological remains associated with the first Toronto General Hospital, which was built in 1819-1820 was in operation until 1854. The most significant, and tragic, period of the hospital’s history, however, was the summer of 1847, during the height of the Irish Potato Famine.
The famine or the “Great Hunger” was a succession of crop failures between 1845 and 1851, and resulted in the deaths of 1,000,000 Irish and forced over 2,000,000 more to leave their homeland. In the spring and summer of 1847, as many as 100,000 of these migrants set out on the arduous journey to Canada, which many of them would not survive, due to the cramped and filthy conditions of the ships on which they were little more than “human ballast.” Typhus or “ship fever” was rampant. All ships bound for Canada were stopped at Gros Ile., a quarantine station in the St. Lawrence River northeast of Quebec City, where the sick and dying were separated from the healthy, or the seemingly healthy. Those deemed to be fit were then allowed to travel on to Quebec City, Montreal, Bytown (Ottawa), Kingston and Toronto. Many became ill and perished on the later legs of their journey.
Almost 40,000 of the immigrants passed through the City of Toronto in 1847. So many of these people were ill, that officials had to take immediate steps to treat the sick and to ensure that the fever did not spread to the general population of the town. It was decreed that all immigrants be landed only at Rees’ Pier at the foot of Simcoe Street, that all ships be inspected by medical officers, and that only immigrants with friends or family already in Toronto
could remain in the city. The sick were immediately sent to the hospital, where they were treated either in the “Emigrant Building,” or the “Cholera Hospital”, both of which were located at the southwest corner of Adelaide and Peter Streets or at the General Hospital building at King and John. Moreover, in order to cope with the sheer number of people in need of treatment, the grounds between these main buildings were occupied by a series of hastily erected frame buildings known as “fever sheds.”
It is estimated that over 1,100 people died of typhus in 1847, either at the hospital or elsewhere in the city, including nurses, doctors, Bishop Michael Power and other clergymen who were attending to the ill. The majority of those who died at the hospital were interred in St. Paul’s Catholic burial ground at Queen and Power Streets. Other burials are known to have taken place at St. James Cathedral, St. Michaels Cathedral, and the Potters Field at Yonge and Bloor Streets. There is no documentary evidence to suggest that fatalities among those who were admitted to the fever hospital were buried within the grounds of the Hospital Reserve.
All the buildings within the Hospital Reserve were demolished in 1861 or 1862 and subsequently the block was redeveloped as residences and commercial buildings, which were gradually abandoned and demolished through the twentieth century. For the most part as buildings were demolished, the land was given over to parking. Despite these changes, it is possible that some remains of the original hospital building, which was a substantial brick structure have survived. It is less likely that any vestiges of fever sheds are present. Nevertheless, the archaeological investigations on the Festival Centre and Tower site will be directed at finding any significant deposits related to hospital and its operations. Should such remains be encountered, they will be thoroughly documented prior to new construction on the site. This research will ultimately provide an important cornerstone in the effort to commemorate and interpret the Irish diaspora of the mid- nineteenth century and its effects on the City of Toronto and Ontario in general.
A more detailed summary of this remarkable period in Toronto’s history has been documented in “The Famine Migration of 1847 and Toronto.”
This fascinating article was prepared for the Ireland Park Foundation by Professor Mark G. McGowan and Michael Chard of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto.