the Emigration Report for the 1857 season indicates that the highest mortality occurred among the Norwegian passengers, with 100 deaths reported among the 6,507 immigrants from Norway (1.53 per cent) who landed at Quebec after a voyage averaging 44 days in length.2 Other ships were lost at sea by storm or by fire. Some simply disappeared and were never heard from.
Once the immigrants reached Quebec safely, and passed the quarantine inspection, they were allowed to proceed on their journey up the St. Lawrence waterway to the Great Lakes where they disembarked at Toronto or Hamilton and proceeded upon their way to Chicago or Milwaukee.
At times, they were subjected to such poor treatment that a special railway conference was called in Buffalo in November 1854 to discuss ways of improving conditions affecting the transportation of emigrants. The conference was particularly concerned with the role played by “runners,” dishonest men who gathered at the railway stations waiting to take advantage of bewildered travellers, in particular those who did not speak English and were often confused about the geography of North America. The unwary among these immigrants were sold worthless tickets or valid tickets at exorbitant prices.
Train travel in the area of the Great Lakes was in its earliest stage. Train service by the Great Western from Hamilton through to the border station at Windsor began in January 1854. The majority of its passengers were immigrants planning to pass through to the United States at Detroit. Windsor itself had a population of about 750.
There are tragic reports of train derailments in these early years, many of which involved the loss of lives, some of them Norwegian. In the London Free Press of 8 June 1854 there is a brief report of an inquest into one of the seventeen accidents on the Great Western Railway that year in which a freight car loaded with immigrants and their baggage was hurled to the foot of an embankment, killing five Norwegians. Concerning the freight car, the report states:
This was shattered into a hundred pieces, the frame of which was lying floor upwards at the bottom of the embankment; it was in this car that five of the deceased were at the time of the accident, together with a large quantity of baggage, which belonged to them, and their fellow countrymen who had gone on in a previous train; parts of the car, and its contents had been hurled to considerable distances, and the boxes of these poor people, which contained all their goods, and the little mementos of the home they had left, were lying scattered in all directions. . . .3
When C.J. 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
