See GC3HWQ3: Historic Saint John Series – County Courthouse for the first in the series.
Saint John is a city steeped in history. Commonly referred to as ‘the Loyalist City’ as well as ‘Canada’s Most Irish City,’ Saint John is Canada's oldest incorporated city (1785). Saint John is home to this country's oldest museum and farmers market. Saint John also established Canada's first police force. This city has been welcoming people from Eastern Europe, England and Ireland for centuries, with each group of immigrants leaving their unique imprint on Saint John culture, architecture and language.
At GZ, you will have a phenomenal view of the most fascinating historic site in Saint John - Partridge Island.
Partridge Island was the first quarantine station in Canada and home to the world’s first foghorn, invented by Robert Foulis in the 1850’s. Used as a quarantine station as early as 1785, the largest arrival of patients/immigrants occurred throughout the 1840’s during the Great Famine of Ireland (otherwise known as the Potato Famine). Over 4500 sick people arrived on Partridge Island, however the hospitals could only accomodate 200 at a time. There are no records of the dead and buried, although it is estimated that as many as 2000 Irish died during quarantine. A Celtic Cross on the island, and a smaller version at St. Patrick's Square, (at Reed's Point at the foot of Prince William St.) commemorate the Irish immigrants who lost their lives to typhus either on their passage across the Atlantic Ocean or on Partridge Island. Today, one lighthouse remains on the island and it can be seen from various points in the Saint John Harbour. However, you can no longer see any of the thirteen hospitals that once stood on the island.
In the fall of 1966 the Irish Immigrant Centennial Committee of the St. Patrick’s Society announced their 1967 Centennial project. The committee placed a scaled version of the Partridge Island Celtic Cross at Reeds Point, next to the Three Sisters' Lamps. The project was spearheaded by prominent Irish descendant businessmen: Art, George and Harry Flood, Pat Hogan, City Councillor Robert J. Higgins and Harry W. Flood, Chairman of the Design and Erection Committee. In May 1967, Common Council, at the request of the Society, renamed the foot of Prince William Street to St. Patrick’s Square. On November 5, 1967, His Excellency William Warnock, Ambassador from Ireland, dedicated the Cross in front of a crowd of more than 500 people.
The Partridge Island Celtic Cross, with its smaller copy at St. Patrick’s Square, is tremendously symbolic to the local Irish community. With so many Irish immigrants losing their lives during the famine, there were large common burial lots were used on the island but no marker existed to show this hallowed ground. In the 1890s Michael F. Mooney built a small wooden memorial cross. In 1898 the Ancient Order of Hibernians unsuccessfully attempted to replace this with a more permanent marker. In 1925 James Connolly of the Saint John City Cornet Band approached George McArthur, a local contractor of Irish Protestant origin, for his assistance in erecting a permanent memorial. In October 1927, the thirty-foot Celtic Cross was unveiled by Robert Tyner, a survivor of the 1847 famine year, in memory of the Irish Catholic immigrants and Dr. James Collins who died in the summer of 1847.
During World War Two the Cross was taken down for security reasons. After the war there were calls to move the Cross from the Island and place it in either King’s Square or the Old Burial Ground. The Army did re-erect it in 1947 but with the plaque facing in the opposite direction. The foundation was changed to hide damage to the base of the Cross.
After fifty-five years of neglect the Island’s Cross was literally in danger of falling down. In 1983 the Partridge Island Research Project made temporary repairs to the damaged base of the Celtic Cross. The St. Patrick's Society provided $500 toward this $2,000 cost. In 1985 the Research Project and two local organizations undertook a full restoration of the Cross, at a cost in excess of $100,000. The damaged modified base was removed and a new concrete base built to the exact specifications of the original plans. The fluted concrete shaft was sandblasted and the damaged concrete repaired and painted. The only thing that was not replaced was the lightening rod.
In August 1985 the Cross was rededicated, and a grave marker was placed in the grass plot where McArthur's cremated remains were placed in 1932. During this ceremony the Saint John Jewish Community dedicated a memorial marker to the Jewish immigrants buried on the island. The remains of several unidentified immigrants were re-interred in the Protestant and Roman Catholic graveyards, and the Saint John Lions Club, in association with the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre, rebuilt the fence around the three newer graveyards. In 1994 the Loyal Orange Lodge erected a monument dedicated to all immigrants of the Protestant faith.
The plaques on both Crosses read:
'This monument was erected in memory of the more than 2,000 Irish immigrants who died of typhus fever, contracted on shipboard during the voyage from Ireland in the famine year of 1847 and of whom 600 were buried on this island. The Cross also commemorates the devotion and sacrifice of Dr. Patrick Collins, who, whilst ministering to the victims of the disease, himself contracted it and died.'
Public access to Partridge Island has not been allowed since 1993. The island has been declared both a National and Provincial Historic Site.
Congrats to the team of ynds, sk8ter boy and SVTF on being FTF!