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Approx 1,000 Irish Labourers and their Co-workers died building the Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal was built 1827-1832 as part of a defence strategy so that troops could be moved quickly from Montreal to Kingston to defend Upper Canada from attacks from across the Border. The bulk of the 210km long canal linking Ottawa and Kingston, was carved out of virgin forest. It was built using primitive hand held tools and nitro-glycerine. The canal has 47 locks and is still considered to be a great engineering triumph. The bulk of the estimated 2 - 5 thousand a year labour force was made up of French Canadians and recently arrived Irish labourers. Some estimate the total labour force, including skilled workers. at 60% Irish, 30% French Canadian and 10% Scottish workers.
Deaths by accidents were common. During the annual sick season, i.e. mid August till mid September from 1826 till 1832, malaria claimed the lives of approx 1,000 Irish and their co-workers. This number includes the wives and children who accompanied many of the Irish labourers. Some reasons given for the exceptionally high Irish death toll from malaria are (1) for the duration of the sick season French Canadian and Scottish workers left the works project and returned to their homes, but the recently arrived Irish immigrants had nowhere to go. (2) unprepared for the extreme summer and winter, weakened by hunger and exhaustion not only from working on the canal but also from a hazardous and long journey from Ireland, the newly arrived immigrants were susceptible to illness.
Most of the deaths occurred between Kingston and Newboro. This area contained extensive marsh areas (which are prime location for mosquitoes to breed.) It was mainly the Irish labourers who were used to clear this area and because the mosquito spread the malaria from person to person the death toll in this area was very high. Quinine, an effective remedy for malaria was expensive and only available to the army engineers (called sappers) and skilled workers. Only 162 sappers worked on the rideau (a plaque was erected to the 2 sappers who died in Newboro in 1829 but no mention was made of the hundreds of Irish who died in the same area). A painting at Hotel Dieu Hospital (Kingston) erroneously depicts the sappers and labourers working together to build the Rideau Canal. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sappers were there mainly to keep order and to quell riots when the labourers demanded more humane working conditions.
The labourers had a constant struggle to feed themselves and their families because of relatively low wages and high prices at the contractors stores. They were employed by contractors, some of whom, through inexperience, where not good at their job, and as a result periodically the workers would not get paid for work they had completed. Thousands of the newly arrived Irish immigrant labourers were totally unprepared for the weather extremes during summer and winter. Some of them lived in caves on the banks of the canal. Penniless and weakened from their recent long journey across the Atlantic and from exposure to the elements because promised accommodation was not provided, exploited by their employers through low wages and high prices in the company stores; the labourers were often hungry, in poor health and susceptible to illness.
Exact numbers of deaths may never be known. Colonel By refused to keep track of the large number of labourers who died because he was afraid new immigrant workers would not come to take their place to work on the project if they knew that large numbers of their fellow countrymen were dying under horrendous working conditions. Many of the dead were hastily buried without benefit of religious ceremony. Even today there are unmarked mass graves along the Rideau Canal in such places as Jones Falls, Brewers Mills and Kingston Mills etc.
A plaque was erected and a commemoration held in July 2001, in memory of over 100 Irish labourers buried in a recently discovered gravesite at Chaffeys Locks. The first plaque to acknowledge the labour force was erected in 1993 at Kingston Mills by Kingston and District Labour Council.
The first monument anywhere along the length of the Rideau Canal acknowledging the huge number of deaths among the labour force was erected in May 2000 by the Kingston Irish Folk Club, Tir na nOg Irish Pub, Kingston Brewing Company and Ontario Public Service Employee Union. It was a Memorial Drinking Water Fountain erected in Confederation Basin (across from Kingston City Hall). The inscription reads:
DRINK THIS WATER IN MEMORY OF AN ESTIMATED 1,000 IRISH LABOURERS AND THEIR CO-WORKERS WHO DIED BUILDING THE RIDEAU CANAL 1827-1832.
(The inscription also appears in the Irish language because it was the spoken language of most of those who perished during the construction of the canal.)
The first Celtic Cross monument, erected to the labourers who died building the canal, was erected in Kingston (Doug Fluhrer Park) on 21 Nov 2002 by Kingston Irish Folk Club, The Government of Ireland, Tir na nOg, Kingston Brewing Co and The City of Kingston. A Blessing and interdenominational wreath/flower laying Service was held at the monument on 23 Nov 2002.
In response to a challenge from Kingston Irish Folk Club to the Ottawa community the third monument was erected in June 2004 at the Ottawa end of the canal. Kingston Irish Folk Club intends to erect cedar Celtic Cross monuments at Kingston Mills, Chaffeys Lock etc. In order to continue this work donations are gratefully accepted.
Kingston Irish Folk Club & Tir na nOg publications include:
(1) Kingston Ontario – Last Resting Place Of Over 1500 Victims Of An Gorta Mor
(2) From Ireland They Came by Neil Patterson
(3) The Queen vs T. Kirkpatrick 1847
(4) Kingston Irish Folk Clubs Celtic Cross Tour – The history behind Kingston’s recently erected monuments including 3 Celtic Crosses, a memorial fountain and various plaques –(it includes the history behind the Rideau Canal monuments i.e. a Celtic Cross and a memorial drinking fountain erected in Kingston – the first to be erected anywhere along the canal).
Submitted by Tony O'Loughlin
Originally May 2001 –Revised June 2004
Kingston Irish Folk Club is presently researching material for a booklet on the Rideau Canal. You can assist this ongoing project by volunteering to help with typing or research etc contact:
Tony O'Loughlin
(Founder & President) Kingston Irish Folk Club
1093 Hickorywood Cres
Kingston, Ontario
Canada K7P 2H2
tel: 613-3890754
OR
Kay Bonvie
(Vice President KIFC)
tel: 613-389-5324
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