Toronto Irish Famine Memorial
Fleeing poverty and disease as a result of the failure of the potato crop over 100,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Canada in 1847. They landed first at the quarantine station at Grosse Île, a small island northeast of Quebec City. Many died there but the survivors travelled by steamship to ports along the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. In the summer of 1847 some 38,000 immigrants passed through Toronto, a city of only 20,000. By the end of the year over 1,100 had died of typhus, many in the fever sheds constructed by the Toronto Board of Health at the northwest corner of King and John Streets. Most of the dead were buried beside St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church at Queen and Power Streets, but 281 were buried on this site. Among those administering to the sick was the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, Michael Power and Dr. George Grasett, Chief Medical Officer at the Emigrant Hospital and the brother of the Dean of St. James' Anglican Cathedral, Dr. Henry Grasett. Both contacted typhus and died. This plaque was donated by Ireland Park Foundation to commemorate the Irish immigrants buried here and whose names are inscribed on the memorial wall in Ireland Park, Toronto.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.