1847

My Buchanan ancestors left Ireland during the Great Irish Famine. They had travelled north to the port of Londonderry, where they booked passage on a sailing ship for Canada. But after 10 days at sea they ran into a terrible storm. Sometimes they feared that they would sink. Mercifully, that did not happen, but the ship was damaged so badly that it had to return for repairs.

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On the second attempt, a “plague of immigrant fever” broke out on the ship. These illnesses were incurable with the primitive medicines of that time. When the family arrived in Canada, the official quarantine station at Grosse Isle, Quebec was already beyond capacity. So their ship was sent up the St Lawrence River to Kingston, Ontario for quarantine. There, the father, Andrew Buchanan, and the baby of William Buchanan died of the sickness. After being released from quarantine, they came west and settled in a wilderness of huge trees that neighbors called Buchananville, later named Donegal, Perth County, Ontario.

On Thanksgiving Day, let us pause to be thankful for the many blessings we enjoy and for the sacrifices of earlier generations that made it possible!