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Home Page > Roots > New insights on North Brother Island where notorious Irish immigrant ‘Typhoid Mary’ spent her final days - PHOTOS & VIDEO

New insights on North Brother Island where notorious Irish immigrant ‘Typhoid Mary’ spent her final days - PHOTOS & VIDEO

Historian and photographer Ian Ference provided unprecedented access

By
KERRY O’SHEA,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Saturday, February 4, 2012, 10:34 AM
Updated Saturday, February 4, 2012, 10:34 AM

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North Brother Island was the home of Typhoid Mary, the most notorious carrier in New York history of the disease.
North Brother Island was the home of Typhoid Mary, the most notorious carrier in New York history of the disease.


PHOTOS - A close look at New York’s North Brother Island - slideshow

North Brother Island, which lays just a few hundred yards from the Bronx in New York, was regarded as being as miserable a place as Calcutta when it was still operational. It was the home of Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon the woman from Tyrone, who became the most notorious carrier in New York history of the disease.

The location, now mostly overgrown by plants and inhabited only by protected animals, used to serve as a quarantine zone for lepers, sufferers of typhoid fever, and drug addicts.

The Daily Mail reports that photographer and local historian in the area, Ian Ference, was given “unprecedented access” to the now deteriorating site. The images which Ference photographed of the remains at North Brother Island paint a dismal picture for what life must have been like for the inmates there.

“This has got to be one of America's most important places to visit,” said Ference. “Historically it has had a notorious and sometimes sinister reputation.”

North Brother Island was opened in 1885 as a quarantine center, only to be closed in 1963, leaving behind a “a haunting labyrinth of crumbling ruins.” The area is now patrolled by the armed coastguard members to protect the “sanctity” of the abandoned site.

“It was established as a forced quarantine camp for people suffering from infectious and often fatal diseases such as typhoid, scarlet fever, yellow fever, and typhus. There were six people suffering from leprosy confined here in wooden huts,” said Ference.
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Ference attributes the waves of immigrants coming to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in New York to the inevitable spread of infectious diseases.

“Once the health authorities identified a person as having a communicable disease they were seized and forced to live on North Brother Island - unless they were rich enough to afford a private clinic.”

Ference added that the mortality rate was high at North Brother, while the recovery rate was low. More often than not, once people were placed in North Brother, they were never heard from again.

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