The year was 1827 and in Finland, the city of Abo (Turku in
Finnish) was destroyed by fire. According to The Times (London,
England) of 30 October 1827, “14 persons have perished on this
melancholy occasion, and 789 houses have been reduced to ashes.”
It goes on to say that, “From this eminence the city now only
presents to the view of the observer a vast field of ruins, an
awful forest of [chimneys?] is all that remains of a city which
not long since was [situated?] by the industry and activity of
14,000 inhabitants, of which 11,000 are now without an asylum.”
In Ireland, the population had grown from around 2.3 million in
1754 to 6.8 million as counted by the 1821 census, and the Penal
Laws, which didn’t allow Catholics to buy land, and which
restricted them in many other ways, encouraged this group in
particular to emigrate. In 1827, legislation restricting
emigration was lifted and in the ensuing ten years nearly
400,000 Irish emigrants left for foreign shores.Â Across the
ocean in America, the railroad i