Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick, within the city's Inner Harbour. The island is a provincial historic site and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974. It lies on the west side of the mouth of the Saint John River. During the American Revolution, in 1780, six British troops from Major Timothy Hierlihy's corps, under the command of Lieut. Wheaton, attacked eight American privateers in a house they were occupying on Partridge island. The British killed three of the privateers and the other five were taken prisoner. Partridge Island was first established as a quarantine station and pest house in 1785 by the Saint John Royal Charter, which also set aside the island for use as a navigational aid station and a military post. Its first use as a quarantine station was not until 1816. A hospital was constructed on the island in 1830. Immigration and memorials The island received its largest influx of immigrants in the 1840s during the "Great Famine", also known as the "Irish Potato Famine," when a shortage of potatoes occurred due to potato blight striking Ireland's staple crop. The famine caused millions to starve to death or otherwise emigrate, mainly to North America. During the famine, some 30,000 immigrants were processed by the island's visiting and resident physicians, with 1,196 dying at Partridge Island and the adjacent city of Saint John during the Typhus epidemic of 1847. During the 1890s there were over 78,000 immigrants a year being examined or treated on the island. A memorial to the Irish immigrants of the mid-1840s was set up on the island in the 1890s, but by World War One it had deteriorated. In 1926 the Saint John City Cornet Band approached Saint John contractor George McArthur who agreed to lead a campaign to build a suitable monument. The Celtic Cross memorial to the Irish dead of 1847 was dedicated in 1927. This was restored and rededicated in 1985. In the early and mid-1980s, memorials were built by the Saint John Jewish Community, the Loyal Orange Lodge, the Partridge Island Research Project, and the Partridge Island & Harbour Heritage Inc., a company that was registered in 1988 and dissolved in 2004. The memorials were dedicated to the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish immigrants buried in the six island graveyards. A monument was