Emigrants Setting Sail: Questions and Answers

City and Port of Antwerp Belgium

Steamship Leaves Le Havre (ebay postcard)

Ever since I wrote blog posts about the trip to America from the Port of Le Havre in France, I have gotten related questions. One reader asked how long it would have taken his ancestor to reach New York after setting sail from New York. Another reader wondered how an immigrant ancestor might have gotten from Kreis Saarburg to the port at Antwerp. There was a question about what conditions German immigrants encountered if they arrived in New York before the immigrant station at Castle Garden was created. 

Why not answer some of those questions from letters that immigrants sent back home to family and friends. I have chosen to take excerpts from a few of those letters which touched on the questions I had received. Who better qualified to write about their experiences than the individuals who made the trip to the New World. 

Two of the letter writers traveled by sailing ship in the 1840s when Antwerp was the most convenient port of departure for emigrants from Kreis Saarburg and the Rhineland.   Many other letters from this time period must have been similar.

Letter 1 

Excerpts from the first letter were written by Michael Rodenkirch, a German emigrant and one of the first settlers in the Village of St. Michaels, Wisconsin. The unincorporated community of Saint Michaels is located partially in the town of Kewaskum in Washington County Wisconsin. You can read the full text at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~konrath/emigrantletter.html 

"State of West Konsin 
December 26, 1846 

Dearest Mother, All Sisters and Brothers, Brothers and Sisters-in-law, relatives and Acquantances: 
Sincere Greetings to you All! 

Thanks to God we are all well and hope the same of you. I do hope that by now you have received my letter of Oct. 22, telling you where we have finally landed. Should you have received this letter, I hope that news from you is on the way. I will tell you again briefly about our trip... 

Emigrants to America generally pay half fare from Cochem to Coblenz, 10 silver Groschen; from Coblenz to Coeln, 20 silver Groschen; from Coeln to Antwerp by railway, two dollars per adult person, older than 10 or 12 years, children below that age pay half fare, and babies under one year travel free. From Antwerp to New York adults pay 80 francs while minors pay 70 francs... 

Should you plan to undertake the trip to America, make sure that you are on time at the depot or dock, as neither ships nor train will wait a minute for you - they are gone like a shot. Whoever makes the trip will be impressed with the omnipotence of God. It is still impossible for me to describe our voyage adequately. We were enroute 75 days. Back home we always thought that England was far, far away, but after five days of travel we were nearing the English coast and after 10 days we were alongside Scotland and Ireland; after that we were soon out in the open sea. This shows the speed of our ship. On the ocean we were for 55 days. High waves often dashed our ship. The slant of our ship often made it impossible to stand without hanging onto something. At times gusts of wind almost threatened to overturn our ship, but like a floating egg, it would always right itself. The last ten days we sailed along the American shores and then entered the world famous, beautiful New York harbor. We remained in New York for a day... 

For your sea voyage make your own "zweiback" and take along sufficient oatmeal and wheat flour. If you can obtain potatoes, use them for your vegetable. Also carry along ham, butter, brandy, spices, coffee, sugar, and whatever else you might like to eat on your trip across the sea, for on the sea your money will not buy you anything. If you plan on traveling through the woods here, bring several pairs of boots and shoes and durable clothes; also bring waffle iron and cake pan... 

From New York you should acquire passage on steamship to Albany. From Albany to Buffalo you may travel by "Ralter," perhaps ferry or railway. From Buffalo you travel again by steamboat to "Milwaukee in West Konsin." Trip from New York to Albany costs 4 shilling, or 20 silver groschen; from Albany to Buffalo costs 5-6 dollars, from Buffalo to Wisconsin by steamship costs 6 dollars. At each place "veradkirdiert," [register or be recorded?] anew and do not trust every German thieving trickster approaching you as exchange agent; these people are usually bad characters... 

We had made arrangement for passage to Chicago, however, we went ashore at Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, 80 miles above Chicago. We live now 40 miles northeast of Milwaukee in Town 12, Range 19, Section 13. We are all well satisfied here, have good land, and none molest us... 

The trip across the ocean took 52 days; despite storm and high waves, thanks to God, all went well. The trip through America to Milwaukee took us 18 days. Whoever makes this trip had better take good care of his money. With us there were people from Brohl on the Maihfeld who were robbed of 2,200 dollars in Albany. Their plight was great as they could only travel a short distance... 

I greet you a hundred thousand times and remain. 

Your sincere brother, 
Michael Rodenkirch" 

Letter 2 

This letter was transcribed verbatim by historian Josef Mergen, a dedicated researcher on emigration from the Rhineland to the United States. The source is the book 
 Copies are in German and are available on interlibrary loan at public and university libraries.  

Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1846 
Dear Cousins, Brothers, Sister-in-law! 

Because we are so far from one another, so that we may no longer talk with one another, I have decided to report my words to you in written fashion and to describe my journey, my present situation, the land, the crops, how house and homes are built, to the best of my ability. 

I will tell you about the pleasant, as well as the unpleasant, exactly as I have experienced them. 

We departed from Antwerp on the 21st of May (1846) and went as far as Vlissignen (Netherlands). Here we anchored and made a brief pause. From this point on, we could no longer anchor due to the depth of water....dear God, what an incredible amount of water! Here one sees nothing but sky and water, it appears as if the entire world were water. 

On the 30th of May, we had a beautiful day. We caught a shark and I had ever so much fun. But my fun was soon found an end. From the 1st to the 4th of June, we had storms. The ship began to roll; all chests had to be tightly bound; pots rolled from one corner to another, beds fell together, one couldn't walk or even stand. The incredble waves threatened to overwhelm us. Then we were all sick. This lasted until the 14th of June. Then we were again revived. Your brother Joseph was perfectly healthy. He had to take care of us and cook. 

On the 1st of July (the 40th day of our ocean journey) we first saw the American land. The joy that I felt then, I will never be able to describe to you. At about 9:00, a ship came to get us and by 12:00, we were in New York. As I left the ship, I wanted to walk on land. I felt as if the earth moved, I mean America, swung (he still had sea legs) 

Now we have passed one station of suffering (by that, I mean the difficulties of the ocean journey), which I will never be able to fully describe to you. 

We were now in New York, a big, beautiful city which encompasses more industry than did all of Prussia.

On the 21st (of July) we left New York by steamship. On the 3rd (of August) we arrived in Albany. There we got into a train and rode until Buffalo. There we waited one day. we again left via steamboat and journeyed over Lake Erie and Lake Michigan until we arrived in Milwaukee. On the 16th we arrived in Milwaukee. We had achieved our goal...

Johann Schroeder, Milwaukee
Territorium Wisconsin, N.A

There are three reasons that I chose the last two letters.  1) The emigrant in each case was young and single, 2) the voyages to America took place by steamship rather than sailing ship, and 3) The true ocean travel of each emigrant's journey was out of the port at Le Havre, but Le Havre was reached by an unusual circuitous route.  In one case, the New York Passenger List for the ship probably stated that all passengers left Europe from the port of Hamburg but did not mention a stop in Le Havre.  Did this steamship pick up additional passengers there? If so, were those people listed as starting their journey in Hamburg?

Letter 3

Barbara Klinger was a 20 year old country girl who wanted to go to New York and find work as a domestic servant.  In letters exchanged between Barbara's father in Wuerttenberg and his son-in-law, Franz Schano who lived in New York and was married to Barbara's sister, the young woman's trip was carefully arranged.  Packing details and travel options were discussed in an exchange of letters.  In one of the letters, Franz Schano told Barbara's father that there was a choice of a ticket - with food provided or a passenger bringing food themselves.  He did not know which would be more economical and left it up to Barbara's father to decide.  It was decided that Barbara would bring her own food.  Barbara's sister instructed her to fill two potato sacks with enough food for a "simmen" which was about the measurement of two bushel baskets. The brother-in-law in New York arranged for Barbara to get her passage and sent her a ticket document and 15 gulden which would pay for extra fees she would encounter as she traveled.  She was to give the ticket document to the travel agent in Mannheim.  In return she would receive three travel tickets, the first was for the steamship from Mannheim to Rotterdam, the second from Rotterdam to Havre, and the third from Havre to New York.  As complicated as the land travel was, Barbara had no difficulties.  Safely in the home of her sister, she wrote the following: 

New York
July 16, 1851

Dear parents and brothers and sisters,

I want to let you know what kind of journey I had to New York.  On the 18th we boarded a sailing ship, from Havre to New York.  I was at sea for 26 days on the ship, there were 725 persons with the sailors and we only had a storm once.  But it was nothing compared to the voyage Mari had, the ship had 3 decks and one cellar completely under water, the people slept in the 2 lower ones and in the two higher ones there are two kitchens, two toilets, two stalls, and another stall for cows, there was one cow and in the back there is another small room, where the mates and the 3 cooks who cook for the sailors they were blacks, one had his wife along, she was a black too, and the ship was named Wilhelm Tell, it is one of the biggest ships that go between Havre and New Jork and even when the wind was strong it can't throw it around like the little one, it also rolls more, such a big ship on the ocean is like a nutshell swimming in the lake at Korb.

Letter 4

Wilhelm Buerkert was a teenager of 16 when he left his apprenticeship in his home village of Waldenburg in Wuerttemberg.   Both of his parents were dead but his father had been relatively well to do.  Now, with only a stepmother and a guardian, he seems to have been at odds with his stepfamily and he was permitted to emigrate to America.  It seems that the money for a ticket and some additional cash were given to him.  His youth comes across clearly in his rambling first letter home.  The excerpts I chose are a very small part of what he wrote.

New York, 
IX 29, 1875
Dear mother, grandparents, sisters, and honorable guardian,
Praise be to the Lord, etc., that is the first hymn that we can strike up, for you can count yourself lucky to have arrived here safely, especially when you hear that at the same time our ship left, on the same water, no less than 3 ships sank from running into one another in the fog.

So, let us turn our attention to the journey. In Heilbronn there was a one-hour stop, then straight on to Heidelberg. Here there was time to see the main sights. Then on, after refreshing yourself, to Frankfurt. Here after getting all your things at Mr. Treschof's, the emigration agent's, which cost a lot of money as well, you were taken to an inn, "zum goldenen Adler" (Golden Eagle). Oh, to hell with that food and those beds, bedbug covers, not featherbeds, just a miserable mattress with torn sheets, and awfully expensive...

In Frankfurt we left on a Sunday at 8 o'clock in the morning and arrived the next morning at 3 o'clock at a station where we had to spend the night sleeping on the benches in the waiting room, until the train left at 6 o'clock the next morning...

We were in Hamburg in 2 hours time. We were brought by coach to our inn to the Gasthaus zum suddeutschen Hof (South German Guesthouse). Here we spent 2 nights...

On Wednesday the 15th of September...we got on a nice small steamship. In two hours we were out of the Elbe...we were met by a ship like you can't imagine, with 2 big smokestacks...The next morning everyone was already seasick. For on the open sea the ship rolls terribly. It goes as fast as an express train...

On the 17th of September we arrived in the French city of Havre. In this port there was a 24-hour stop. We were allowed to get off. We looked around this really lovely, large and luxurious city. On Sept. 18th at 10 o'clock in the morning, we departed. But thenout on the Atlantic Ocean the ship really started to roll and the waves went clear up to the helmsman...

The last few days we had such a storm that you couldn't stand up or lie down. The trunks we had with us were tied down. The last night we had fog. On the 27th of Sept., or on the Monday, you couldn't see anything at all for 2 nights, the ship went very slowly. The steamwhistles were blown a lot. All at once at 9 o'clock they called out excitedly, Hurray, the pilot. He was coming toward us in a small boat. He had to guide us through the reefs off shore and in through the straits. It was a chief helmsman--almost like a ship's officer. At 4 in the morning we heard land-land. And that is a sight, oh splendid. We were in Stett-Neuland (Staten Island). Here the anchor was cast...

(Wilhelm Buerkert did not sign his name to the letter but ended it with "Your thankful son, grandson and brother.--Greetings, too, to Gustav

These last two letters were taken from a 1991 book entitled "News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home" edited by Walter D. Kamphoefner, Wolfgang Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer and translated by Susan Carter Vogel.

To the best of my knowledge, none of my immigrant ancestors wrote home, but I still dream that someday, somewhere in a German archive or attic, there will be letters like these to people still living in the villages of Kreis Saarburg, and I will find them!

Sources:
"News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home" edited by Walter D. Kamphoefner, Wolfgang Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer and translated by Susan Carter Vogel, Cornell University Press, 1988, 1991

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~konrath/emigrantletter.htm

Mergen, Josef, "Die Amerika-Auswanderung aus dem Kreise Saarburg" (The American Emigration from the County of Saarburg).  Part of the book, Die Amerika-Auswanderung aus dem Regierungsbezirk Trier / 2. Die Amerika-Auswanderung aus dem Kreise Saarburg.  Metzdorf, 1952

Travel Tuesday - The Date an Ancestor Left for America

Sailing the English Channel near Le Havre

This blog post is different from most.  Rather than writing about the  social customs of the people of the Saarburg Kreis, I switched gears for this one time.

My average blog post has about 25 hits shortly after it is posted.  These probably come from followers who are interested in all aspects of German culture. Then, depending on the subject of the piece, numbers increase as a subject is searched and one of my posts is thought to have potential to give the information needed.

Until last year, my posts about the customs of Christmas in the Rhineland area, especially about Knecht Ruprecht, the not-so-kind companion of St. Nikolaus, were the most popular. As you can tell from that last sentence, I do check my statistics which are calculated for me each day by Blogger.

Last year a new blog post began to receive a surprising number of hits. I had written a piece about the Port of Le Havre, describing the struggle to reach the port and then find a place to wait for the ship as it arrived, usually with merchandise from the last country visited.  Often the hold of the ship was refitted for a new cargo - the emigrants. Almost every day, that particular post about Le Havre had more views than any other post and so it continues. In addition, the comments were more numerous than any other post I had ever written.  Do not let any genealogical expert tell you that Hamburg and Bremen are the only important ports for German immigrants.  Le Havre saw an enormous amount of Bavarian, Swiss, Austrian and Rhineland immigration.

One of those comments left on the Le Havre blog post asked if I had any information about the amount of time it took for a ship to reach New York after it left Le Havre. It was the same question that had bothered me many years ago - before the days of the Internet search and all the data sources on Ancestry, Roots Web, etc. I set out for the Wisconsin Historical Society Library to try to find additional information on the ocean voyages that brought some of my ancestors to the port of New York. I knew the names of two of the ships - the Rattler and the Albion - their dates of arrival, and their ports of departure. What I didn’t know was the length of the voyage and the registry of the ship. That information was not required on the form for ship arrivals which each ship captain submitted.  Thus, it is also not on the microfilms of “Registers of Vessels Arriving at the Port of New York from Foreign Ports.”

My German Bohemian ancestors’ ship, the Albion arrived in New York in August 1856 (with Elizabeth and Anton Luniak and their children).  On May 9, 1861 (with Magdalena and Johann Meier and their children aboard) the ship Rattler reached New York's port. The Luniaks were arriving from Liverpool and the Meiers from Le Havre. There was no clue to tell me when either of those ships had set sail.

I tried another route but none of the published books about sailing ships, some with pictures and good descriptions of immigrant ships, listed the ships on which my ancestors sailed.  If a wonderful library like the Wisconsin Historical Society's library, holding records and books from every state east of the Mississippi, could not help me; there was nowhere else to turn without a trip to Europe, or so I had begun to think.

Then I took the step I should have begun with.  I asked the reference librarian if he could point me in the right direction. "Did they arrive after September 18, 1851?" he asked. When I said yes, he told me to look at the front page of the New York Times newspaper.  I know I gave him a confused stare! To my surprise, I learned that ships arriving at the port of New York were always reported there, giving details such as country of registry, the owning company or individual, the port of departure, the length of the journey and the type of cargo. In addition, the listing sometimes gave other details about the voyage. Here are the entries I found for my two ships:

May 9, 1861 - “Ship Rattler, Almy (the ship’s captain), Havre, 32 ds. (length of trip) with mdse. and 197 passengers to Wm. Whitlock Jr. (the ship’s owner)” This means that they left on the 8th of April in 1861. (Easter was on March 31 so they celebrated the important Catholic Feast Day just one week before they started out for Le Havre).

August 9, 1856 - “Ship Albion, Williams (the ship’s captain), Liverpool, July 11, (date of departure) with mdse., and 621 passengers to Tapscott and Co (the ship’s owner).  July 14 (three days out of port) James H. Simpson, of Newport R.I., fell from the mizzen topgallantyard and was drowned.”  I assume he was a crew member but the newspaper doesn't say so.

By looking at information on other ships arriving from European ports the same day, I learned more about the crossing. I could surmise that the Rattler probably was rocked by storms like other ships in that day’s list since several ships were "in ballast" when they arrived.  This meant that heavy material had to be placed in the ship’s hold to enhance stability. An entry for another ship arriving from LeHavre the same day noted that it was in ballast and that the ship “has had heavy westerly gales for the last 10 ds.” My heart ached for my great great grandmother who was in the early months of her pregnancy.

So if you’ve found your ancestor’s ship in the New York passenger lists, or in Germans to America, and the date is after 18 September 1851, I recommend checking the New York Times Newspaper on microfilm or online to get “the rest of the story.”  The online heading you are looking for is under the "ARCHIVES" tab of the newspaper and the subject you want is "marine intelligence (month, day, year)

Once I had information on the owners, I wanted more information about the shipping companies.  I did a web search.  I learned that the owner of the Albion was the Tapscott Company.  They were described as “systematic villains,” a fact so well know that this was immortalized in a sea shanty, a song sung when the ship was being “warped” out of harbor at the beginning of a voyage. (To find out more about the shipping lines, such as Tapscott, there is good information at "The Ship's List."  Even if your first search is not successful, new information and lists are being added to "The Ship's List" regularly as I found just now when I went back to check for this post.  The passenger list of the ship Rattler, which carried my ancestors, has now been transcribed.  If your ancestor arrived at the Port of New York before September 1851, this site may help you.

A word of warning.  If you are an e-mail subscriber to the free New York Times Newspaper headlines, be aware that your 10 full articles per month are counted whether you click on their e-mail headlines of the current day in 2014 or find a New York Times article in 1861 while doing an on-line search.  I just lost all my free articles for the month of January by checking accuracy of New York Times articles used in this article in the NY Times Archive on line.  Evidently even a headline from May of 1861 meets their restriction criteria.

According to the last comment received on this post, Newspapers.com, a for-profit website, has records for the New York Times going back at least as far as 1832.  That is where a reader of this post found the arrival of her ancestors' ship.  I thank her very much for taking the time to share the information.

  

A Look at Le Havre, a Less-Known Port for German Emigrants

Port of Le Havre in 1856
Gustave Le Gray photo in Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the basic questions for most people who are attempting to tell the story of their ancestors centers on the port of departure for the emigrant family. Early in my family research, I thought that all Germans left their country from either the port at Hamburg (for which there are passenger lists which give the town where the emigrant lived) or Bremen (where passenger lists were destroyed by fire). I became convinced that all of my ancestors sailed from Bremen, since the Hamburg passenger lists did not log any of my ancestors at all.

If I couldn't find the departure point, I decided to take second-best. I began to search the New York Passenger Lists of arrivals. Perhaps I would be lucky and find a ship captain who gave the city or village of birth for one of my ancestors. Since I undertook this project in the days before the internet existed, my search meant hours scanning unindexed passenger lists for the New York port on microfilm. My Meier ancestors, according to their citizenship application, arrived in the US in May of 1861, I started my search with May 1, looking at each name for each passenger list for every ship. It was not a small undertaking! I did find my ancestors arrival from Prussia (no city or county given) on May 9, 1861. I was no closer to finding their village of birth than before I started. But I had learned an important fact. German immigrants left their native land from a number of ports other than Hamburg and Bremen: Antwerp, Belgium and Le Havre France being two of the most important. I later learned that not only the Meiers but also my Probst ancestors from Bavaria had chosen Le Havre as their port of embarkation to Amerika. I started collecting information about Le Havre but, as usual, not much was written about what most US family historians seem to consider a very secondary port.

My sister, with her fluent French, was able to lend a helping hand for the Le Havre information through a a search of the French national library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, on line. I owe most of the information which follows to her efforts.

Le Havre of the 19th Century

The end of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars allowed a revival of commerce and economic and population growth. The city became crowded within its walls and new neighborhoods appeared. But many of the poor were clustered in the unhealthy neighborhood of Saint Francis where the epidemics of cholera, typhoid and other diseases caused hundreds of deaths from the years 1830 to 1850. Rich traders were very much in the minority but increasing in numbers little by little. They built beautiful homes outside of the ramparts, on the “coast”. The settlement of a large Breton community (10% of the population of Le Havre at the end of the 19th century) changed the cultural life of the city. The economic success of the city attracted Angle-Saxon and Nordic entrepreneurs. Italians, Polish and then North Africans worked on the docks and in the factories.

Construction of a commercial center began in the 1840s and there was some gas lighting as early as 1836. In the middle of the century, the old city ramparts became a thing of the past as adjacent communes were annexed. As a result, the population of the city of Le Havre increased dramatically. The period 1850-1914 became a golden age for Le Havre. Business exploded and the city became more and more impressive with large boulevards, a city hall, court house, and a new financial exchange.

The effects of the industrial revolution were everywhere. By 1841, there were 32 steamships in the harbor, and the shipyards develop. The railroad which was built in 1847 allowed the opening up of Le Havre. The docks were constructed in the same time period, as well as general stores.

The harbor remained the port of the Americas: it received tropical products (coffee, cotton). European coastal shipping carried wood, coal and wheat from northern Europe; wine and oil from the Mediterranean. The abolition of the African slave trade brought with it, little by little, a change in that traffic. During the first part of the 19th century, the port maintained the Atlantic slave trade (this pertains to an illegal period because in 1815, during the congress of Vienna, the importing of slaves was forbidden).

During the 1830s, Le Havre also became a resort frequented by Parisians. The creation of seaside baths increased in this time.

"Sadly sitting on their sorry baggage, waiting the time of departure, they have descended into a kind of stupor, overwhelmed by the vague intuition of the immensity of what they were undertaking and by the memory of that which they left behind them. " Theophile Gautier about the painting The Emigrants of Alsace by Theophile Schuler

Le Havre remained a place of passage for those who sought emigration to the United States. The transatlantic trips became important in the second half of the 19th century.  It was the beginning of the era of the ocean liners that turned their seaport into the pride of the people of Le Havre.

A memento of the importance of the port of Le Havre for German emigration to the United States is John Shea's Englisch-Amerikanisches Handbuch für Auswanderer und Reisende, which was published in Le Havre in 1854. It claimed to be "the first book of the kind ever attempted in Havre for the instruction of the English language to emigrants", with a phrase book and a pronunciation guide. Besides reprinting the regulations for steerage passengers to New York and New Orleans in both English and German, it also provided a list of emigration agents, noting "By their endeavors, Havre has become the thoroughfare of emigration from Switzerland and the South of Germany to the United States..." This now obscure work was an attempt to cash in at the high point of the first boom period for emigration via Le Havre, which would taper off at the end of the decade.

To some extent, Le Havre owed its existence to America, since its harbor was constructed by Francois the First in 1519 for colonial expeditions to the new world. Its function as an emigration port took on a new quality after the end of the Napoleonic wars, when mass movement once again became possible. Secondly the developing cotton industry in Alsace required raw material from the United States. German disunity, and the resulting multiple tariffs imposed on Rhine river traffic made it cheaper to do this overland, across France. As elsewhere, the shipment of persons was a by-product of commercial shipments: the docks at Le Havre were enlarged and steamboat traffic on the Seine increased. Emigrants could obtain transport on freight wagons returning from the east. They were at first mainly Swiss and Alsatians. At any rate, according to a letter from Le Havre sent to the prefect of the department of the Moselle on May 20, 1841, "Here, no distinction is made between German and Alsatian emigrants, they are all just called Swiss." (quoted in Camille Maire, L'émigration des Lorrains en Amérique 1815-1870, Metz 1980). Due to the timber trade, a certain number of Norwegians sailed to Le Havre and then boarded ships to America.

As a result, traffic between New Orleans and Le Havre was particularly important, although New York was also involved in the trade in cotton and was of course a magnet for immigrants. The majority of immigrants did not remain in Louisiana, but proceeded up the Mississippi to St. Louis and Cincinatti, at least before the expansion of the U.S. railway system. In 1818, passage from Le Havre to America was 350-400 francs; in the early 1830s it was 120-150 francs. Leaving aside the difficult question of how much this was "worth" in purchasing power, the fact remains that the increase in shipping (including regular packet service) had led to a dramatic decrease in prices for transport. The majority of these ships were American. Since the only emigration lists that have survived are for French ships, this leaves an enormous gap in the records.

The Emigrant Travels to Le Havre

The Meier ancestors booked their passage on a relatively small (197 passengers) American sailing ship called Rattler.  Every passenger is listed as "Farmer" (many were probably landless day laborers) and the majority came from Prussia, although there were also travelers from Baden, Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Switzerland with five or less each from France, Italy, England and the United States.

At first, it was necessary for emgirants to make arrangements for passage directly with the captains of the vessels. During the sailing season there were thus always several thousand persons waiting to leave. They could be obliged to wait for weeks, partly in lodging houses, partly outdoors. A German colony of innkeepers, shopkeepers and brokers materialized to service them. Agents began meeting the emigrants on the road to Le Havre to sign them up. After the French government required in 1837 that Germans present a valid ticket at the French border, local offices began to be opened in Switzerland and the German states. Again, as elsewhere, French authorities did not want large numbers of indigent would-be emigrants stranded in the port. Previously, the only document required to cross the border had been a passport.

There is some difference of opinion as to why the number of emigrants who went through Le Havre began to decline. In 1854, it is true, the Prussian government forbade its subjects to emigrate via France, but this ban was lifted in May 1855. Despite growing competition, mainly from Bremen, Le Havre could still have held its own. An economic slump in the USA slowed immigration in 1858, but this applied equally to all European ports. The development of the French railway system also made passage across France easier (one day's travel from the border to Paris). Yet, although the state railway system offered reduced fares and even special trains in the spring, it seems that in general the French railroads were more expensive than German ones. A ticket from Mayence (Mainz) to Le Havre in the 1850s cost 40.65 francs, to Antwerp only 12 and to Bremen 15.50 (Camille Maire, En route pour l'Amérique, Nancy 1993). Jean Braunstein suggests that there were stricter border controls in 1858, due to an attempted political assassination, which was then exaggerated by the German press.

During most of this period, emigrants were required to bring their own provisions. It is sometimes thought that this was disadvantage compared to German ports, where early on, emigrants were provided with meals on board. In reality, many southern Germans were decidedly unimpressed by North German cuisine and such unfamiliar foods as herring, and preferred to bring their own. On the other hand, Bremen and Hamburg did take more steps to protect emigrants from unscrupulous agents and salesmen who sold them overly expensive and sometimes unncessary goods.

Waiting for and Boarding Ships in Le Havre

"The accommodation of emigrants awaiting departure is a serious problem.  The less fortunate sleep in the street, on the floor, or up makeshift tents on the banks of the streets and sidewalks of St. Francis and Notre Dame. Others took refuge in shacks close to the fortifications or in the plain with their baggage.  In 1840, the "Revue du Havre" wrote that "the city is crowded with the poorest Bavarian immigrants...  The floating population began to camp out on the ramparts of the east. They takes shelter under the elms; excavations in the thickness of slope ditches serve as their home ... Those who have two francs a day, can find accommodation among innkeepers of St. Francis and Our Lady, who specialize in taking care of immigrants. There are a dozen in 1850. As the Commissioner of the emigration noted, the high price of rents in the city of Le Havre force the landlords to establish themselves in the narrow streets in areas that are dirty and wet ... " Andre Corvisier

Among the hotels for travelers but with a cost much too expensive for the average German emigrant were Hotel Richelieu: Richelieu Place, No. 2; Hotel de Normandie: Rue de Paris, No. 106; Hotel Helvetia: Quai de l'Ile, No. 3; Hotel de la Marinae: Quai Notre-Dame, No. 7

Known hostels/Inns were the Hotel Suisse (François Merki): Quai barracks, No. 2;  Golden Lion (George Rau): Quai Casimir Delavigne, No. 27;  the Polar Bear (Philippe Gaspard): Rue Dauphine, 46.

There were two distinct categories of travelers - the passengers and the immigrants.  The passengers in cabin class could take advantage to the comfort of ships that became ever faster and more luxurious.  The immigrants were housed in steerage, just like the inanimate cargo they were replacing.  It was usually miserable and overcrowded.  The Meier ancestors sailed on a ship with only one class - steerage.  Obviously the Rattler was strictly a cargo ship, whether that cargo was meant for French and German factories or for emigrants on their way to a new life.

Note: If, after September 18, 1856, your ancestor sailed from Le Havre or from any other port on a ship that was bound for the port of New York AND if you have the name of the ship and the New York port arrival date, you can find the day of departure as explained in my January, 2014 blog post.

Sources:
Wikipedia Le Havre, 19th Century
"Prosperite du Havre au 19eme siecle" Wikipedia
"Le Havre, port des émigrants" (p. 205-215). Je vous donne quelques extraits des pages 206-207: Legoy, Jean Hier, Le Havre. Tome IIHistoire du Havre et de l'estuaire de la Seine / sous la dir. de André Corvisier. - [Éd. mise à jour]. - Toulouse : Privat, 1987. - 335 p. - (Pays et villes de France).
Dax, Albert de, Guide de l'émigrant partant du port du Havre pour le Rio de la Plata, Montevideo et Buenos-Ayres. - Havre : impr. de H. Brindeau, 1856. - 48 p. (A book that provides practical information for potential migrants to Latin America. It includes, p. 9 and 10, a list of hotels and inns that can accommodate them before they leave.)
Photo by Gustave Le Gray, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2005.100.273

Salt Lake City Discovery

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Temple in the foreground, the Tabernacle in the center, and our hotel (the Plaza) and the Family History Library at the far left (Photo by Carole Kortenhof)


Eliminating possibilities - that's mostly what I did during my stay in Salt Lake City last month. I can't complain, or course, because previous visits have given me the names and stories of my ancestors from Irsch, Zerf, and Serrig in Kreis Saarburg. By now, though, I am seeking bits and pieces, looking for hints to collateral line relatives whose success at hiding from me could stymie Sherlock Holmes himself.

One interesting snippet that I discovered was from The Antwerp Emigration Index by Charles Hall. I had never paid much attention to it because it covers only one year, 1855, and only one port. This time I picked it up on the offhand chance that it would help me solve a mystery that so far has me totally frustrated.

I am searching for the younger sister of my 2nd great grandfather, Johann Meier. When he emigrated in 1860, he told the Mayor of Beurich, who was taking his application, that he was going to America to improve his life and that he already had two brother-in-laws in America. One brother-in-law was Matthias Rauls, the brother of Johann's wife, Magdelena. The other had to be the husband of his sister Anna. Unfortunately, Anna did not marry in the parish church of Irsch, her home parish. It's possible that she married in her husband's parish and then the two left for America. It is also possible that she decided to emigrate when she was still single and left before any real emigration records are available, marrying somewhere in her adopted homeland. Thus I don't know if I am searching for Anna Meier or Anna _______. Complicating my life is the fact that emigration records from the Trier area before 1856 do not seem to have been kept.

After searching for Anna's marriage record in the parishes neighboring her home village of Irsch and finding nothing, I decided to see if the 1855 Antwerp Emigration Index showed any trace of her. Once again, no Anna Meier. But what I did find delighted me. In that year, 37 residents of Zerf/Frommersbach left Antwerp for America on the ship Daylight.
I have a 662 page book about the history of Zerf (in German) and it lists all of the emigrants who were found in emigration documents filed in the Koblenz Archive. Not any of the thirty-seven passengers on the Ship Daylight are named in that history. So even though I did not find anyone I was looking for, I'm able to write my own personal addendum to "Der Hochwaldort Zerf am Fuße des Hunsrücks" by Edgar Christoffel. And I'll keep looking for Anna.
We know that people from the Rhineland began to emigrate in the 1840s. Passports were issued at that time, but the Archive at Koblenz does not have the paperwork which made those passports possible to locate for the Trier and Saarburg region. It was not until about 1857 that a systematic effort was undertaken to keep emigration papers.
Before the completion of the Trier to Saarbrucken railroad in 1860, Antwerp was the most accessible seaport for emigrants leaving the Trier and Saarburg area for other countries.
According to the introduction to the book, The Antwerp Emigration Index was extracted and compiled by the non-profit organization, Heritage International. “It deals with emigrants from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands…There are in excess of 5,100 immigrants whose origins are given here.“ Heritage International used the passenger records of 38 ships which left the port of Antwerp in the year 1855. “…Destinations of the emigrants were New York, Boston, New Orleans, Rio Grande & Australia.”
Unfortunately, the researchers did not give the destination of each one of the 38 sailings (most of the ships sailed two times from Antwerp to their destination), nor did they give sailing dates, except that they gave each ship a number according to its first departure date of the year. The Zerf emigrants were on Ship No. 28, the Daylight. It left Antwerp during the last third of the sailing season and yet this was its first sailing from the port of Antwerp.
The passenger list information furnished in the Antwerp Emigration Index gives: 1. Passenger Name 2. Age 3. Place (whether of residence or birth is not clear) 4. Ship Number 5. Place Where Passport Was Issued. (These were people who were emigrating legally and almost all of them had a passport that was issued in Trier)
Aboard the Ship Daylight
1. Johann Allmescheid, age 57, from Oberzerf
2. Mary Allmescheid, age 51, from Oberzerf
3. Johann Baermohen, age 28 from Zerf
4. Johanna Baermohen, age 39 from Zerf
5. Nikolaus Bernardz(y), age 26, from Oberzerf
6. Susanna, Brixus, age 44, from Zerf
7. Johann Peter Christ, age 52, from Zerf
8. Gert. Christ, Gert., age 47, from Zerf
9. Matthias Eiler, age 53, from Zerf
10. M. Eiler, age 50, from Zerf
11. Matthias Lillig, age 37, from Zerf
12. Sus. Lillig, age 40, from Zerf
13. Johannes Lillig, age 39, from Zerf
14. Margaretha Lillig, age 37, from Zerf
15. Michael Maier, age 32, from Zerf
16. Sus. Maier, age 33, from Zerf
17. Johannes Maier, age 56, from Zerf
18. Helena Maier, age 47, from Zerf
19. Nic. Merz, age 48, from Zerf
20. M. Merz, age 43, from Zerf
21. Jacob Muller, age 58, from Zerf
22. Johannes Muller, age 38, from Zerf
23. Cath. Muller, age 42, from Zerf
24. Joh. Muller, age 39, from Zerf
25. Moore Muller, age 48, from Zerf
26. Joh. Palm, age 57, from Frommersbach
27. A. Palm, age 57, from Frommersbach
28. Johannes Schneider, age 39, from Zerf
29. Barb. Schneider, age 39, from Zerf
30. Nic. Schneider, age 53, from Zerf
31. Johannes Schommer, age 42, from Frommersbach
32. A. Schommer, age 36, from Frommersbach
33. Math. Schwindling, age 53, from Zerf
34. Cath. Schwindling, age 56, from Zerf
35. Pet. Schwindling, age 30, from Zerf
36. Susanna Schwindling, age 27, from Zerf
37. Johannes Wagner, age 58, from Zerf
A few random thoughts about this boatload of Zerf villagers. The average age of the emigrants was 47.7 years old and 30 per cent of the emigrants were over 50. And something seems to be missing - no children are listed - and I have no explanation why!

Castle Garden - the Little Known Immigration Depot

Castle Garden



Ellis Island


Did your Rhineland ancestors pass through Ellis Island, leaving their homes behind them? Probably not, since the majority of Germans landed in New York during the middle years of the 19th century, a time when there was no "Isle of Tears."

Somehow Ellis Island has usurped all the fame of the immigration story. As many beginning genealogists search for their German roots, they are frustrated to learn that there are no immigration records for their ancestors available in the Ellis Island Immigration Center's database. "Why?" they ask. They have grown up believing every immigrant ship brought its load of passengers into the forbidding fortress where only the lucky ones received permission to continue their journey into the "new country." Ellis Island is as well known as President Abraham Lincoln, but our 19th Century ancestors' immigration center was almost always Castle Garden. And Castle Garden is about as familiar as President Millard Fillmore (our 13th US President).

The scenes I am about to describe are from a very good television series called "Germans in America." You may already have seen it or will find in soon on the schedule of your public television station. The four segments, focusing on the German immigrant experience, were produced in Germany for German television audiences and now has been translated into English. But I found it misleading at one point. See what you think.

Scene 1: Immigrants are shown waiting in long lines at Ellis Island, then being examined and told their fate. Would one family member be rejected and told to return to the home country. Should those family members who had passed the physical test return with their family member or stay in America? Small wonder Ellis Island was often called the "Isle of Tears." Fade to...

Scene 2: The year is 1849. A young man, Karl Steinweg, writes his family in Germany to come and join him. He is already in New York, having fled to the United States after taking part in the revolution of 1848. Fade to...

Scene 3: In the 1860's, another family arrives. The Julius Gumpertz family - father, mother and four children - hope to change their lives for the better in the new world.

The way these scenes are sequenced leaves viewers with the impression that the Steinweg family and the six members of the Gumpertz family sailed into New York harbor, saw the Statue of Liberty, were marched through Ellis Island, and finally declared fit to enter New York City and go on with their lives. It's good drama but nothing like the arrival of either of the two families, because Ellis Island immigration station did not open until 1892 nor was the Statue of Liberty fully assembled until July of 1886.

Before 1855, German immigrants arriving at the Port of New York were hardly noticed in any official kind of way. Once their ship was declared free of disease and the automatic quarantine was lifted, ship passengers and their luggage were loaded on to smaller boats and taken to one of five piers in the city. Here they found themselves on their own. Often the people who spoke the German language were con men who attempted to lure the newcomers to run-down boarding houses or to "help" them purchase tickets for passage to their end destination. These costs were usually two or three times higher than fair prices. Some of the immigrants gave their money to a "helpful countryman" and never saw him or their money again. The 1849 immigrant Steinwegs were completely on their own when they left their ship.

The 1860 Gumpertz family, as well as many of my German ancestors, had a better start. They went to Castle Garden, a receiving station for immigrants. Its purpose was not to limit immigration but to safeguard the new immigrants as well as prevent sickness from being spread to the residents of New York City. There was less drama here than at Ellis Island. Castle Garden, opened on August 3, 1855, was a place of temporary refuge for our immigrant ancestors, concentrating on services to help these new arrivals in a country they hoped to call their new home.

Castle Garden was located at the tip of lower Manhattan in Battery Park, a 23 acre waterfront park at the tip of Manhattan. It was constructed between the years 1807 and 1811 as part of a chain of harbor forts that could defend New York City against a naval attack. It was first known as the West Battery, but was renamed Castle Clinton in 1815 after George Clinton, the first governor of the state of New York. In 1823, the U.S. Army withdrew from the fortress, leaving it to New York City authorities, who in turn permitted private investors to take it over. These investors reopened it several months later as a center for social events and gave it a new name: Castle Garden. Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish soprano, once performed there for an audience of 4,000. But in 1855, the state of New York's Board of Emigration Commissioners decided to use the building for immigration purposes.

There were about 100 people who worked at the Castle Garden Landing Depot. There were inspectors who boarded the incoming ships to see how many passengers were aboard the vessel, and how clean it was. When the ship docked in New York City harbors, other agents transported the immigrants by barge or tugboat to the castle for medical exams. The sick were sent to Ward's Island for medical attention and the rest were brought into the rotunda of Castle Garden. After their names, nationalities, old residences, and destinations were recorded, the immigrants were sent to the baggage delivery. If the immigrant was not staying in the city, he could make arrangements here to forward their trunks or boxes to the final destination.

Back inside Castle Garden, there was a department with personnel who helped write letters in various languages for those immigrants who were illiterate; German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Portuguese, Swiss-German, Russian, and Latin interpreters were available. Thus any immigrant could mail a first letter back to the homeland.

The new arrivals also found a place here where they could safely change their foreign money into American currency, as well as a strictly regulated list of the 76 immigrant boardinghouse keepers allowed representation at the Castle. A restaurant, bread stands, washrooms, even a Western Union Telegraph Company branch were also available on the premises.

Barry Moreno, who works in the reference library at the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York City, says, "Today, Castle Garden swarms with tourists who come to buy ferry tickets for an excursion to the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. Only a few observe the stone walls that surround them; almost none go inside the modest exhibit gallery at the entrance to the castle. But those who pause within that quiet space will learn a startling fact: they are standing in a citadel that in bygone years was the great threshold to America for millions of migrants, a place where such travelers paused before journeying onward to new homes and livelihoods. Castle Garden is the true golden door to which poetess Emma Lazarus refered in her 1883 sonnet, 'Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me...''

I'm very glad my Rhineland Ancestors found a friendly, helpful country when they reached our shores.


Sources:
Moreno, Barry, "Castle Garden: The Forgotten Gateway," Ancestry Magazine
"Germans in America," Axel Engstfeld Filmproduktion, in collaboration with WDR/Cologne and ARTE, and with the support of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Film Funding Board (Filmstiftung NRW) and the Goethe-Institute