I keep trying to picture the ocean crossing from Europe to the New World in the 19th century. Yesterday, I went to the National Archives and began the laborious process of scrolling through microfilm! records of passenger lists. I have not yet found my great-great grandfather’s name among them. I looked through three month’s worth, from January through March of 1857, and it took three hours. I don’t even know for sure what year my ancestor arrived — it might have been 1858 — it’s going to take several days of research.
Here’s what I discovered:
-The ships arriving in New York from Havre were mostly chock full of German immigrants. The ship called “William Nelson” arrived 1/3/1857 in New York’s harbor with 226 adults, 67 children, 7 infants, and 1 baby born on the passage. The passenger lists give names, ages, trades, and cities of origin. The top entry on the pages and pages of names often says “farmer” and then there’s a squiggly line down the column indicating every single name on the list had the same occupation.
– The passengers were predominantly from Württemberg and Baden, two separate states at the time. Other areas listed were Bavaria and Prussia.
– A steamship from Liverpool called “City of Baltimore” carried 160 passengers on 2/14/1857 — 34 U.S., 45 English, 10 Scotch, 60 Irish, and 16 Germans. (While the ships from Havre and Bremen designated the passengers by state (Baden, Württemberg, etc.), the English ships categorized them simply as Germans.)
And those are just two of at least two dozen ships coming into port from Europe. Imagine all these newcomers pouring into New York: merchants, millers, shoemakers, laborers, barbers, brewers, painters and domestics. Bakers and mechanics. Plumbers, saddlers and miners. Blacksmiths.