CROSSING
THE POND
THE
JOURNEY TO AMERICA
We have no records and very
little data from our ancestors regarding this phase of their journey. There are a couple of general
comments. First, most of our
ancestors came to America before the era of the steamship. There is some possibility that a few
may have traveled by steamship during the 1860ıs but even then most ships used
a mixture of wind and steam power to drive the ship. If the wind was blowing right, sails could be unfurled. On calm days the steam engines would be
started.
Secondly, travel time varied
greatly during this era. Most
sources that I found used 5-7 weeks as a typical time frame. A website on Norwegian emigration
states:
The average crossing time by
sail from Norway to America in the period between 1840 and 1874 was 53 days. The longest voyages lasted up till about 100
days, while the quickest voyages only lasted down to about 25 days
http://www.norwayheritage.com
/ships
I did find information on two
ships used by our ancestors.
Notice the passage that brought the Fretheims to America lasted
approximately 35 days.
The
ship Monsoon was built in 1851 by
Trufant & Drummon at Bath, Maine, USA, for George Hussey of New Bedford.
Her details were: 158 feet long, 32,7 feet beam and 21 feet depth. Her burden
was 349 Norwegian Commercial lasts ,
or 734 net tons. The Monsoon had a
45-feet long poop, the entire length of which was taken up by the cabin.
Forward there was a spacious topgallant forecastle but the seamen were berthed
in a 25-feet long house located just forward of the main hatch. According to
"American Clipper Ships" 1833 - 1858 by Octavius T. Howe, M.D. and Fredrick C. Matthews Volume II,
she was a clipper ship of sharp model and gained the name of being a fast
sailer
In
the spring of 1866 she sailed to Bergen to pick up 366 emigrants for Quebec. On
that voyage she was mastered by Captain O. J. Gundersen. The Monsoon departed from Bergen on April 20th and arrived at
Quebec on May 25th. She was
sailing in ballast, and was carrying 352 steerage passengers and 14 cabin passengers. There was one
death on the voyage, and an infant that was born on on board died shortly
after. 3 people were sick with cold and debility when the ship arrived at the
quarantine station on Grosse Isle. The Monsoon was mastered by Capt. O.J. Gundersen and had a crew of
16. Her tonnage was given to be 773 tons.
http://www.norwayheritage.com/ships
The ship that carried the
Meyers family was known as the Saxonia.
The SAXONIA
was built by Caird & Co, Greenock in 1857 and was the first of three ships
of this name owned by the Hamburg America Line. She was a 2,684 gross ton
vessel, length 311.7ft x beam 42.6ft, clipper stem, one funnel, three masts
(rigged for sail), iron construction, single screw and a speed of 10 knots. She
was one of six sister ships, the others being HAMMONIA, BORUSSIA, AUSTRIA,
BAVARIA and TEUTONIA. There was accommodation for 60-1st, 120-2nd and 450-3rd
class passengers. Launched on 21/8/1857, she sailed from Hamburg on her first
voyage to Southampton and New York and in 1871 was fitted with compound
engines. She commenced her last voyage from Hamburg to New York on 5/10/1873
and subsequently sailed on the Hamburg - West Indies service. In 1879 she was
sold to the Russian Volunteer Fleet and renamed NIJNI NOVGOROD and was
eventually scrapped in 1895.
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions
The
Journey to America Top
The following material comes
from several websites. I focused
my attention on the time period before steam power. The drawings and pictures are added for this essay and not
part of the website articles. The
first article describes the ships and journey as follows:
Earlier
ships were primarily cargo vessels of cotton, tobacco, rum, wheat, beef, and
pork for the westward crossing, and of iron, pots and pans, nails, salt,
bricks, glass, chemicals, and textiles for the eastward crossing. Passengers
were taken on to increase profits. For example, a ship leaving Great Britain in
1849 had 280 passengers, but more important, 240 cows, 206 pigs, nineteen
sheep, and four horses. Passengers were packed shoulder to shoulder with
difficult access to a water pump. The deck was afloat with animal mire.
By
the 1830s, the British government made and began to enforce the first passenger
ship regulations. These regulations included setting a maximum number of
passengers in a ship, enforcing the keeping of a passenger list, insisting that
sufficient bread and water be kept to sustain life for twice the normal time
needed to make the trip, prescribing a medicine chest, requiring inspections of
the vessels, and collecting maintenance payments if emigrants were delayed in
port. (ww.ancestry.com/learn/library/article)
By
the mid-1840s, more protective regulations were enacted. These regulations
ensured that there were physicians on board, that men and women were housed
separately, and that there were at least two toilets on the shiptwo more for
each additional 100 passengers. However, these regulations were usually only
observed by Great Britain and the United States, which meant that when
traveling to nearby countries, such as Canada, ships could evade the new laws.
As a result, coffin ships to Canada sometimes carried two or three times the
number of people as those ships that went directly to the United States.
Before
the 1830s, standard regulations for passenger ships were virtually
non-existent. This meant that the emigrants were at the mercy of the shipıs
captain, broker, and crew. At the worst, the ships were old, overcrowded and
without proper toilet facilities. For example, in 1846, one ship from an Irish
port was found to be eighty-three years old, overcrowded, ill supplied with
water, and with temporary berths so badly constructed that some collapsed.
At
best, some captains would set a watch at night as a precaution against fire,
open hatches every sunny day to assist ventilation, fumigate with vinegar, have
deckhands sweep floors every day and scrub every third day, and require
passengers to air their bedding regularly.
But
the bottom line is that the trip was an ordeal. Many emigrants were illiterate,
inexperienced, and easy prey for the brokers, runners, and others who made
their living from emigration. The costs were enormous, and the emigrants had
little or no extra money to cover the cost of the trip. If there was a delay,
an unforeseen expense, or illness, their situation was potentially disastrous.
Once
onboard, the passengers might find carpenters hurriedly constructing berths in
what had recently been cargo space in the eastward crossing. Ship hands would
load cargo, supplies, and passengers, but even when everything was on board,
the voyage did not necessarily begin. Adverse winds could delay the ship for
days or weeks. And during this time, passengers dared not leave the ship for
fear the captain would leave without notice whenever the wind changed.
It
was only by the 1850s that a passenger to America would have embarked on a
vessel that specialized in passenger traffic. And until the 1850s, only cabin
passengers could rely on a supply of cooked food, utensils, and bedding from
the ship.
www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article
The second article repeats some
of the first but also adds other ideas.
The
shipıs deck was typically crowded with two tiers of six-foot-square berths that
were intended to hold up to four adults and their luggage. In addition to the
berths for passengers, animals (chickens, cows, and horses) were also kept on
deck. The ship was a virtual barnyard that sometimes only secondarily
accommodated humans.
The
cheapest passage was in steerage, below the deck of the ship. This area was
particularly filthy due to the lack of water, toilets, and cleaning facilities.
The stench was nearly impossible to tolerate. Reports of rodents and lice were
commonplace. People were packed shoulder to shoulder with no comfortable place
to sit. Menıs and womenıs quarters were not always separated. Single women were
at risk of sexual abuse and even rape.
Regardless
of the accommodations one chose, it was impossible to live comfortably.
Cleanliness was a major problem. Ships had toilet facilities, but they were few
and far between, and all were inconveniently placed. There was no space or
equipment for washing. The amount of fresh water onboard was based only upon
drinking and cooking needs.
Once
the ship was on its way, seasickness was seldom far behind. The close quarters
and unsanitary conditions facilitated the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
These factors, plus the already physically compromised condition of many of the
passengers, resulted in severe health problems that included typhoid,
tuberculosis, influenza, and all manner of infections, all of which were
potentially life threatening.
Deaths
were likely to occur during the crossing. Naturally, children were more at risk
than adults. Corpses were wrapped in sailcloth, weighed down with sand, and
placed on the plank while the captain or another passenger read a burial
service. Weddings also occurred onboard, and ship captains or clergy members
were occasionally called upon to marry a couple.
When
storms came, the ship would pitch and creak. With the hatches down, and without
proper ventilation, the stench increased and there was no chance of getting
meals even for those who had stomach enough to eat them. Berths collapsed, kegs
broke, and baggage was soaked and broken. Passengers could do little to allay
their fear and misery but wait out the storm and pray.
The
journey usually took five weeks or more with nothing to do but listen to the
creaking timbers and the waves crashing against the ship. During the days, men
and boys would help the sailors; women would sit on chicken coops on the deck,
reading and talking, wrapped in blankets on cold days. Ship diaries often
describe passengers playing marbles, cards, and dominoes, and dancing.
Of
course, there were certain breaks in the routine. Sundays usually saw a worship
service, and passengers would sing hymns. Children born onboard were baptized,
and the captain would read a service.
By
the 1860s, travel oversees shifted to steamships, which ran regularly and
quickly. While conditions were not always ideal, the trip was shorter. By this
time also, the process had become more orderly and there was less potential for
exploitation. Facilities were cleaner and less expensive, and there were
regulations for cooking and sanitation. Ship owners were required to provide
three meals a day to passengers and were fined ten dollars for every death
onboard.
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article
Another website describes it as
follows:
Sailing
ships were designed to carry cargo, not passengers and there was little effort
to adapt them for human comfort. Apart from bringing on provisions - flour,
potatoes, oatmeal, tea, some salted fish, and water (often stored in rancid
casks used previously for oil or other containments) - a captain merely would
lay down a temporary deck over the cargo and construct narrow, flimsy berths
that could be dismantled after the voyage.
Passengers
were packed tightly, often with no more than a few square feet of space per
person. There were no toilet facilities and no windows, so sanitation and
ventilation were serious problems. Conditions varied among vessels, but nearly
all emigrants on sailing ships, regardless of class, had to suffer overcrowding
and disorder, seasickness, a foul atmosphere, and poor food. A trip took
anywhere from five weeks to two months; a few recorded trips took 100 days or
more. A storm could make things much worse. With the ship pitching and
creaking, decks awash, hatches battened down, people sick everywhere, it was a
miserable experience.
Worse
yet was the knowledge that at any moment disaster could strike in the form of
fire, shipwreck or epidemic. On a wooden ship, lighted candles and open cooking
fires were a constant hazard. It was not unusual for more than 100 people to
die of shipboard fires in a single
year. Shipwrecks, too, took their toll. In the terrible winter of 1853-54, 200
German immigrants drowned when their ship was driven onto the New Jersey shore,
and 480 emigrants and their ship
out of Glasgow disappeared altogether.
Much
more common and lethal were epidemics. Typhus or "ship fever", spread
by lice, produced a frightful mortality rate. In 1847, the worst year of the
Irish Famine, a total of 7,000 emigrants died of typhus at sea and 10,000 more
after arrival in Quebec. Another scourge was Asiatic cholera, caused by an
intestinal microbe and spread in contaminated water, The worst year for cholera
was 1853, when ten to fifteen percent of the passengers on some ships succumbed
to the disease.
With
all dire possibilities, there still were pleasant moments at sea. Certainly, no
entertainment was provided by the shipping lines, but in good weather,
passengers could go on deck. Men and boys might help the sailors haul sail or
make repairs. Women and girls sat on deck reading or chatting. Children played
with homemade toys, marbles, cards and dominoes. There were worship services,
sometimes music and dancing.
http://www.polishroots.org/immigration.htm
Yet another website describes the dangers:
Even
though Samuel Morse had developed his dot-and-dash code in 1838, and the
electric telegraph had been invented in 1846, sailing ships were not equipped
with anything so sophisticated and were thus unable to send out SOS signals
until much later in the century. With limited navigational aids (Atlantic sea
charts, magnetic compass, sextant for checking position) it was hard to foresee
or steer clear of danger. In fact the captain often relied on the seaman's
instinct for predicting storms -the first barometer was not invented before
1844 and the Admiral Fitzroy's method to predict storms and forecast the
weather was only devised in 1854. So with little navigational help compounded
with the problems of old ships and incompetent crews, accidents were likely to
happen on both American and British ships.
Fire
was a constant threat on wooden ships because of inadequate fire-fighting
equipments. The best known and documented case was the burning of the Ocean
Monarch in 1848 which resulted in the
loss of 176 lives out of 350 passengers. Another existing threat was the
presence of icebergs and ice for ships going to Canada. On a clear day the
icebergs might be sighted through a telescope, but at other times the only
safeguard was a cautious look-out. Several ships struck icebergs or got stuck
in the ice on the route to British North America. The most dreadful example was
the wreck of the Maria in 1849 of
which, out of 111 passengers, 102 people died. Between 1847 and 1853, 59 ships
were lost, so the risk of wreck constituted a real danger.
However,
the real killer of Irish emigrants was disease : dysentery, cholera and mostly
typhus. Diseases did not originate
at sea but were brought aboard by people infected before they embarked,
generally passengers and sometimes crew. The Irish who avoided inspection at
the smaller ports and those who only passed a cursory medical inspection
sometimes carried the germs of disease with them or were even already ill.
Descriptions of conditions on board make it seem that fleeing was sometimes
little safer than staying. Emigrants had to endure appalling conditions during
the crossing. These conditions were often ideal for the propagation of disease.
What then were these conditions?
Advertisements
for crossings always promised great comfort, ample provisions, etc. They were
almost always exaggerated and untrue. In fact, as well as brutality from the
crew, emigrants had to face the problems of :
- bad food and water,
- ack of space and hygiene,
- poor medical care.
- Food on Cunard ships was an incessant
banquet, Irish stew, mutton, ham, fish, eggs, but this was an exception. On
many Irish ships the staple diet was a concoction of wheat, barley, rye, and
pease, which became saturated with moisture on board ship. Steerage passengers
on both British and American ships were most commonly given oatmeal and
biscuits (which were often unfit to be eaten). Shortage of food affected almost
everyone. Rations, specified under the Passenger Acts , could not keep anyone in good health for the length
of the crossing and few emigrants could afford to take their own food.
Moreover, dishonest captains sometimes served short measures of both food and
water. Passengers had to do their own cooking on the deck but there was not
enough space so people often had to wait a long time before they were able to
cook their rations. As a consequence, food was often either half-cooked or not
cooked at all, since when the weather was bad they were not allowed on deck.
Sometimes they did not know what to do with the food they got either. There was
usually not enough water and it was also often contaminated. It is then not
surprising that there were many outbreaks of dysentery, and coupled with
horrendous conditions on board, the disease became rife, making of dysentery a
killer.
- Berths were simply spaces on wooden
bunks, usually six foot square and built into the shipıs timbers on either side
of the hold, with a gangway down the middle. Each adult was usually allotted
one quarter of a bunk, or 18 inches of bed space. On ships bound for British
North America children had to be fitted into 9 inches (as two children counted
for one statute adult in the British Acts). Sometimes passengers had less space
than required under the Passenger Acts but even the 6 feet square were very bad. There was no bedding, which
is why passengers were often advised to get a mattress before going on board.
Moreover, men and women were usually herded together in the hold.
Overcrowding
was a real problem which endangered many. It made decency and comfort
impossible. The living quarters were dark, cramped and dirty. They were never
or very rarely cleaned. The fact that passengers had no means of changing their
clothes or bedding, provided ideal conditions for the spread of body lice and
the typhus fever they carried. Typhus was the most deadly disease. It was
called ship fever because it was
so common on these dirty and overcrowded ships. Most passengers tried to remain
on the deck as much as possible to escape the lice and odours below but when
their was a storm, they were forced back in steerage without fresh air as there
was no ventilation.
- Doctors were not often present on board
the ships. Many ships did not carry a surgeon because the law did not make it
compulsory. So emigrants often had to doctor themselves or be practised upon by
the crew. The passengers often took their own medicaments such as Holloway's
pills - which were widely advertised at the ports. Carrying a doctor did not
make the crossing much safer as most of the people employed as surgeon on board
the ships were dubious doctors. Good doctors were certainly not interested in
such a job : the crossing of the Atlantic was a difficult crossing and it did
not pay well enough. In fact, one can say that when passengers became ill they
were in trouble, even when the ship carried a doctor. (www.uhb.fr/langues/cei/lpret4.htm)
A
fifth website describes a typical weekly menu while onboard:
Sunday
- salted meat, pudding, plums
Monday
- salted bacon, peas, potatoes
Tuesday
- salted meat, rice, plums
Wednesday
- salted bacon, cabbage, potatoes
Thursday
- meat, potatoes, bean soup
Friday
- herring, barley, plums
Saturday
- salted bacon, pea soup, potato http://www.rootsweb.com/~mowarren/schake
The following selection
concerns a set of rules I found posted at another website.
Ship Rules:
1.
The fire will be lit on the fire place (stove) each morning at 6 o'clock a.m.,
and every passenger not hindered by sickness or some other valid reason shall
get up no later than 7 o'clock a.m.
2.
The fire shall be put out at 8 o'clock p.m. and passengers must be in their
bunks by 10 o'clock p.m.
3.
The deck in the passengers' quarters and under the bunks shall be swept each
morning before breakfast, and the sweepings be thrown overboard. Once a week
the deck in the passengers' quarters shall be scraped.
4.
Each morning before the fire is lit, necessary fuel and water will be
distributed to the passengers. This task, and cleaning of the deck and the
cabins on deck, will be carried out on a daily basis by a suitable number of
men on a rotation basis. This group is also to check the cleanliness of the
passengers and adherence to all other regulations.
5.
Lamps will be lit in passengers' quarters after dark and be kept burning until
10 o'clock in the evening.
6.
Tobacco smoking is not permitted below deck, nor is the use of open flame or
hay or straw permitted.
7.
All cooking utensils must be washed after use and always be kept clean.
8.
All bedding must be taken up on deck once or twice a week and be aired out, and
the bunks cleaned each time this is done.
9.
Clothing may not be washed or hung up to dry below deck, but each week, as
conditions permit, a day will be determined for general washing.
10.
All passengers who bring spirits or other alcoholic beverages on board are
obligated upon embarking the ship to hand over the same for safekeeping. These
passengers may receive a reasonable daily portion. Passengers are forbidden to
have gunpowder in their possession, and this as well as guns or other weapons
brought on board must be placed in safekeeping with ship's officers. These will
be returned to passengers at journey's end.
11.
Cards or dice are not allowed on board since these can easily lead to quarrels
and disagreements. Passengers should treat each other with courtesy and
respect. No quarrelsome or disputatious behavior will be tolerated.
12.
No seaman is allowed on the passenger deck, unless he has received orders to do
specific work. Nor is any passenger, under any circumstances whatsoever,
allowed in the cabin of a crewmember or the ship's galley. It is not permitted
to drill holes, do any cutting, pound nails or do any other kind of damage to
the ship's beams, boards or decks.
13.
It is expected of the passengers that they appear on deck each Sunday in clean
clothing and that they, as much as circumstances permit, keep the Sabbath.
14.
All manner of games and entertainment are permitted and recommended as
contributing to the maintenance of good health during a long journey. Personal
cleanliness also contributes a good deal to this and is therefore highly
recommended to the passengers.
15.
Passengers must not speak to the man at the helm.
16.
It is taken for granted that every passenger is obligated to obey the orders of
the Captain in all respects http://www.norwayheritage.com/ships
The final selection is a letter that describes the journey.
Memories
from a voyage on the Cristiane in
1851 is excerpted from an account written in about 1905 by Ole Ellingsen
Strand, who was 11 years old in 1851.
A
few of our neighbors had emigrated here to America, and they wrote long and
glorious letters home to their friends describing the privileges and with what
ease a poor man could provide for himself and family here in America compared
to what he could in the old country. So the question of emigrating to America
was a subject that was agitated and talked of a great deal all over the
country, and early in the spring of 1851, quite a crowd had decided to go and
my father was one of them. Notice of an auction was stuck up and at the
appointed day we sold everything we had, and the 12th of May was the day filed
when we should leave our old home. The day set for our departure finally came,
and we - that is, five of us in all - Father, Mother, my two sisters and myself
- had to bid our friends and relations a long farewell and we started for
Drammen, a city on the seacoast where we arrived the next day.
The
time of which I speak, 1851, was before steamboats were built large enough to
cross the Atlantic, so consequently sailing vessels were the only conveyance
used in those days for so long a voyage; as the wind was so very uncertain a
power to propel a ship, its speed and the time it would take to make a trip
from Norway to America could not with any certainty be estimated; and for that
reason we stayed in Drammen about a week and laid in a supply of provisions
enough to last about three months so that we should not be in want in case of
contrary wind and weather. The vessel in which we were to sail was a three
masted brig [she was probably
rigged as a ship in 1851, as she
is described as a ship in an announcement in 1858] large enough to accommodate
251 passengers. This number had now registered from here and there all over the
country and were getting their baggage and stuff aboard the vessel and stored away,
making everything ready for the journey, so that May 18th, A.D, l851 the anchor
was hauled in, the sails were spread, and we glided down the Fjord of Drammen
into the North Sea, and left old Norway behind until at last it looked like a
dim cloud in the distance.
The
tall mountains of Norway were scarcely out of sight before men, women and
children began to hunt their berths; the pain of parting with relations and
friends and their dear old home on top of a very severe attack of seasickness
was more than the most of them could stand. The intention of our captain was to
sail through the English Channel, but then about half way across the North Sea,
the wind turned square against us, so we turned to the right and went through
by the Shetland Islands and sailed half way around England and Ireland. Nothing
happened on the voyage that is worth mentioning except I will try to give a
brief description of the kitchen aboard where the passengers had to do their
cooking and how they managed to do it.
The
kitchen where the cooking was done for about 259 passengers was a board shanty
about 12 by 16 feet in size and was built on deck near the middle of the it;
along the back side of this shanty a box or rather a bin was built about 4 feet
wide and about 1 1/2 feet high, and this bin was filled full of sand, and on
top of this sand the fires were built and the cooking done. The kettles were
set on top of a little triangular frame of iron with three short legs under it,
and this people would set anywhere on this bed of sand where they could
possibly find or squeeze out room and then start their fire underneath. There
was no chimney where the smoke could escape, only an opening in the roof the
width of a board over the fire where smoke could go if it wanted to, but most
of the time it did not want to because the wind kept it down.
The
first week out their appetites did not require much of any cooking, and the
lunch baskets that people brought with them from home lasted several days. But
they finally had to get on with it. Then every morning at a certain hour one
from each family had to go down into the bottom room or hold of the vessel
where the food and water was dealt out to each family for the day. The wood had
to be split very fine before they could use it to any advantage, and the water
had to be put into jugs or something similar to prevent it from spilling.
And
now for the kitchen. Early in the morning you could see the women coming up
from below with a little bundle of fine split wood in one hand and a little kettle
of some kind or a coffee pot in the other, heading for the kitchen, eager to
find a vacant place somewhere on this bed of sand large enough to set their
kettle on and build a fire under it. But it would not be very late in the day,
if the weather was favorable, till every place in the kitchen was occupied, and
there would be a large crowd outside waiting for vacant places, which were
generally engaged already. And if you sat outside watching the kitchen door you
could in 18 minutes time see perhaps half dozen women come out with their
aprons over their faces, wiping tears, coughing and almost strangled with
smoke. They would stay outside long enough to get their lungs filled with fresh
air and the tears wiped out of their eyes, then they would crowd themselves
back in again. Perhaps to find the fire and wood removed from their kettle
under somebody else's. Then, of course, broad hints and sharp words would be
exchanged, and the loser would have to watch the opportunity when her next
neighbor would have to go outside for fresh air to get her wood and fire back
again. And these were not the only adversities and troubles in the kitchen
because it was hardly ever so stormy but that somebody tried to cook something,
and if it was too stormy for the women to be on deck the men would generally
volunteer to steep tea, cook coffee, or even make a kettle of soup. They would
start their fire, put their kettles on, and in a little while the cook shanty
would be chock full of men. Some would be on their knees, some sitting flat on
the floor while others would be standing outside peering in. Then imagine an
oncoming big wave striking the vessel and almost setting it on end, and in a
wink of an eye every kettle, coffee pot, and teapot is upset and spilled in the
fire and hot ashes. This of course made them scramble for the door and you
could see that coming out like swirling bees from a beehive. Some would swear,
some could laugh, while others would say they might have known better than to
try to cook anything this stormy day, but in less than an hour the shanty would
be full again and perhaps going through the whole performance. This was how we
came to America in an early day. And thus we worried and suffered for nearly 8
weeks until we finally arrived in the City of New York about the 11th of July
and everybody soon forgot the troubles and trials they had on the voyage by
seeing the beautiful green fields being thawed out by the warm rays of the sun
after they had been a constant target for the cold and raw winds of the Atlantic.
http://www.norwayheritage.com/ships
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The Arrival in America (next article) |
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