52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 30 – July 22-28, 2024
Boats
Annie Charity White, my maternal great-grandmother
While I know that a number of my ancestors arrived in America or the American Colonies through immigration. The only means of transportation to immigrate from Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America to the United States or to the colonies was in ships or boats traveling across different oceans and bodies of water.
Ellis Island in the early 21st century
It takes much investigation and research to uncover the names of the ships on which they arrived. The ships names and dates of departure and arrival can be researched through the National Archives for many of these ships, after the arrival of the Mayflower in 1621.
I do have one ancestor who arrived on the shores of the British colonies in America in 1762, my 4th paternal great-grandfather, John Allen, a Revolutionary War veteran of whom I have traced his life span in America, but unfortunately have hit the proverbial brick wall faced at some time by all family historians and genealogists as far as the transportation that he and his family used to travel to the colonies. I will write another blog post about his life in colonial America in a later post.
But to be certain of the name of the ships on which my ancestors traveled I will adhere to the ships’ manifests of which I can be most certain. My set of ancestors, of which I am sure of the name of the ship will be my 2X great-grandparents, Henry White, and Elizabeth Jane Jewell along with my maternal great-grandmother, Annie, and their other children.
Elizabeth, Henry, and five of her children, Thomas, George, John, Annie, and Lillie immigrated to the United States aboard the SS. Wyoming arriving in New York in 1886. The “Wyoming” was a steamship that made regular trips between England and the United States. Leaving from Liverpool, and stopping in Queenstown, Ireland (today known as Cork), the trip took approximately nine to ten days to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The journey to America on the S.S. Wyoming
According to the passenger manifest Henry, Elizabeth, and the family crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the steerage area of the ship. On the image of the passenger manifest that denotes my ancestors’ names it seems that there were at least two categories of steerage. Elizabeth was recorded as being in the “after steerage port (2) 1.” One son, 17-year-old Thomas, was listed as “fore steerage.”
Part of the S.S. Wyoming Ship's Manifest in 1886
The S.S. Wyoming was built for the Guion fleet in 1870 and was in service from 1870-1893. The S.S. Wyoming was one of the first liners on the Atlantic built with a compound engine. The Guion Line ranked third in the delivery of immigrants to New York, with 27,054 steerage passengers, but only 1,115 first class. Unfortunately, the Guion ships had a reputation for being slow. In 1892 the S.S. Wyoming was one of the ships detained after New York officials quarantined vessels arriving with steerage passengers due to a cholera outbreak. One of the crew members died of cholera on the S.S. Wyoming. Thankfully, the White family arrived before that outbreak.
On steamships, steerage (or tween decks) and third class was the default choice of many immigrants from the 1850s to the 1930s. The conditions varied by steamship line and were likely to be relatively harsh compared to modern standards. Early steerage often housed hundreds of immigrants in one large room, often converted from cargo holds to hold what might have been described as human cattle. These potential new citizens were emigrants from many countries around the world who endured a journey unlike any other.
In retrospect, our life of travel is a walk in the park when compared to theirs.
While the steerage from Liverpool to New York was difficult, the westbound steerage from New York to Liverpool was reportedly worse. It was here were passengers often huddled in groups like animals shivering in terror at the motion of the water. How dreadful!
Steerage passengers were immigrants who travelled in the lowest possible category of long-distance steamer travel. They were usually very poor people, often emigrants seeking a new life mostly in Australia or North America. It was a low-ceilinged space beneath the main deck of a sailing ship and was originally the main deck of a sailing ship. In many cases, these people had little to no resources and were attempting to escape destitution in their home country. Those paying their own way were usually in “second” or “intermediate” cabins, or in a saloon cabin below the poop deck at the stern. Steerage was very cramped and there was hardly any room for air to get in and circulate. Beds were often long rows of large, shared bunks with straw mattresses and no bed linens. Many steerage passengers brought their own bedding and food. But then the food on the ship was usually miserable and dealt out of huge kettles into the dinner buckets provided by the steamship company.
As I researched the steamships’ steerage accommodations, I became appalled, thinking erroneously that conditions by 1887 were better than what I had just read. I can now understand why our immigrant ancestors did not want to recount their journeys in the years that followed. I only wish that I could have asked my Great-Grandma Harris, as I knew her,
Great-Grandma Harris, Annie Charity White, as I knew her in the late 1950s and early 1960s
what it was genuinely like. She was only four years old when she immigrated to America, the youngest of the five children, probably not old enough to remember the voyage. I was only nine years old when she died, clearly not old enough to understand or comprehend the horrendous journey that she and her family endured.
The lure of the mining industry in northern and central Pennsylvania brought these ancestral immigrants to the shores of America from their homeland of Great Britain for a better yet still difficult life. I believe they found it!
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