They Came in Ships

Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

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FAMILY HISTORY TIDBITS
By Wally Gray

They Came in Ships

As we search for our ancestors for the purpose of providing temple ordinances, something else wonderful happens. We get to know about some of our ancestors—more than names, places and dates. We get to know them for what they accomplished by reading journals, historical documents or using Internet tools.

President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke of family history: “Perhaps there has never been time when a sense of family, of identity and self-worth has been more important in our world.” He was referring to the recent improvements in the FamilySearch site. Of course, even greater ways are coming when we are able to take advantage of investigating the 2.4 million rolls of microfilm that are being scanned and indexed at this moment. Think of what more we will learn of our ancestors!

Our ancestors came to North America on ships. In my research this year and earlier I have been able to identify the dates that some of my forebears arrived, but also the name of the ships and some of the conditions they put up with.

I believe we are missing the boat (excuse the pun!) if we overlook the chance to find out when and how our ancestors got to this continent.

I will mention just two examples of what I have found out.

The 1752 Immigrants to Canada

The first case is when my paternal fourth great-grandparents took sailing vessels in 1752. Peter Publicover and Sabrina Himmelman came in separate ships, the Sally and the Gale, leaving at different times but arriving at the same day. Both of them came from southwest Germany and arrived in Halifax, Canada, on September 6, 1752. They were married four months later. I don’t know whether they met in Germany or in Canada.

In those days it took a long time to cross the Atlantic. First they made a six-week raft or boat trip from their homeland down the Rhine to Rotterdam, Holland, where they boarded their ships.

Following the 3-month ordeal on the high seas, Peter and Sabina and their fellow passengers were hampered by the storms and cursed by the high mortality and sickness under adverse sanitary and eating conditions. The tired passengers, upon docking, found they were under a-3-week quarantine due to illness on board. They were bedraggled, exhausted, and ill. Some of the children arrived as orphans, their parents having died at sea.

There were over 200 passengers in each ship, and the Sally lost 40 of them in the crossing including the captain. The Gale lost 29.

The 1885 Immigrants

The second migration I will mention is that of my maternal grandmother Bertha Madsen who came from Denmark to New York, and then on to Minnesota. She and her family came on the steamship Hekla 2 (the first Hekla had sunk), arriving on June 27, 1885. Bertha came with her parents and five siblings. What is so touching about this journey is who financed them. A few years before, her oldest brother Mads Madsen, had migrated to Hutchinson, Minnesota, and became an extremely successful man. He eventually was a contractor and builder in all lines of brick-work, having put up nearly all the brick buildings in Hutchinson, including the two school houses. Over the years he had dozens of employees. It was he who was responsible for bringing the rest of his family to America.

The youngest brother, Einar, was under a year old at the time. Years later he wrote a letter of gratitude to his older brother who was then over 80:

“I just want to say a few things to you Matt as a brother. When I think of your past record I think of you as a pioneer in every sense. Even tho I don’t remember the occasion, I often think of the pioneer instinct you must have had when you decided it was your duty to lead your family away from poverty in Denmark to better living conditions here. I know when you came to this country you had just one thing in mind and, and I have often heard you say that, and that was to bring the rest of the family over here to better their condition. And after you have accomplished that then you began thinking of the relatives, like the cousins and others, and whether they realize that or not some of them certainly owe their financial success to the fact that you laid the foundation for their future.”

The ship Hekla existed at a time when the ships were combination sail-steam engine. The sails were used to conserve on fuel and were also a backup in the event of an engine failure. The use of both sails and steam was something I did not know about before. The journey only took a few weeks.

Mormon Immigration

We should not leave this subject without mentioning the immigration of the Latter-day Saints during the early days of the Church. A new compact disk has come out which documents over 94,000 LDS Church converts who crossed the Atlantic or Pacific oceans to gather in Nauvoo, Illinois, or other frontier outposts, and later in the Great Salt Lake Valley between 1840 and 1890.

Among leaders of these immigration ships was our own Theodore Turley who in September 1840, led the first company of 209 Saints from Liverpool to New York aboard the ship North America. Joseph Smith welcomed about 100 of them in Nauvoo. The others either came later or settled in other places.

We salute our ancestors who sacrificed much to make the journey to the New World and then to become faithful and successful naturalized citizens in their new countries!