German Immigrants to Baltimore: the Passenger Lists of 1854
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GERMAN IMMIGRANTS TO BALTIMORE: THE PASSENGER LISTS OF 1854 PART I Edited by MORGAN H. PRITCHETT and KLAUS WUST INTRODUCTION More than thirty years ago, Lewis Kurtz, then President of the German So- ciety of Maryland and a vice president of the Society for the History of the Ger- mans in Maryland, suggested a list of immigrants of 1854 as a worthwhile item for publication in The Report. At that time numerous other articles and studies, particularly checklists of German imprints in Maryland and Virginia were wait- ing to be published and the immigrant lists were placed in the reserve file and promptly forgotten. Last year, when the collections of both societies were readied for the move to new quarters, the two present editors of these lists began to look for them among the innumerable boxes and shelves. The search proved success- ful. Pasted in the back of a service ledger were yellowed newspaper clippings with the passenger lists of thirty-nine vessels which brought 8665 passengers from Germany to the port of Baltimore in 1854. Though many port registers are extant, the re-discovery of these lists repre- sents a major event for genealogists and immigration historians alike. They con- tain the names of 5383 individuals. Though in most cases only the initial of the first name appears, almost 700 names are given in full. More important yet, how- ever, is the welcome fact that the home town or village is included for 3850 indi- viduals. For 903 persons only the home state is listed while in 630 cases no place of origin was noted. The close relationship between Bremen and Baltimore is illustrated by the overwhelming number of vessels, 34 to be exact, which sailed from Bremen. Oldenburg provided two while no port of embarkation is listed for three ships. The background story for the preservation of these lists is not without interest. In December 1832 the Maryland legislature passed a law requiring a head tax of $1.50 to be paid to the state by every immigrant. This money was to be used for the benefit of indigent newcomers. Two-fifth of the total amount were allocated to the German and Hibernian societies in Baltimore.1 This was clearly an incen- tive for the German Society to keep track of all arriving passengers, especially when Germans began to surpass Irish arrivals in numbers. Part of the money was used by the German Society to maintain an employment referral service (the so-called Intelligence Bureau) which was located from 1854 on in the office of Friedrich Raine, the publisher of Der Deutsche Correspondent. In the summer [52] of 1853, H. F. Wellinghoff became the agent of the society and it was decided at that time to remove the office from downtown to Fells Point near the landing piers of the immigrant ships.2 Wellinghoff set up his Intelligence Bureau in time for the beginning of the 1854 shipping season. The first vessel from Bremen after the winter hiatus entered the port of Baltimore on May 12, 1854. The German Society monitored the arrivals closely. One of Wellinghoff's duties was obtaining passenger lists which he passed on to the Correspondent in which they were pub- lished immediately. Later he pasted the clippings in the back of his intelligence service ledger in which they have survived to this day. Wellinghoff's clippings would not have been so significant if files of the daily Correspondent had survived. But there are only a few odd issues from the years 1856 to 1859 in the Maryland Room of the Enoch Pratt Library and a complete run January-June 1858 at the Maryland Historical Society.3 So far no other collections of clippings with such ship lists have been found among the material of the German Society or the SHGM. Random notes found seem to indicate that lists from 1855 and 1856 might have been preserved by Wellinghoff as well. The year 1854 was a peak year of German immigration. Of a total of 427,833 newcomers who arrived in the United States, 215,009 came from the German Confederation (including then Austria and Luxembourg), i.e. about as many people in a single year as the total number of German immigrants of the entire 18th century.4 The captains' lists as published in the Correspondent account for 8665 passengers from German ports alone. In presenting the lists here, the editors have left the names of persons and places as they appeared in the issues of the Correspondent from which Welling- hoff had clipped them. Some German annotations after the names ( . with wife; . and family) have been translated. The German letter ß has been rendered as "sz" to distinguish it from a mere double "s". Most names with an "sz" were later transliterated "ss" in American usage. E.g. Groß, Grosz, Gross. All lists have been alphabetized. The real significance of these lists rests in the matching of name and place of origin in the German Confederation. Countless family historians all over the country have been confronted with the same dilemma: after exhausting all Amer- ican sources and tracing the immigrant ancestor back to the port of entry in this country, all further search seemed futile. Now, for some 3,850 families, a home town is known and for many more at least the state within Germany or Austria is listed. Most of the immigrants of 1854 did not linger long in Baltimore or any- where else in the east. They headed west toward Pittsburgh which had become the distribution center from where the Midwest was peopled. Some of the place names seem distorted and unfamiliar. It will not be easy to identify all of them because borders in Central Europe have undergone fre- quent changes during the century that followed. It will also be noted that most of the immigrants came from small towns and villages. There are also places in Switzerland, Alsace, the Netherlands and Poland among the listings. Family historians need not despair because many of the original lists as furnished by the captains can be seen at the Records Management Office, City of Baltimore, [53] 211 E. Pleasant Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. From a sampling which Archivist Richard Cox furnished the editors it can be gathered that many of the official lists provide further clues. Some contain the full name, age, profession and, surprisingly, the final destination in America such as "Pitzburg", "Mil- wooky" or "Alexandrien". Our purpose in providing alphabetized lists for every ship is to give researchers a better chance to find the family name they are looking for. The original ship lists are not in alphabetical order which makes a search almost hopeless unless one knows on which boat the ancestor arrived. It is with the firm hope that these rosters will become a useful instrument in the never-ending search for familial ties which have bound people in America and in German-speaking Europe in a unique way. The first 18 passenger lists appear in the present issue of The Report. The remaining 21 will follow in the next issue. 1 Klaus Wust, Pioneers in Service (Baltimore, 1958), 16. 2 ibid., 21-22. 3 Felix Reichmann, " German Printing in Maryland," The Report, SHGM, XXVII (1950), 24. 4 Klaus Wust, SPAN 200: The Story of German-American Involvement in the Founding and Development of America, Part I (Philadelphia, 1976), 40, 48. 5 (Treasury Dept.), Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United States from 1820 to 1899 (GPO: Washington, 1899), 32, 83. [54] SUMMARY TABLE OF ARRIVALS FROM GERMANY AT THE PORT OF BALTIMORE May 12, 1854 to December 31, 1854 VESSEL PASSENGERS NAMES ON LIST FAMILIES Wilhelmine 193 134 18 Admiral 315 216 25 Martha 176 116 17 Maryland 209 208 21 Harvest 260 158 * Blücher 316 212 32 Aeolus 281 208 20 Beta 201 124 21 Anna 237 134 21 Julius 302 214 25 Weser 260 151 31 Helene & Henrietta 90 63 7 Marianne 251 142 31 Betty 83 52 * George 178 104 24 Post 269 140 26 Wilhelmine 191 120 * Gustave 323 136 14 Adolphine 218 177 20 Beta 210 141 32 Blücher 309 186 30 Anna 234 155 21 Charles 185 139 14 Von Vinke 168 96 25 Elsfleth 138 101 * Elise 84 45 10 Vorwärts 99 45 13 Johanna 132 80 12 Anna Lange 600 309 62 Julius 271 200 28 Anna 164 143 15 Orion 208 145 15 Mississippi 241 115 33 Minerva 445 243 49 Hannover 137 64 17 Neptun 135 74 18 Helena 129 84 16 Dettmar 96 43 * Präsident Smidt 246 166 17 _______ ______ ______ 8665 5383 780 * On five ships lists the total number of families was omitted [55] # 1. Ship WILHELMINE, Capt. D. A. Wencke. Cleared May 12, 1854. From Bremen. Total: 193 passengers. 134 names, 18 families listed. Heinrich Angermüller Coburg S. Ausbaum Angeroth J. Baer Bayreuth W. Barkhausen Liebenau J. Batz Lauzohan B. Batz " J. Bausch Scheidt J. Behuken Rathsen S. Bengeldorf Eslingen M. Biebach with famil Lemanshof J. Bieszmann Schönbach A. Bieszmann and fam. Immenrode D. Blomeyer Bodenfelde A. Blumenberg Elberdorf A. Budinger Cassel F. Buchner Aszstedt B. Damming Sulzdorf Th. Deessel and fam. Königsberg F. Dohne and fam. Vosbuhe L. Eicke Arbengen M. Eiles and fam. Freudenberg G. Engelhard Dittersdorf E. Gebhardt Schönbach A. Gerbhardt and fam. Gemlitz J. Geyer Württemberg M. Göbel and fam. Siegen J. Goldschmidt Weistrode J. Grolle Schaaper D. Hagen Kurwick M. Haubmann and fam. Magerbach Louis Hecker Geraz Louise Heise Marlholden M. Hellmuth Bischenwind P. Hielsen and fam. Botzen J. Hollhoff Bocklingen E. Hoppe Ronnebach W.