The trip from Germany to our shores was filled with all kinds of dangers and hardships. Rev. Gottlieb Mittelberger, who came to Pennsylvania on the ship Osgood and arrived September 29, 1750, and returned to Germany in 1754 tells the story about his trip. The report of Mittleberger was translated from German by Theo Eben of Philadelphia and published by the Pennsylvania German Pioneers in 1934. It reads in part as follows:
“This journey lasts from the beginning of May to the end of October, fully half a year, amid such hardships as no one is able to describe adequately their misery. The Rhine River boats from Hailbonn to Holland have to pass 26 custom houses, at all of which the ships are examined, which is done at the convenience of the customhouse officials. In the meantime, the ships loaded with the people are detained long, so that the passengers have to spend much money. The trip down the Rhine River lasts four, five, and even six weeks. When the ships come to Holland, they are detained likewise five or six weeks. Because things are very dear, the poor people have to spend nearly all they have during that time.”
After the ships left Holland, they had to go to one of the English ports to get permission to take these Germans, who were foreigners, to the American continent. They went mostly to Cowes, but some went to Dover.
The Long Voyage Across the Atlantic
Mittelberger further writes: “the real misery begins with the long voyage over the Atlantic. The ships, unless they have good wind, most often sail eight, nine, ten, to twelve weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But even with the best wind the voyage last seven weeks. This ocean voyage was an ordeal marked with much misery, suffering, and hardships. The boats were loaded with people and baggage, so there was no place left for another. They were packed like cattle with little or no room to move about.” Mittleberger writes on, “without proper food and water, they were soon subject to all sorts of diseases such as dysentery, scurvy, typhoid, and smallpox. Children were the first to be to be attacked and died in large numbers.” Mittleberger also says that thirty-two children died in the ship that he came over on and that such heartless cruelty was practiced. “One day, just as we had a heavy gale, a woman on our ship was about to give birth to a child and could not under the circumstances of the storm, and was pushed through a porthole and dropped into the sea. She was far in the rear of the ship and could not be brought forward.
“The bad conditions, sickness, and diseases on the ships were much aggravated during the many storms through which the ships had to travel.” In describing these conditions, Mittleberger says, “the misery reached a climax when a gale rages for two or three days and nights, so that everyone believes that the ship will go down to the bottom of the sea with all human beings on board. In such a visitation, the people cry and pray most piteously. When in such a storm, the sea rages and surges so that the waves rise often like mountains, one over the other and often tumble over the ship so that one fears to go down with the ship. When the ship is constantly tossed from side to side by the storm and waves so that no one can either sit or lie, and the closely packed people in the berths are thereby tumbled over each other, both the sick and the well. It can be readily understood that many of them died, none of whom had be prepared for such hardships, suffer so terribly that some do not survive.”
Immigration
Then, after weeks and weeks of all these terrors at seas, the Delaware River is reached and the city of Philadelphia; the city of Brotherly Love, can be seen in the distance. The people think that all their hardships and miseries are over, but lo! A health officer visits the ship. When these people are found to be suffering with smallpox, typhoid, and other infectious diseases, the Captain of the ship is ordered to remove all these people one mile from the city until such time as they are free of all infectious diseases.
Bringing sick and infectious immigrants to Philadelphia caused so much trouble that the Governer of the province urged that a hospital be erected to take care of these sick and diseased people, but the Assembly refused to act until an epidemic broke out in Philadelphia. This brought the matter to a head and the Assembly voted to purchase Fisher Island in 1743. This island is in the river at the Junction of the Schuylkill and the Delaware. The name of the island was changed to “Province Island,” and it appears on most of the maps of the City of Philadelphia to this day. The erection of the hospital was delayed until 1750.
The conditions that existed on the ships crossing the great Atlantic is reflected in a report of an undertaker by the name of Jacob Shoemaker which he filed with the Council of Philadelphia November 14, 1754 showing that he buried 253 persons that year, all of which from Province Island.
Dr. Muhlenberg, the great Lutheran preacher in one of his reports to Halle in Germany dated in 1769 says, “One ship after another arrives in the harbor in Philadelphia, when the rough and severe winter is before the door. One or more of the merchants receive the lists of the freights and the agreements which the immigrants have signed with their own hand in Holland, together with the bills for their travel down the Rhine and the advances to the ‘newlanders’ for provisions which they received in the ships on account. Formerly the freight for a single person was six to ten Louis d’ors. (A Louis d’or in the United States exchange is about $4.50.) Before the ship is allowed to cast anchor at the harbor front, the passengers are all examined, according to the law in force by a physician to see whether any contagious disease exists among them. Then the new arrivals are led in a procession to the city Hall and there they must render the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain. After that they are brought back to the ship. Then announcements are printed in the newspapers stating how many of the new arrivals are to be sold. Those who have money are released. Whoever has well-to-do friends seeks a loan to pay for their passage, but there are only a few who succeed. The ship then becomes a marketplace. The buyers make their choice among the new arrivals and bargain with them for a certain number or years and days. After the expenses of their passage and other debts are paid, the government authorities issue a written document which makes the newcomer the property of the merchant or other person for a definite period.”
Stauffer Family Genealogy 