Week 28 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Prompt - Travel

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 28

Prompt – Travel

Do you remember the Canada Centennial Train? I was just 13 years old when we visited it. It may have been a school trip. For those too young to remember, it was a special train that was set up with exhibits and displays of Canada's history. It traveled from Victoria to Montreal in the year of our Centennial – 1967. In one specific car the exhibit was set up to show how our immigrants came to Canada from Europe aboard a steamship. They set up a display of what steerage class looked like for our immigrants coming to Canada by steamship. It was dark and the soundtrack was eerie. The people looked sickly. All in all it was a haunting scene that stuck with me over the years. At the time I never connected it to my ancestors.
 

As I looked into my immigrant family who came from Russia to the Prairies of Canada, I have connected that scene as one that my Mennonite family would have lived through.

My paternal great grandparents immigrated to Canada aboard steamships. David Peters born April 18, 1835 and Katharina Peters (nee Mueller) born February 13, 1836 were born in Southern Russia. They married on January 5, 1859 in the same place. David was 40 and Katharina was 39 and they had 7 children when they decided to leave Russia for Canada. I have discussed some of the reasons, in part in previous blogs. I am not sure how they traveled to their port of departure which was Hamburg, Germany, but by some accounts it could have been railway. What I do know is that they left Hamburg July 2, 1875.

According to Ancestry the Hamburg Passenger list were as follows, “From 1854-1910, separate lists were maintained for direct passengers and indirect passengers. "Direct passengers" were those who arrived at their final destination upon the same ship that they were registered on when they departed Hamburg. These passengers may have had stopovers in other ports on their way to their final destination, but they remained on the same ship. "Indirect passengers" were those who were registered on one ship in Hamburg, but transferred to another ship before reaching their final destination. Transfers to other ships occurred mostly in English, French, Belgian, and Dutch ports, and usually had to do with reducing travel costs. “

David Peters and family were indirect passengers. They boarded the German Steamship called Hansa and their captain's name was Brandt. Their final destination according to this list was Quebec City via Hull, England and departing Liverpool. It was a 3 to 4 day journey across the Baltic Sea from Hamburg, Germany to England. By all accounts it was cramped and a miserable way to travel. Once they landed at Hull they would remain aboard their ship until the train to Liverpool was ready to leave from Hull. This in part was done for health reasons and preventing the spread of diseases such as smallpox or cholera. The height of the cholera epidemic was just years before their departure. The train ride from Hull to Liverpool was 3 to 4 hours. Once they arrived in Liverpool they would wait in a depot as they could not board their ship until the day of travel. This is a transcription of the Hamburg Passenger List for David's family.

Name:	David Peters
Gender:	männlich (Male)
Departure Age:	40
Occupation:	Ökonom
Birth Date:	abt 1835
Departure Date:	2 Jul 1875
Port of Departure:	Hamburg
Destination:	Quebec (Quebec City)
Port of Arrival:	Hull (America via Liverpool)
Ship Name:	Hansa
Captain:	Brandt
Shipping Clerk:	Spiro & Co.
Shipping line:	H. J. Perlbach & Co.
Ship Type:	Dampfschiff
Ship Flag:	Deutschland
Accommodation:	ohne Angabe
Volume:	373-7 I, VIII B 1 Band 029
Household Members:	Name Age David Peters 40 Catharina Peters 39 David Peters 10 Catharina Peters 16 Sussane Peters 8 Helena Peters 6 Maria Peters 4 Eva Peters 2 Judith Peters 6 Monate

Steamships arrived in the 1860's and shortened the trip across the Atlantic from 35 days to somewhere between 7 and 10 days. And soon steamship companies were in competition for their patronage and conditions in steerage class continually improved from stacked wooden beds and bringing your own utensils, bed and blankets to eventual rough cabins with supplies provided. According to first accounts of emigrants crossing in steerage, it was dismal, appalling, cramped, dark, dank, and malodorous and very unsanitary. They weren't allowed on deck for refreshing air. David Peters and family endured a very arduous time crossing the Atlantic on their steamship called the S. S. Canadian. They landed in Quebec City on July 19^th, 1875 with 561 Mennonite immigrants aboard.

This was not the end of their travels to Manitoba. According to the diary of Reverend Johann Wiebe he describes the last leg of the trip as follows.

“After we thanked and praised God, we had breakfast. Hence, we had floated on the ocean from 5.00 pm. June 19 to the early morning of July 1, or a total of twelve days. We entrained at 7 p.m., July 1, and arrived in Montreal at 6 a.m. the next morning.Here we had a breakfast of cold tea, fried potatoes, and beef. At 11.00 a.m. we departed for Toronto where we arrived at 6.00 a.m. the following morning, and remained until 10.00 a.m. Friday, July 4. Then we departed for Berlin (Kitchener, Ontario) and Aexanis (Sarnia?), where we em-barked at 9 p.m. From here we were told it was a distance of 818 miles by boat to Duluth. Now the weather was very nice. At 7 p.m. Tuesday night, July 8, we disembarked at Duluth and after spending the night were entrained and continued our journey at 2 p.m., Wednesday, July 9.We were advised that 253 miles to the west lay Moorhead, Minnesota, where we arrived at 4 a.m., Thursday morning, and 10 p.m. we boarded a steamer which was to take us another 150 miles north on the Red River to Manitoba.However, praise God, early Monday morning (July 14) we reached the immigration sheds at Dufferin a few miles north of the International Boundary. Here we already met many of our brethren and sisters in Christ who came to greet us and who had departed from Russia one week and two weeks before we left. ...”

Although this was not David Peters trip from Quebec City to Manitoba, it can be assumed that since he arrived a few weeks later his last leg of travel was similar. It took 2 weeks from Quebec City to Dufferin, Manitoba. And once there the real work began - setting up the colonies and more importantly building an abode before the long cold winter set in.   

Wendy