Coming to America

Detail of John Michael Groves's Gale Coming On

In researching my latest release, Northkill, the story of my Amish ancestors who came to this country in 1738, I ran across several descriptions of what immigrants in the 18th century endured just to get to America. Many Anabaptists made that journey because of the persecution they were subjected to in Europe, but it was not for the fainthearted. Below are three accounts of the 3,000 mile sea voyage, condensed from articles in the April 2004 issue of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin. The first is quite positive though it took place at a dangerous time during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Twenty-nine Mennonites from the Palatine boarded the ship Mary Hope in London, June 24, 1710, and landed in Philadelphia, September 23, 1710. Although they embarked on “a beautifully calm Sunday,” they quickly encountered a storm that made most of the passengers seasick, snapped off several masts, and sent their ship back to England for repairs. Finally back at sea, they joined a convoy of Russian battleships for protection. After the Russian ships left them, the passengers were frightened by the appearance of several French warships. Thankfully a heavy fog allowed the Mary Rose to creep safely away.

The voyage turned out to be very pleasant. “I think that I never was on a more healthy vessel,” a Quaker passenger named Chalkley recorded in his journal. He noted that fellow passengers were fascinated by seafowl, porpoises, flying fish, and whales, and that amid a great storm they watched mountainous waves rise above the ship’s deck with outward calm. Chalkley held Quaker meetings on the deck, and the Mennonites seemed to him “tender” and moved by his words. They “behaved soberly, and were well satisfied; and I can truly say, I was well satisfied also.”

The article also included a delightful description by a German schoolmaster, who recorded that two days before his ship sighted land, a sailor told the passengers that he could smell America. After a while the passengers “also felt a sweet, pleasant aroma, because a gentle wind came from there to us.” When they entered Delaware Bay, “we saw right and left the land that we had wished to see with such great desire for such a long time, although still in the distance, since the bay at its mouth is very wide; but the farther we went in, the closer the banks on both sides came toward us. We then ran from one side of the ship to the other, so as to overlook or miss nothing. . . . It is an indescribable joy when one has seen nothing in such a long time except sky and water and now all of a sudden sees the wonderful green of the forests, the mountains, the valleys and fields.”

A diary attributed to Hans Jacob Kauffman, written in the margins of an almanac, gives a very different and heartwrenching account of his 1737 voyage on the Charming Nancy (the same ship that brought my ancestors the following year) that illustrates the often horrendous conditions passengers in 18th century vessels endured.

Port of Philadelphia in 18th century

“The 28th of June while in Rotterdam getting ready to start my Zernbli died and was buried in Rotterdam. The 29th we got under sail and enjoyed one and a half days of favorable wind. The 7th of July, early in the morning, Hans Zimmerman’s son-in- law died.

“We landed in England the 8th of July, remaining 9 days in port during which 5 children died. Went under sail the 17th of July. The 21 of July my own Lisbetli died. Several days before Michael’s Georgli had died.

“On the 29th of July three children died. On the first of August my Hansli died and the Tuesday previous, 5 children died. On the 3rd of August contrary winds beset the vessel and from the first to the 7th of the month 3 more children died. On the 8th of August, Shambien’s Lizzie died and on the 9th Hans Zimmerman’s Jacobli died. On the 19th, Christian Burgli’s Child died. Passed a ship on the 21st. A favorable wind sprang up. On the 28th Hans Gasi’s wife died. Passed a ship 13th of September. Landed in Philadelphia on the 18th and my wife and I left the ship on the 19th. A child was born to us on the 20th—died—wife recovered. A voyage of 83 days.”

Kauffman’s report is not unusual for sea voyages during this period. In 1750, Gottlieb Mittelberger vividly detailed the miserable conditions on crowded vessels.

“Children from one to seven years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water. I witnessed such misery in no less than thirty-two children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea. It is a notable fact that children, who have not yet had the measles or small-pocks [sic], generally get them on board the ship, and most die of them. Often a father is separated by death from his wife and children, or mothers from their little children, or even both parents from their children; and sometimes whole families die in quick succession; so that often many dead persons lie in the berths beside the living ones, especially when contagious diseases have broken out on board the ship.”

Clearly incredible determination and courage were required to make the voyage across the ocean in the 18th century. I’m inspired by these stories and that of my ancestors, portrayed in Northkill, to remain steadfast amid the trials I encounter today—none of which,I have to admit, are near as challenging as theirs were! In what ways do these stories speak to you?

Caesar Rodney, Hero of Delaware

It was July 2, 1776.

Exhausted and muddied, the frail yet determined man stumbled into the doorway of the chamber where the second Continental Congress was meeting. Making his way to the desk where the delegates from Delaware sat, he slumped into his wooden chair. Soaked to the skin, he breathed with some difficulty. He had a bandage covering the cancerous sore on his face. But the 48-year-old major general of the Delaware militia, Caesar Rodney, voted with the passion of a man who would ride through any storm to let his desire for liberty lead to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Without his vote, the United States of America would likely not exist.

So who was Ceasar Rodney?

He was born the son of a Delaware farmer in 1728. When only seventeen, his father died and the teen was placed under the guardianship of a clerk of the peace in Kent County, Delaware. Through his guardian’s influence, Rodney became interested in politics.

At the young age of twenty-seven, Rodney was named Commissioner High Sheriff of Delaware. Other offices that he held in subsequent years were Registrar of Wills, Recorder of Deeds, Clerk of the Orphan’s Court, and Justice of the Peace. 

By the time he was thirty, he was elected to the Colonial Legislature at Newcastle, Delaware.

In 1765, Rodney was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, the first official gathering of several colonies fighting against the higher taxes being enacted by Great Britain. The battle cry of that Congress was “No taxation without representation.”

Rodney's Signature on the Declaration of Independence

Named a delegate to the Continental Congress, Rodney retained his position as a military leader in the colonial militia…and this was what drew him back to Delaware in June of 1776. He had just finished voting on an important resolution for independence in Congress when he was notified that there was a threatened uprising among those loyal to the king living in Sussex County, Delaware.

The final vote in Philadelphia on whether or not to adopt the Declaration of Independence was approaching and delegate Thomas McKean was beginning to panic. He knew that delegate George Read would vote “Nay” to independence. If there were only two votes from Delaware, they would cancel each other out. Delaware needed Rodney’s third vote for the majority. McKean was desperate and he sent a messenger to retrieve Rodney.

Caesar Rodney Statue, Rodney Square, Wilmington, Delaware

Rodney received the message on the evening of July 1. He left immediately for Philadelphia, 80 miles away

According to Russ Picket (russpicket.com), it was an “agonizing ride” through a severe thunderstorm, terrible heat, over mud-filled roads and across swollen creeks. All the while, Rodney suffered from asthma and the pain of a cancerous tumor on his face.

He arrived in Philadelphia on the afternoon of July 2, in time for the Congressional vote.

Rodney continued to serve his new country. He held the office of Speaker to the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly until the day he died, June 26, 1784.

Rodney never received proper treatment for his cancer. He put aside his personal pain to save his country. He was truly a hero, not just of Delaware, but of the United States.

Watch this interesting depiction of the arrival of Caesar Rodney to Congress, from the musical “1776.”  Click here.