The Miles They Travelled from Their Homelands

About half of my great- and great-great-grandparents left their homelands to come to America.  I try to imagine leaving the country I know, the language I speak, the home I've lived in, nearly all of my possessions, and especially family and friends I love -- and I can't.  How did my ancestors have the fortitude and courage to make that choice?  To change their lives so completely?  I'm sure it would have been a carefully considered decision based on a variety of circumstances.

These grandparents emigrated from England and Germany/Prussia/Hannover in about equal numbers.  Some travelled together as families, parents and children, so the distance would have been the same.  For some of the ancestors I know only the general location of their starting point, therefore miles may be approximate. 

3,518 miles
Andrew and Elizabeth Jane (Laws) Doyle brought their four children, including my great-grandfather William, from Northumberland, England, to Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

4,062 miles
John Froman's naturalization document indicates he was a native of Hesse Cassel.  He came to the U.S. with several siblings.

4,147 miles
Catherine Saylor named Baden as her place of birth.  She travelled to the U.S. with her parents, Jacob and and Elizabeth (Shaefer) Saylor.

4,084 miles
Frederick Gerner, according to a family source, was born in Mannheim, Germany.  He and his parents, Christian and Mary or Elizabeth (Stahl) Gerner, travelled to Butler County, Ohio.

4,097 miles
Henry Carl Meinzen came from Hannover, Germany, to Steubenville, Ohio.

3,554 miles
Elizabeth (Armitage) Meinzen's last known city of residence in England before emigrating to the U.S. was Trimdon, Durham.  She came to the Steubenville, Jefferson County, Ohio with her father Abel Armitage and several siblings.

The closest experience I have of travelling such a distance is driving between Ohio and Rexburg, Idaho, about 1,800 miles, when my daughter went to college.  The closest experience I have of moving to and living in a different country is serving in the Peace Corps in El Salvador.  We travelled most of the 1,900 miles by air and returned home after 8 months.  It's quite a different thing to travel twice that far with the intention of never returning to live in your country of birth. 

I hold my immigrant ancestors in high regard.

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2020 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic was "So Far Away." 

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2020-2021, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Before There Were Automobiles

People commonly moved themselves and their goods on foot; by bicycle; on horseback; using a carriage, cart, buggy, or wagon pulled by horses or mules; by boat, barge, steamboat, or ship; and by streetcar or train before the advent of automobiles in the 20th century. 

Though I am old enough to have grandparents who could have told me about riding behind or on a horse, neither of them spoke about the experience.  I do have a memory of travelling with my grandparents that I believe hearkens to Gramma Meinzen's comfort of riding in a horse-drawn carriage, at the speed of a horse.  I was in the backseat of the car.  My grandfather was at the wheel and Gramma was in the front seat beside him.  There were no interstate freeways yet so speeds of 45 miles per hour on rural roads were closer to the norm than the exception, with speeds of 25-35 miles per hour in towns and cities.  My grandfather started to pick up a little speed and inch toward 35 mph when my grandmother said, in alarm, "Bob, you're going too fast!  Slow down!"  Even at five or six years old, I was all for the fastest speed we could go.  My grandmother would not like riding with me.

I have a brief newspaper account of an experience -- an accident --  my great-grandfather Henry Meinzen had with horses and wagon in August, 1901, gleaned from The East Liverpool Evening News Review, of August 26.

It reads, "A team of fine horses belonging to Henry Meinzen ran off at Steubenville Saturday and caused great excitement.  The driver jumped from the wagon and escaped injury.  The horses ran at great speed for several blocks when one of them fell.  It was so badly hurt it had to be shot."

The driver may or may not have been my great-grandfather.  How sad for both the horse, who lost its life, and for Henry who lost the horse.

Two family history photos make me think that travel and transport by train were more common in the late 1800s and early 1900s than I realized.  

In 1908, great-grampa William Doyle's strawberry harvest, grown in Stoneboro, Pennsylvania, was hauled by horse and wagon to the train station to be transported to Pittsburgh.  These days they would probably have been shipped by a refrigerated semi-truck. 


And then there is an undated photo postcard Leota Gerner sent to her mother.  I have the scan but not the original and, sadly, being new to family history, neglected to scan the back of the photo. 

At the time this photo was likely taken, Gust, sitting in front, and Beulah, standing, were either engaged or had been married the previous December.  Gust lived in Stoneboro, Mercer County, PA.  Leota lived somewhere in Fairview Township, Mercer County, a distance of perhaps 9 or 10 miles.  Leota was either visiting her sister or she and Beulah were visiting Gust together.

On the back of the postcard, Leota had written a message similar to this:
     "Dear Mother, will return home on the 5:15 on Tuesday."

I can only take that to mean the train that left Stoneboro at 5:15 on Tuesday.  I think of trains between small towns as an early for of mass transit.

Last, I'm sharing this 1906 video of San Francisco (filmed four days before the earthquake!) where the road is shared by everyone -- pedestrians, bicyclers, horseback riders, horse-drawn carts and wagons, streetcars, and automobiles.


There seem to be no traffic laws yet -- cars weave in and out, pedestrians walk in front of cars without barely enough space.  I was amazed that no pedestrians were hit and there were no collisions.   The video was recently audio-enhanced which, I think, almost gives the effect of watching in real life.  I find it endlessly fascinating.

I put this post together for Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 version of 52 Ancestors.  The topic for this week was Transportation.

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner.
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