#37 A GERMAN HERSTORY
ELISABETHA (BISCHOFF) SCHMITT
This is a family herstory. So often we write about the men who led their family to a new land, settled that land and passed a legacy to their children. And we forget the brave women--our grandmothers--who sacrificed, kept the family together on the journey to Canada and who staked new lives here. Their names are not on the land deeds and rarely in the newspapers. There are no photos of them and sometimes no gravestones. But it is important that they do not remain shadowy figures and that their strength and determination are known. Such is the story of my great-great-great grandmother, Elisabetha.
The Palatinate (which in German is called Pfalz) borders the Rhine River. The area was the centre of both the Protestant Reformation (it was at the Palatinate city of Worms that Luther refused to recant) and the Catholic Counterreformation. The area was almost depopulated in the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Since it was located along the French border, the Pfalz suffered more than any other German region during the Napoleonic wars. Not only was there loss of life and destruction of buildings, but troops needed to be fed so any surplus grains that were being saved to plant the next year’s crop were consumed, gardens stripped clean, wild and domestic animals killed for food, etc. Disease was spread by travelling armies and famine followed the devastation. In 1816 and 1817, the area was hit by natural disasters—hailstorms, the overflowing of the Rhine which flooded thousands of acres of farmland and in 1846 a blight left all the potatoes rotting in the fields. Inflation followed. Stored grain was confiscated by the government and soup kitchens introduced. The industrial revolution affected cottage industries which cut off the extra income that sustained peasants; civil discontent mounted among impoverished villagers.
Undoubtably, it was the potato famine of the Hungry Forties that drove the Schmitts to emigrate. The blight in Northern Europe caused a food crisis and almost 42,000 Prussians died from the famine.
In 1846-7, emigration societies were started and newspapers advertised North America’s political and religious freedoms and cheap, possibly free, land. But contrary to popular belief, immigrants, like the Schmitts, were more likely driven to America, not by “Wanderlust” or a sense of adventure, but by sheer necessity and misery. Some towns in the Pfalz paid the passage for poor villagers to reduce their dependency on the village, but the Schmitts paid their own passage to America. Like other farmers, the Schmidts sold their possessions at ridiculously low prices and joined the thousands of Germans walking along the Rhine downstream to the seaport city of Le Havre. They carried a trunk packed with meagre belongings and a few treasured momentos of home.
About his walk to Le Havre, one German emigrant wrote: “At sunrise we moved out, heavily laden, in the typical manner of migrants, with heavy steps, as in a funeral procession, as though we feared to reach the German border too soon. Those of us who were parents sat with dark thoughts. We were about to leave Germany and everything dear to us, with the possible risk of having to commit the body of one of the little ones to the waves or the heart-rending prospect of dying before their eyes and leaving them unprotected in the New World. We sat there in anguish, alone with our thoughts not daring to look up for fear of betraying our innermost doubts. It was then that the children broke into song “auf, auf, ihr Breuder, und seid stark; wiz ziehen ueber Land und Meer nach Nordamerika” (Arise, ye brothers, and be resolute; we journey over land and sea to North America.) At this point, it became impossible to conceal our agony any longer. It was one of the most radiant spring mornings I have seen. The sun had cast its first beams over the paradisal regions of the Palatinate. The prospect proved a balm to our agony and soon we raised our voices in joyful song. Onlookers must have taken us for people of quality, rather than evicted emigrants.”
The Schmidt family left from the port of Le Havre which is about 200 kilometres west northwest of Paris and lies on the right bank of the Seine Estuary as it enters the English Channel. Merchants and ship-owners came to depend on LeHavre as an outport as larger vessels could not sail up the Seine. In the mid-19th century, trade increased dramatically and from 1825 to 1865, the capacity of ocean-going ships doubled.
It was late spring 1847 when the Schmitts—Elisabetha and Jacob and six of their children ranging in age from 5 to 19-- left Europe aboard the Kate Hunter, a 732 ton sailing ship. The ship was advertised in New York newspapers as a “splendid new and fast sailing packet ship”. Packets were sailing ships of the 1800s which did something novel for the time; they departed from port on a regular schedule and were challenged to battle the storms and rough seas to remain close to schedule. Unlike the more glamorous clipper ships, packets carried both cargo and passengers and were not designed for speed. In 1856, 96% of passengers went to New York aboard sailing ships, not steamships.
The Kate Hunter advertised that “her accommodation for cabin and second class passengers cannot be equalled for comfort by any other vessel.” This may have been true for the twenty first and second class passengers aboard the Kate Hunter on that May-June passage but not so for the 169 passengers, in steerage, the cheapest accommodation below the main deck of a sailing ship and originally built for cargo. Beds were long rows of shared bunks with straw mattresses; there was no privacy and little division between genders. When the hatches were down, the stench became unbearable. Passengers supplied their own food and drinking water was grudgingly given. As there was no separate area for the sick, disease spread quickly.
The Schmitts sailed in steerage and their voyage took 37 days. On June 15, 1847, the family landed in New York at a dock somewhere on the east side of the tip of Manhattan.
From New York, the Schmitts must have followed the Hudson River and Erie Canal to Buffalo. This trip took about ten days. The Erie Canal was a 363 mile canal that, when completed in 1825, was hailed as the engineering marvel of its time. It stretched from Albany to Buffalo, was four feet deep, forty feet wide and included 83 locks and 18 aquaducts to carry the canal over ravines and rivers. The Erie was enlarged in 1836 and 1862 to a seven foot depth and seventy foot width and could handle boats up to 240 tons. The Schmitts travelled on a horse-drawn passenger boat. A ten foot wide towpath was built along the bank of the canal for the horses and/or mules which pulled the boats and their driver, often a young boy. Originally intended as a more comfortable alternative to the bone-jarring stagecoach, these Packet boats were 60-80 feet long by just over 14 feet wide. All featured the same basic accommodations: a multipurpose room which served as lounge, dining room, and sleeping room (with a curtain to separate the ladies and men), and a kitchen. At night, three tiers of 60-70 narrow berths were set up the whole length of the cabin; luckless passengers slept on the floor. The average charge for traveling on packet boats was 4 cents per mile and included meals and sleeping accommodations.
For those who couldn't afford a packet boat, line boats could take passengers at a charge of 2 cents per mile, and sometimes one cent, but these accommodations were less comfortable, somewhat slower, and crowded with freight and less desirable passengers. Because it was usually hot and stuffy in the cabin in the summer time, passengers commonly sat on deck, what little there was of it, or often on the roof. Because headroom under bridges was usually low, passengers on the roof to had to duck their heads, or occasionally, to flatten themselves to the roof to avoid being swept off the roof into the canal. Since the usual speed was four miles per hour, passengers would sometimes disembark where they could, walk along the canal path for a while and re-board at some other convenient spot, sometimes by jumping onto the roof from a bridge.
There was one final river transport—vessels powered by steam engines ferried people across the raging Niagara River to the Canadian shores. Did Elisabetha and her family see Niagara Falls or hear the roar of its waters? (The Suspension Bridge at Niagara Falls did not open until 1848, a year after the Schmitts arrived.) It was then a 26 miles (42 kilometer) trek to their property near Bismark in Lincoln County, Canada West.
It is quite possible that eldest son, Peter, had preceded the family to Canada since he had not sailed on the Kate Hunter with the rest of the family, yet he appears on the 1851 census with them and is listed as a labourer. Perhaps it was his role to scout out good farmland for the family.
In 1846, the year before emigration, Jacob had “arranged” to buy a 100 acre property, plus a one-storey log house, in Lincoln County. Were Jacob and Elisabeth pleased or disappointed to see what they had purchased for 50 pounds (abt $8900 today)? There was still much bush to clear, but this area, beyond the Escarpment was quite flat and seemed to be good farmland. Another advantage were the many German-speaking neighbours; in the three decades before 1860, at least 2500 immigrants from Germany had settled in the Niagara District. It is no coincidence that the nearest village, about a kilometer away from the Schmitt farm, was Bismarck named in 1872 in honour of the Prussian general and statesman, Prince Otto von Bismarck.
There is one family mystery at this time. While Elisabetha and Jacob had landed in New York with their six children, only four (Elisabeth, Philippina, Philip and Peter who had joined them) appear on the 1851 census. The youngest three sons—Jan (born 1836), Frederick (born 1838) and Daniel (born 1842) are not found on any records. Had they died in the cholera or typhoid epidemics of the 1840s?
Jacob farmed in Lincoln County for five years and in January 1853 he officially registered his Lot 9, Concession 3, Gainsborough Township property; then he immediately “sold” it to his daughter, Phoebe, and her new husband, Jacob Werth, for 100 pounds. (Two months later Jacob and Phoebe resold the farm for 400 pounds.)
In 1803 and 1807, desiring a closed religious community, Mennonites had purchased two huge tracts of land-- Waterloo and Woolwich Townships in Waterloo County. This German Tract would be good farmland for Mennonite families. For a generation in the early 1800s, the Waterloo County Mennonites lived under a kind of theocracy and apart from their religious activities and their prospering farms, they lived in complete seclusion from the rest of the world. In the 1820s, to exclude other linguistic groups and to solidify their German community, the Mennonites offered cheap and small parcels of land in the German Tract to arriving German immigrants. To be a part of a German-speaking community was likely the motivation for Jacob and Elisabetha to move to Woolwich Township, Waterloo County (near Elmira) In April they paid 350 pounds for a 102 acre property (Lot 103) in the German Tract.
The land had to be cleared and a few acres gradually planted with wheat, oats, peas, potatoes and hay; the bush was tapped each spring for maple sugar. Within five years, Jacob paid off his 287 pound mortgage on this farm.
In 1861, son Philip and his family were living on the Woolwich farm with Jacob and Elisabeth. Jacob died on May 6, 1865, aged 63. There is no known death record nor grave. In his will he named “my beloved” Elisabeth as his executrix and left his estate, valued at $200, to her.
Elisabeth continued to live on the Woolwich farm with her younger son, Philipp and his wife and their four sons. She died between 1871 and Feb 1875, aged about 70 years (She was listed in 1871 census and noted as deceased by Feb 7,1875 on the Woolwich land records.) There is no known death record nor grave. Perhaps her funeral service was led by her son-in-law, Jacob Werth, a Lutheran minister. She was survived (in Canada) by four grown children—Philippina, Elisabeth, Peter and Philip.
Sidenote: For a while, I considered that a Mary Smith, a patient in the Waterloo House of Industry and Refuge might have been our great-great grandmother. This Mary was Lutheran, also born about 1806 in Germany. Like her mother, grandmother, and sisters, our Elisabeth’s baptismal name was undoubtably Maria, so it seemed possible that this was a match. This Mary Smith had been an inmate of the House for five and a half years before she died in April 1894. Mary was buried in the poorhouse cemetery; the graves were later moved but no records confirm this and bodies were unearthed as late as the 1960s.
But then I found land records proving that our Elisabeth was deceased by February 1875. It is a comfort that our Elisabeth did not live out her last years in the Waterloo poorhouse, but instead in the care of her family.
The Children:
Peter (1826-1899) farmed a 50 acre farm in Gainsborough near his family’s original homestead. He married Catherine Neargarth (1835-1914) and they had three sons—Christian (1852-1926), John (1855-56) and David (1858-1864) Peter and Catherine are buried in the Bismarck United Church Cemetery.
Elizabeth (1841-1924) married Gustav Noecker (1838-1919). Elizabeth and Gustav had eleven children—Alvin (1858-1924), Ernste (1863-), Matilda (1863-), Tina (1864-), Leo (1865-1947), Emma (1867-1938), Louisa (1870-1945), Leah (1873-1964), Hugo (1875-), Minnie (1878-) Rudoph (1881-1969). In 1874 they immigrated to Iowa. Both Elisabeth and Gustav are buried in Decorah, Iowa.
Philip (1832-) married Mary Ann Beckett (1837-1887). In 1876 Philip bought out his 3 siblings for the Woolwich farm, but then sold the farm for $$1650 and moved back to the Welland area. There is no known death date or grave. Mary Ann moved to Michigan and died there in 1887. They had 5 sons—Peter (1859-1945), Jacob (1861-), Webster (1863-), Philip (1867-1937), William Oscar (1872-1939)
Other children of Elisabetha & Jacob Schmitt: Female twin daughters (1831-1831), Louisa (1839-1841), Jean (1836-) Friederic (1838-) Elizabeth (1828-) Daniel (1842-)
Our great-great grandmother is PHILIPPINA (PHOEBE) SCHMITT She was born Apr 1, 1829 in Spesbach. She died Jul 1 1916 in Michigan. She married JACOB WERTH on Nov. 14, 1852. He was born Jan 24, 1812 in Hilden, Prussia, immigrated to North America in 1850, was a Lutheran minister in Waterloo County, and died Mar 12, 1890 in St. Jacobs, Ont. Both Jacob and Phoebe are buried in St. James Lutheran Cemetery. St. Jacobs.
You do so much research - such hard lives the led!
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the packet boats. Those were hard times.
ReplyDeleteYou are a very talented story teller! As a reader, I was completely immersed in the past. Well done!
ReplyDelete