The air hung like a heavy wet blanket over the port of Baltimore as
the Hawel family completed the penultimate leg of their journey to their new
home near Jefferson, WI in the United States.
It was on this date 150 years ago, July 18, 1868, that Anna and Josef
Hawel and their eight living children disembarked the SS Baltimore in
Baltimore, Maryland. It was a crossing that took over half the month of
July, and would see them travel across the often turbulent Atlantic Ocean from
Bremen, Germany to Baltimore, Maryland their port of arrival in the United
States.
The port of Baltimore is not near as famous as that of New York. Ellis Island, the famed port of entry into New
York did not open until 1892. Yet, Baltimore during the mid-nineteenth to
early twentieth century was the second main point of entry for immigrant ships
arriving from Europe. Arrivals increased significantly after the Irish
potato famine in the middle of the 1840's, and uprisings in Germany in 1848.
Before 1868 the immigrant ships in Baltimore arrived at Fell's Point, but
crowded conditions led to the construction of Locust Point, near to Fort
McHenry. The first ship to arrive at the new Locust Point transfer
station would be March 23, 1868. The
transfer station would have been new upon the arrival of the Hawel family. If you recall your history, you will know
that the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in September of 1814 led to the
writing of the "Star Spangled Banner", the national anthem.
In Baltimore in 1868 immigrant entry was made easy as doctors and
immigration officials would board the ship for its journey to Baltimore on
Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore was the western most port of those on the Atlantic
seaboard, so it gave westward travelers a heads up the old “move west young
man” mantra. Josef was not a young man,
he was aged 60. The Hawel family would
disembark at one of the two Locust Point terminals constructed by the Baltimore
and Ohio railroad. In 1867 the B&O,
made famous by the commonly played game Monopoly, entered into an agreement
with the North German Lloyd Steamship Co. (who owned the SS Baltimore) which would allow passengers to purchase not only the
steamship passage, but the same ticket would allow transport on B&O lines
into the center of the United States. I
suspect it is likely that the Hawel family would have taken advantage of this
arrangement. The family would have
either made their way on the B&O to Milwaukee, or transferred at some
location and used the Northwestern line that served Jefferson, WI. If the family was required to spend the night
in Baltimore, perhaps they boarded at the large boardinghouse run by Mrs.
Koether. For over fifty years, this
woman would receive over forty thousand borders a year at her
boardinghouse. I, however, doubt they stayed
long on the east coast.
The Hawel family would also appear to share the common trait with
other chain migrants. Those involved in
chain migration were more risk adverse, due to the need to care for a family,
and thus wealth accumulation was not their primary purpose. It appears the
primary purpose was to provide opportunities for their children. This can be seen in the Hawel family by some
of the children moving to the less expensive farmland in northcentral Iowa,
rather than attempting to purchase land near Jefferson. Land, often treated as
a commodity, was in short supply in their homeland. The Hawel family not only were typical
migrants, but it appears, like others in Jefferson County, they migrated from
that county to take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. A second, but shorter migration to Iowa. Jakob Fitzl and his wife Anna Hawel would
also move with many other members of the Hawel family and change his occupation
from a cobbler to being a farmer. As, I
wrote in the past, (you can find
here, here and here) the
Hawel family was on the frontier of farming and settlement of the open Iowa
prairie.
As the family arrived in Baltimore they would head west to
Wisconsin, settling among many German settlers in the Jefferson, WI area. While they were Bohemian (Czech), the Hawel
family would know German as that was the language of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, of which Bohemia was a part.
Germans and Czechs did not always get along in the old country, but
perhaps such differences were set aside for the commonalities that would be
shared among different, but similar ethnic groups.
As the family disembarked to the shores of Baltimore, I wonder
what the first thought to cross the mind of one or more may have been. Did one think about finally being off the
ship and setting foot on terra firma for the first time in almost three
weeks? Did they simply think about getting
the last leg of the journey completed and once again having a place to call
home? Did a thought about the
opportunities that awaited, that incentive to leave their homeland, come to mind? For some reason, and it may be the eight
children with her, but I view Anna as being very practical. I suspect her first thought, as she got off
the ship was verbalized as, “Josef, take the older boys and go get our luggage.”
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| Baltimore and Ohio Rail lines 1860 Source: Library of Congress |
The journey would not be easy.
There were summer storms, sitting, heat, boredom, and humidity any of which
independently could easily drain a person’s strength, but together would simply
be just plain difficult to bear. The close quarters of the passengers in
steerage would be exceptionally difficult, and infectious diseases would often
run rampant in such immigrant ships. I
do not know if a sick child or parent was separated from the rest of the
family upon arrival, as was a not uncommon occurrence with immigrants. The ship slowly made its way slowly across
the expansive ocean; the immigrants probably wondered if the trip would
ever end. I do not know if the large number of immigrants, 774, aboard
this overcrowded ship would have celebrated the 4th of July during
their voyage from Bremen to Baltimore, but if they did, it may have either had
little significance or it would be of great significance.
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| Rail map of West, 1870 Source: Library of Congress |
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| Locust Point Source: Google images |
Baltimore in 1868 was more than Fort McHenry or Locust
Point. It had become a manufacturing and trade center. Population
of the city increased by almost 200,000 persons in seventy years, reaching
212,418 in 1860. Its largest increases in population occurred between
1840 and 1860 when over 100,000 persons were added to its teeming shores. To have accommodated such a population,
buildings would have primarily been of wood construction, and built close together
due to the need to accommodate walkability.
Baltimore would not construct its first sewer lines until the
1870's. As many large cities then, and today, the sewer would handle both
human and storm water runoff and dumped into a nearby water body (Baltimore was
smart and later added a separate sanitary sewer system). In this case
without any sewer system, privies would be important, but people being people
and using the most convenient method available excrement was likely dumped in
the streets. The smell of humanity, seaweed, algae, horses, and
industrial activity crowded into the port area would have been
overwhelming.
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| Josef Hawel Immigration paper Source: familysearch.org |
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| 1870 Census Town of Jefferson Source: heritagequestonline.com |
From the 1870 census we know that Josef and family were farming in
the Town of Jefferson. By 1872 they own
and farm 80 acres in the Town of Koshkonong, where the northern boundary of the
property was the Town of Jefferson south border. (They may have owned land in 1870, but the 1870 agricultural census does not list owner or renter, nor do they show up in a 1870 plat map.) Jefferson County was hardly settled by
Europeans in 1840, but by 1850 would have a population of 15,317. It would see significant growth between 1850
and 1870 by more than doubling its population in that 20 year time frame. However, its population would decrease
between 1870 and 1880, and it would not be until the mid-1990’s that the county
would once again reach and surpass its 1870 population. The Hawel family would add ten persons to the
1870 census, and like others, a number of members of the Hawel family,
including my great grandfather Martin and his young bride, would depart
Jefferson County for points west, in this case north central Iowa. In the early 1880’s all but one member of the
family would move. Rose Hawel would
marry George Kachel and they would purchase the Hawel farm in the Town of
Koshkonong before later moving a few miles away to Rock County, by Whitewater,
WI.
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| Jefferson, WI in 1870 Source: oshkonong Country: A History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin 1975 WD Hoard and Sons |
The Hawel family migration, I believe, is an example of chain
migration. In chain migration a family followed a relative(s) or a friend and generally
traveled as a whole family. In 1866
Jakob Fitzl, who had been born and raised in the same small hamlet from which
the Hawel family hailed, Dolni Chrastany, arrived in Baltimore on the ship
Pallas on 19 November 1866. Jakob was
identified as a shoemaker, with a destination of Milwaukee, WI identified on
his immigration papers. The Hawel family
immigration records did not identify a destination. I do not know if Jakob met the Hawel family
in Milwaukee or if the family transferred and arrived by train in
Jefferson. Jakob would marry the oldest
daughter Anna at St. John the Baptist Church in Jefferson on 25 October 1869. His state marriage license identifies him as
living in the Town of Milford, Jefferson County, with an occupation as a
bootmaker. As an aside, Josef Duscheck
lived in the Town of Milford before moving to the Town of Bristol in Dane
County (sometime between 1860 and 1870).
Josef Duscheck’s daughter Amelia would marry Martin Hawel the second
oldest son of Josef and Anna and my great grandfather.
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| State Marriage Record of Josef Fitzl and Anna Hawel Source: Wisconsin State Historical Society Library |
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| 1872 Plat Map of Town of Koshkonong Jefferson County, WI Name appears as Haffell on the map Source: Wisconsin State Historical Society Library |
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| Great Grandfather Martin Hawel Immigration paper Source: familysearch.org |
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| St John the Baptist Catholic Church (1866) Jefferson, WI Where Jakob Fitzl and Anna Hawel were married Source: Koshkonong Country: A History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin 1975 WD Hoard and Sons |
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