_Economic Conditions of Immigrants. Cost of Passage.
Course of the Journey. Duration
of the Journey._
In discussing the causes of emigration, we have found that economic
factors entered extensively into operation. It was the desire for
material betterment that prompted a very large proportion of Norwegian
emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. The first five decades
of Norwegian emigration was a period in which the battle for existence
among the Norwegian peasant and the common man was none too easy.
Unfavorable economic conditions, the oppressive methods of the
larger land owners, frequent crop failure, often reduced the lesser
farmers into a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy families
found themselves burdened by debts from which the future seemed to
offer little hope of relief. By the law of primogeniture the oldest
son inherited the estate. The sons of men of means, therefore, were
financially often no better situated than the cotter's son, and were
often forced to seek their fortune beyond the native village or
district. These considerations will make clear first that the great
majority of Norwegian emigrants to the United States were at the time
of emigration of small means; they were often very poor indeed. Their
wealth lay in the ability and the will to carve their way in a land
of greater promise. Their wealth lay also in their thrift, in their
ideals, and the moral fiber of their race. Many of those who have
succeeded best in their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless.
To them poverty was no longer a curse when the path of opportunity lay
before them. But the above considerations will also have indicated
that Norwegian immigrants of that early period were not always of the
poor classes even though they came here with little or nothing. Later
Norwegian immigration has, it is true, generally been from among the
impecunious. But in that early period, especially 1835 to 1865, a very
large number of the immigrants came from families which general or
special conditions had suddenly so reduced to conditions which became
to them intolerable. And it was the hope which America held out which
inspired them with the will to seek there the independence now no
longer theirs. We have already met with the evidence of this in such
families as Hovland (1835), Nattestad (1837), Aadland (1837), Aasland
(1838), Gravdal (1839), Stabæk (1839), Gitle Danielson (1839), Luraas
(1839), Unde (1839), Heg (1840), Gaarder (1843-49), Nils Haugen (1846),
and many others. We shall in the following pages meet with families
of considerable means from Numedal, Telemarken, Voss, Ringsaker and
elsewhere, of whom the same is true; and among the pioneers who came
from Sogn in 1844, 1845, and later there were many old families of
property and prominence in their native community. I stress this fact
because some who have formerly written about Norwegian settlements in
this country have never yet fully recognized the full significance
of this; but I speak of it here especially because I have myself
also failed to fully appreciate this fact when last I wrote upon
the subject. What has been said here applies to the founders of the
settlements of Northern Illinois, of Racine, Rock, Dane and other
counties in Southern Wisconsin, and many of those who some years later
established the settlements in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota.
On the other hand also some of those who later became most substantial
members of these settlements were men whose transportation to America
was paid for by others that they might come and get a start in life.
These men emigrated prompted by the desire of material betterment and
in that aim they have succeeded, and they have succeeded honestly,
often accumulating great wealth.[207]
[207] It is only "financial prosperity" which we are here speaking
of, of course. The question of "success" is entirely a
different one.
The second topic in the title of this chapter is the cost of passage. I
shall discuss this item briefly, using concrete illustrations from our
sources. In that early period the voyage was made by sail-ships. These
continued to be used for a long time after steam had come into use,
clear down into the seventies. The ticket was then generally somewhat
cheaper by sailing vessels than by steamship. Passengers furnished
their own board and beading, and they were required to bring a supply
sufficient for ten to twelve weeks.[208] The price of passage ranged
between 33 and 50 _speciedaler_, that is between $25.00 and $38.00.
Children under fourteen travelled for half price; those under one went
free. The Luraas party (page 158 above) paid forty-two _speciedaler_
from Gothenburg to Boston, while the Nattestad party paid fifty dollars
from Gothenburg to New York in 1837. In 1839 the party that came with
Ansten Nattestad secured passage for thirty-three dollars per person.
This may be regarded as normal; it was the price paid, e. g., by
Anders Tömmerstigen and family from Christiania via Havre, France,
to New York in 1846. Those who came in June from Sogn in 1844 paid
twenty-five dollars a person from Bergen to New York. The extremes are
illustrated by two groups for the year 1839 and 1845: The little group
of immigrants who came from Stavanger via Gothenburg to Boston with
Gitle Danielson in 1839 paid, it seems, sixty dollars apiece,[209]
while Peder Aasmundson Tanger and others, ninety in all, who came in
1845 from Kragerö, paid only eighteen dollars apiece to New York.
[208] The regulations varying with different ships, _Juno_, which
brought the first party from Inner Sogn in 1844, did not
accept any passenger who had not provided himself with food
supply for twelve weeks.
[209] i. e. $47. R. B. Anderson's _First Chapter_, page 313.
The inland journey, generally in the early days made by canal boat,
varied greatly in cost, often amounting to as much as fourteen dollars
to Milwaukee or Chicago. But the additional toll inland frequently
made the inland journey much more expensive than was the ocean voyage.
One pioneer, writing of this later, says that his whole journey cost
him ninety dollars.[210] In the fifties the inland journey was made by
railroad; the railroad ticket from Quebec to Chicago or Milwaukee was
eight dollars.
[210] In American money, of which less than half for the ocean voyage.
The course of the journey has been incidentally indicated above.
During the first years it was usually by way of Gothenburg, sometimes
via Hamburg, not infrequently by way of Havre. The starting point was
Stavanger, Bergen, Skien, Drammen, Porsgrund and Christiania, later
other ports. New York was most often the place of landing, but not
infrequently Boston, in isolated instances, Fall River, Philadelphia
and New Orleans. After 1850 sail-ships plied extensively between
Scandinavian ports and Quebec.[211] The inland journey from New York
went by steamboat to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, a
distance of three hundred and fifty miles, which usually took twelve
days but often over two weeks.[212] From Buffalo the journey went
by steamboat over the Great Lakes to Milwaukee and Chicago, after
1842 usually to Milwaukee. Those who took the Quebec route after 1850
were then brought to St. Levi by the railroad company's steamboats,
whence they went by rail to Chicago or Milwaukee,[213] a journey which
generally took four or five days,[214] over a distance of 1020 miles.
Milwaukee-bound passengers were often shipped from Port Huron by way
of Lakes Huron and Michigan or were taken by rail from Detroit across
Michigan to Grand Haven, thence by steamboat across Lake Michigan to
Milwaukee.[215] The latter was of course the shorter and the favored
route for immigrants whose destination was Wisconsin, Northern Iowa, or
Minnesota. Immigrants who landed in Boston usually went by steamboat
thence to New York and from the regular inland route as given above.
[211] Of the trials and the hardships of the ocean voyage in
the thirties, forties and fifties, we can to-day have no
conception. It would, however, fall outside the scope
of this work to discuss that here. I may refer the
reader to a well-written article by H. Cock Jensen in
_Nordmandsforbundet_, December, 1907, pages 53-66. See also
Holand's article, pages 56-60.
[212] A good account of the character of this journey is given by
Holand, pages 65-74.
[213] Via Montreal, Toronto, Port Huron and Detroit.
[214] _Billed-Magazin_ I, 123-124, article "Om Udvandringen," by J.
A. Johnson Skipsnes.
[215] To Port Huron 189 miles, thence to Milwaukee 85 miles.
The duration of the journey was always a matter of great uncertainty.
Intending emigrants who came from the interior of Norway often had to
wait as long as two weeks at Bergen or Skien, as the case might be,
before the ships on which they were to go sailed. The overhauling and
putting in repair of the storm-battered ships often took weeks.[216]
The duration of the voyage across the Atlantic depended of course
largely upon the state of the weather. With this favorable a sail-boat
would usually cross the ocean in six or seven weeks,[217] but in a
voyage of such a distance it was practically certain that there would
be stormy weather sometime before the other side was reached. In his
answer to this question in _Billed-Magazin_ I, page 123, John A.
Johnson wrote that the average length was seven weeks, but he adds that
those who crossed in that time had no reason to complain. And he speaks
of the fact that emigrant ships have in rare cases taken twelve to
thirteen weeks.
[216] The author's grandfather, Ole Torjussen Flom, and party of
about fifty-three, from Inner Sogn, were obliged to wait in
Bergen nearly three weeks before sailing.
[217] There was of course great difference in the speed of the
boats.
The Nattestad party made, in 1837, an especially short voyage of
thirty-two days from Gothenburg to Fall River. I have no record of
any other ship in those early years which sailed so well as did
_Enigheden_. _Juno_, the most rapid sailer on the Atlantic in the
forties, crossed in five weeks and three days in May-June, 1844, which
Kristi Melaas of Stoughton, Wisconsin, who was a passenger, says broke
the record for speed at that time. Ansten Nattestad and party took
nine weeks in 1839 with the ship _Emelia_ from Drammen. Nine weeks
is the number which many report as the duration of the voyage in the
forties. The party that came with the Luraas brothers from Tin and
Gitle Danielson from Stavanger also in 1839 took nine weeks and three
days from Gothenburg to Boston. And _Aegir_ took nine weeks on its
journey from Bergen to New York in 1837. The sloop _Restaurationen_ we
recall crossed in ten weeks. The so-called Brook-ship _Albion_ usually
required from eight to nine weeks for the voyage.
In stormy weather the voyage sometimes lasted as much as fourteen
weeks. The sail-ship _Tricolor_ took that long in April-July, 1845, the
route being from Porsgrund to New York. Ingebrigt Johnson Helle, from
Kragerö, who was a passenger, writes of the terrors of this journey
(see appendix 2). On a voyage made in 1848 _Tricolor_ took fourteen
weeks and four days, according to interview with Kari Gulliksdatter
Mogen (from Flesberg, Numedal), who was a passenger on the ship
(see _Billed-Magazin_ I, page 388). The little sail-ship in which
Nils Hansen Fjeld and family came in 1847 took fourteen weeks from
Christiania to New York.[218]
[218] For account of the voyage see Appendix 2.
In this connection I shall cite from an article by Dr. K. M. Teigen of
Minneapolis, Minnesota, entitled "Pionerliv" (Pioneer Life).[219] He
says:
In the days of the sail-ship a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean
was more of an undertaking than a journey around the world now.
Most of the summer might be required for it if the weather was
unfavorable. My mother's party from Flesberg and Lyngdal parishes
in Numedal, took seven weeks and four days in 1843 with the brig
_Hercules_, Captain Overvind, between Drammen and New York; my
father's company from Sogndal in Inner Sogn, three years later, lay
for fourteen weeks heaving and lunging in contrary winds between
Bergen and the promised land. And then came the journey by steamer
up the Hudson to Troy, thence through the "canal" and the sluices
at Oswego by canal boats, which were drawn with a snail's pace by
horses, lazily moving along the banks; then by way of the lakes
by steamer again westward to Milwaukee. For this journey of about
a thousand miles another month went by, without counting the walk
from Milwaukee to Koshkonong, lying seventy miles distant in the
wilderness, whither so many of the earliest Norwegian immigrants
were destined.
[219] The article forms one in a series of most interesting
articles bearing the general title "Blandt Vestens Vikinger"
('Mongst the Vikings of the West) printed in _Amerika_ in
1901 and 1902. Dr. Teigen, son of O. C. Teigen, Koshkonong
Pioneer of 1846, is a poet and story writer of the first rank
among Norwegians in America.
At the place of landing the immigrants were frequently obliged to
wait for several days before the westward journey was begun. To Rock
Prairie, Koshkonong or Norway Grove, as the case might be, required
another week, and correspondingly more for those bound for more
westerly settlements. In all the duration of the journey from Norway
to the settlement which was the immigrant's ultimate destination was
rarely made in less than nine weeks; often it consumed as much as five
months.