It was a beautiful hot day when we took our leave on Tuesday the 9th of August 1859 from a number of companions in the Lahnhof [UNCLEAR] in Zurich, and we left Zurich at 1:30pm, while my father and many others (of both sexes) still escorted us to different stations on the railroad. When we came to Arau and Olten, even some Saints joined with us in the morning, mostly emigrants like us. In Basel we also met the expected emigrants from St. Jenner. Consequently everyone arrived at the places where we had arranged to do so. So it was in Basel in the White Cross inn, where we emigrants, who all knew each other already, happily and contentedly stayed in the same house for the first time. Again, all of the Saints in Basel visited us this evening; and parted from us. The 10th was again a very beautiful day as we traveled from Basel to Mannheim. As it railway train drove away, the last companions waved their goodbyes to us. Now there were just all of us emigrants, who rode in two cars, and now I provide the list of all persons as follows:

List of the emigrants in the year 1859.

No Name and Sex Kanton Country Age No Name and Sex Kanton Country Age

1 Heinrich Hug Zurich Switz. 29 26 Jakob Graf., son St. Gallen Switz. 6

2 Anna Maria Hug Zurich Switz. 25 27 Traugott Graf, dito St. Gallen Switz. 2

3 Margarita Wampfler Bern Switz. 64 28 Barbara Graf, daughter St. Gallen Switz.

4 Heinrich Lenz Zurich Switz. 57 29 Babara Küenzler St. Gallen Switz. 60

5 Elisabetha Lenz Zurich Switz. 55 30 Georg Louelli Thurgau Switz. 32

6 Regula Lenz Zurich Switz. 21 31 Maria Louelli Thurgau Switz. 27

7 Joh. Ulrich Stuki Zurich Switz. 22 32 Georg Diethelm Thurgau Switz. 30

8 Friedrich Steurer Zurich Switz. 19 33 Barbara Diethelm Thurgau Switz. 24

9 Rudolf Hochstrasser Arau Switz. 19 34 Heinrich Hafter Thurgau Switz. 50

10 Maria Sutter Arau Switz. 34 35 Maria Hafter Thurgau Switz. 45

11 Margaretha Lachmann Arau Switz. 45 36 Margaretha Hafter Thurgau Switz. 24

12 Maria Rüetschi Arau Switz. 4 4 37 Karolina Hafter Thurgau Switz. 21

13 Gottlieb Hirschi Bern Switz. 23 38 Dorothea Hafter Thurgau Switz. 44

14 Maria Rühenacht Bern Switz. 36 39 Heinrich Gubler Thurgau Switz. 32

15 Louise Perrenoud Bern Switz. 15 40 Magdalena Gubler Thurgau Switz. 27

16 Elisabetha Tankhauser Bern Switz. 2 4 41 Johannes Gubler Thurgau Switz. 40

17 Jakob Auer St. Gallen Switz. 50 42 M. Ursula Gubler Thurgau Switz. 35

18 Elisabetha Auer St. Gallen Switz. 45 43 Anna Maria Gubler Thurgau Switz. 9

19 Ulrich Auer St. Gallen Switz. 19 44 Louise Gubler Thurgau Switz. 7

20 Heinrich Auer St. Gallen Switz. 16 45 Johannes Gubler Thurgau Switz. 6

21 Anna Auer St. Gallen Switz. 18 46 Herrmann Gubler Thurgau Switz. 2

22 Katharina Auer St. Gallen Switz. 9 47 Katharina Gubler Thurgau Switz. 31

23 Katharina Barbara Auer St. Gallen Switz. 48 Magdalena Gubler Thurgau Switz. 6

24 Jakob Graf St. Gallen Switz. 46 49 Ulrich Traber Thurgau Switz. 25

25 Barbara Graf St. Gallen Switz 28 50 Elisabetha Schneider Thurgau Switz. 40

51 Maria Stahl Thurgau Switz. 54

And finally Woodard, who accompanied us to Liverpool.

On the 11th we traveled via steamship from Mannheim to Cologne; and on the 12th via railway to Rotterdam. Where we roomed in two inns. On the 13th, we again traveled by steamship to Hull. At the landing place, 18 brethren and sisters picked up us, who accompanied us to our inn where they entertained us greatly with their song. Our journey continued on the 14th. As far as Liverpool. Where we roomed Mr. Stawns' [UNCLEAR] Inn in the Paradise [UNCLEAR] Street. On the 16th, we had to board the ship that was to take us to New York. During the ocean voyage I made following song, which I intended to send to Switzerland from America. [p. 140] [THE SONG IS NOT INCLUDED HERE]

. . . More from my daily journal of the ocean voyage. The 30th of August. Today I had the great fortune to buy 3 eggs for the price of one English shilling, or 1 Fr. 20 Rp., which should quench the thirst of my wife Maria. [p. 142]A letter to Switzerland.

New York (Williamsburg) the 24th of October 1859.Dear Brother Woodard and all brothers and sisters in Switzerland.

Finally I am able to write to you about our status; I can well image that you are wondering about and interested in our situation. I would have been happy to have written somewhat sooner, but this was so to say impossible for me; and for another reason I wanted to await I until I could write more about our current sanctuary as well.

Now I think I will begin my account where Brother Woodard left us, in the which I wish to report everything.

On the 19th of August, our ship was pulled out into the open sea after a two-day wait. This day and the following were very beautiful, and the ship swam so smoothly along that most of us thought and said: They didn't think that the sea could be so quiet, and that the ship could travel with so little rocking. But this quiet condition did not continue across the entire sea, so that the people wouldn't even experience seasickness one time, but soon afterward the first mate came to the lower quarters and ordered us to fasten our trunks down. Only after this could we learn that the great waters upon which we found ourselves would not always be so polite and gracious with us. And the seasickness, which talked about in Switzerland, dared to present itself, and it called upon this person and that, such that it overlooked almost no one except for myself and 2 or 3 other brethren. My wife, mother, Sister Tankhauser, Brother Stuki, his wife and some others had to suffer with it on the entire ocean voyage. The seasickness was especially busy when the storms came upon us, and we had 5 of those: 4 small ones and one large one, such that there were waves like the mountains of snow in Bern, at least they had that appearance, which was somewhat dreadfully romantic to look upon; nevertheless our people were the most quiet, courageous and most fearless on the ship, excepting the captain and his crew [p. 143] and most of us feared nothing at all. But in other ways as well it looked strange and curious to the observer when he walked from the upper deck into the lower quarters where the people had to be during this time, with the exception of just a few passengers, and even this only among the men. Now one is down there and one must readily raise one's self and then one can see — and not with a great deal of comfort, by the way — how the water rushes through all of openings, even through the well-made little side windows, that the water moved itself back and forth and roared like a forest stream, and it threw around the dishes and the trunks and food not tied down, as well as the people, so that it rumbled and boiled so as to be remarkable, and the cries and howls from those who injured themselves or who were otherwise fearful made a noise that had never been heard before by our inexperienced Swiss Saints.

The other people or passengers, who were mostly Irish, were amazed at us and they asked repeatedly: "Aren't we afraid of all this?", whereupon we usually gave the answer , "no". One of these people even said: "In any case, we have a better religion than you" because we can act so fearlessly. This gave us material and opportunity to preach our religion to them after the storm. Among other things, we also added that we do not start to pray and to want to be pious only when we are in need, like most of the people in the ship are want to do, but when the emergency has passed, they don't think about God and His laws any more, nor do they feel any need to pray. No we think about these things which are necessary and important for us people at all times, so that if distress, misery, grief or even death were to come, we would not show ourselves to be impatient, or even to have fear, because of course we should know that we are in the hands of God, where we once again know that he will not allow anything to happen to us except that he has his wise and good intentions in so doing. By the way, we have learned to understand that God must indeed guide us through this earth life with hard tests, whereby he has the opportunity to see how we will behave ourselves.

They listened attentively to all these and many other instructions; how much fruit has emerged from these efforts which we had with them, we do not know! It has been sown like many thousand seeds, which will sprout only in the quiet or even imperceptibly. Some among the passengers were quite interested in our religion and came to our meetings, and even to our prayers. A maiden wanted to be baptized if we had only had the opportunity in the ship. However, on the whole, it is no pleasure to live with other people on the sea. For one sees enough of godless beings of every sort when one has to spend several weeks alongside approximately 350 gentiles.

As far as the meetings on our ship were concerned, in certain aspects we were restricted because we made up the smaller portion of the passengers by far, and all the larger free places everywhere in the ship were pretty much taken; consequently we found it best to hold the same in our ship's quarters, but these were also a bit too small. But in the end, one resigns oneself in all things, and feels content and blessed. Our English Saints also always joined our meetings, and they felt very content to travel with us. We also had much practice in speaking with them, which helped us very much to progress in the English language. We also had song practice often, usually evenings from 8-9-half past 10 o'clock (naturally not on the [p. 144] upper deck); usually the other passengers enjoyed listening to us.

We were very pleased with the captain, although he only spoke a little, but he showed us the most favor on the whole ship, for we could go anywhere without being sent away, whereas it often occurs every day to other passengers, and then in front of the captain, who vigorously chases them away.

Concerning the kitchen, we were well off, for we had our own built-in one, with a special cook, who dealt strictly with our things, at first he thought he didn't have to pay much attention to the Mormons, so that he could sometimes just sit in back a little, and others who asked him to cook he wanted to even give preferential treatment in our own kitchen. But he soon stopped this behavior against us. First I wanted to rebuke him, which he did not think he needed to accept, whereupon I threatened him that I would say this to the captain, to which he answered me, "Yes, I should just go away." I didn't have to be told this twice, and I went. This scene ended with the good cook almost getting a thrashing by the captain, and this in front of the other people which must have put him greatly to shame. He also let the cook know our rights with these words. "You go as quickly as possible!" and cook the Germans "whatever they want. You are not to care or cook for anyone else, and nobody has the right to come into their kitchen." The first day, the cook was certainly angry with the Germans; but from this time on, we had a cook and could not have asked for a better one. For we were free to cook what we wanted, and there was plenty of room. And in the end, we were so pleased with the cook that we even gave him a tip after all.

The following also pleased the captain about us, that we had a guard watch each night the whole time. And this measure had the result that nothing large or small was stolen from us. Whereas otherwise a great deal was taken in the ship.

Also on the whole we behaved so that nobody could blame us, for we may say that we had the best order in every regard, and this both the captain and the doctor knew. Whereas the latter so to say never checked in on us because of order and such, where he otherwise made examination visits 2 times every day with the others. On the contrary, he provided considerable pleasure for us.

I don't know of any further special matters that I could describe, except that two children were born on the ship; and a lady and a child died, in the which the latter was from our company, and belonged to Brother Auer (admittedly it was already sick at home. The child lies buried approximately 300 miles in this direction from Europe by the Newfoundland sandbanks.

At 1 o'clock the first mate and a sailor let it go into the ocean, while we asked him to provide the final honors. Brother Stuki said a prayer and I said one, and we sang a suitable song on the upper deck after it [the child] had been dropped down. All of the inhabitants of the ship participated in this process.

Now before I accompany you out of the ship with this letter, I want to write you my song which I made in the back part of the ship. Now comes the song which is written 2 pages back, "Song of the Emigrants in 1859", but I won't write it now, because it is already written in this book. [p. 145]

The song and the other information should suffice to make you rather acquainted with our days on the sea. However, if you should wish for more, it is best if you yourselves try to make the same voyage next spring, where one has so much enjoyment.

The 29th of September was a day of good news. Early in the morning, the pilot or pilot boat captain came, who was to take command of the ship from now until we reached the harbor; this was a sign to us that we were very near to land, therefore this man, who was accompanied by two others in a small boat, was received with a loud shout of joy from the passengers on the upper deck.

The afternoon brought noise to the upper deck: "Land, land." From now on, more people were to be seen on the upper deck than usual, in order to see the land which was coming closer and closer. Towards evening, a steamer came in the mouth of the dock at Loup [UNCLEAR] Island in order to bring our ship to New York. But the captain found the steamer too small to bring our ship to its place of destination. The anchor was thrown to our ship, and one waited in this position until another large steamer would come which could probably perform the service. A ship of this sort arrived early in the morning; and in the beginning of the 30th of September, while the sun reflected its friendly face magnificently, our ship traveled like a newly revived morning pilgrim between two lovely banks along the bay, and all of the passengers changed their clothes, such as we had never seen the people on the ship, so beautifully and gracefully as if one were awaiting great festivities. After the ship had been pulled in this way approximately 45 miles, we finally had the long-awaited New York in front of our eyes. Soon afterwards the steamer left our ship stand in front of the roads; and after a few minutes the examining doctor and the customs people (four customs officials there, who rapidly performed their business on the ship). As far as our trunks were concerned, it went better than we could have wished for. That is to say: They weren't even examined. The first customs official simply asked me in the presence of the first mate: "Now what kinds of goods do you all have in your trunks?" To this I answered: "As far as I know, there are items of clothing, hand tools and kitchen utensils, and also butter and other insignificant items, as far as I can imagine." Whereupon he asked me: "But is this really so!" My response to this was, in short: "I can not provide any different and more accurate information than I have already told you." He seemed to be sufficiently satisfied with this information, that our trunks were able to be brought out of the ship without being inspected, even though we had the largest trunks in number and size, which gave the greatest appearance of needing to be inspected. But no, we were relieved of this! We also ascribe another reason to this, which I would like to write for your instruction so that it might be of use to you. For as the examination and the exodus out of the ship started to take place, there was a large crowding because everyone wanted to be the first to leave this inhabited ship. When we saw this, we said to one another, "We will wait to be the last; in the end, we'll get onto the land just as soon as the others." For they just had to go onto another ship (a steamer) which was designed to bring us and everything across, where it would then take us to the land. So we simply waited calmly until the end, such that we could then leisurely bring our things up to the upper deck. Also, after we were on the upper deck, we could watch to see how often the other passengers, who had small and insignificant trunks, had to open the same. [p. 146] However, since this business was time-consuming, and many passengers were now on land, towards the end, the opening occurred less and less often, until we Germans had the great fortune of not even being checked. I intend to write this because it can be of use to you during your emigration if you take note of this.

As we now found ourselves on the steamer, about which I wrote previously, it proceeded to the Castle Garden (Schlossgarten in German), a building arranged for the emigrants, which is one of the best buildings for the immigrants into the new world for their protection and use, as I would like to explain with a slightly meandering account. This is also with the intent of providing you with as much knowledge as possible relative to the emigration.

This Castle Garden is a large round building, and apart from all houses, lying right next to the artificial shoreline. Located very closely on the left are many shade trees in which many walking path cross. To the right is the North River, a bay which draws into the countryside, where many steam ships and sailing vessels lie at rest.

Thus, this house built by the government for the emigrants to use would have enough room to hold many ships filled with emigrants if they disembarked on one day and were to be brought to the same; the trunks included, which also had their good and well-ordered places. If one wishes, he can leave them here 14 days without charge. Even the emigrant can stay here 8 days overnight without charge, and can order something or nothing to eat, or much or little, or expensive or inexpensive. In short, he can live as he wishes. And no bad riffraff is allowed in this building, which one can meet often enough if one goes outside of the same, who desire to use all methods to swindle something out of the good emigrants and who know every trick, and who try to use them.

I still need to say something regarding the situation with luggage and suitcases. When one is still on the ship, one receives a token made of brass with a number, which an official from the Castle Garden gave us, while he attaches my other token with the same number to the trunks which one claims. Therefore one must take good care of these tokens. For only with these numbers or tokens can one retrieve the trunks. Also, these tokens are like a passport for leaving and entering the Castle Garden. As soon as one gives up these tokens, upon receipt of one's trunks, one no longer has a right to go into the same.

Now as we entered into in this house I just described, and came into the inside lobby, once again we had a standstill, where we had to wait until we could pass the registration office, where one had to go through different ways. And once one finally has these required ceremonies behind one's self, each is immediately free to leave, or to wait longer and eat and drink whatever he likes; in short, then one is free.

Once we passed through this registration office, Brother Lark, secretary toPresident Cannon and Branch President of New York, waited for us, for Brother Cannon was in Philadelphia at that time, otherwise he would have picked us up. On this evening we found our way, after we had counseled back and forth what would be the best to do, to an English inn which had already put up many of us Saints, and which lies approximately only 5 minutes from the Castle Garden. At this place we all found ourselves very amicable, as this was the first time in a long time that we were on solid ground, and where one can have what one will for the money. On the whole we were all cheerful, so that we sang a song among other things. One of them was "Rejoice Ye Chosen Ones." . . . [p. 147]

BIB: Hug, Heinrich. Journal, donated by Kent Hug, translated from German by Brooks Haderlie, pp. 140, 142-47.
(source abbreviations)