A Long Trip From Germany to America For Little Anna Ladewig, My Grandmother's Grandmother

 I have traveled from Germany to America a couple of times, and it only took about a day. But on June 1, 1855, little 8-year-old Anna Ladewig, her mother Minna, big brother Gustav, 16, and sister Maria, 10, boarded a ship in Hamburg, Germany to come to the U.S.[1] I think their father Edward Ladewig was already in New York.[2]

Unlike travelers today, Anna and her family were on that ship for almost two whole months. The passenger list shows them arriving in New York City on July 27, 1855.[3]

But there are two mysteries about their arrival.

The day after they arrived, the captain of the ship was arrested for “violating the quarantine laws, by proceeding to this city contrary to the orders of Dr. F. E. Eartindale [sic], the deputy health officer at Staten Island.”[4] That makes me wonder, was there someone sick on board, and were the passengers allowed off the ship? Sometimes the authorities would make the passengers stay on board another 30 days in quarantine.

An even bigger mystery is that Anna had a little brother who had just turned 5, Carl Franz Otto Ladewig. He was not on the passenger list with them. He wasn’t living with them in Brooklyn in 1860.[5] He wasn’t with them on Staten Island in 1870.[6] He apparently stayed in Germany; his 1885 marriage record and 1911 death record both name his parents, with the same name as Anna’s parents.[7] Their father’s name was common, but their mother’s name was much more unusual.

Why they left this little boy is something that is incomprehensible to me. What possible circumstances could explain this? I guess we’ll never know.

One day Anna would grow up to be my great great grandmother. In fact, my Nana told me about going with Anna to see Maria in New York City when my Nana was 12.

P.S. Another interesting twist is that the German emigrants to Texas in 1845 also sailed on the Herschel, and there is a photograph of a painting of the ship on display at Fredericksburg’s Pioneer Memorial Museum, which can be seen via this link: https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll008/id/8350/.

Part of Anna’s 1846 baptism record from St. Katharinen church in Brandenburg an der Havel, showing her parents Carl Edward Ladewig and Marie Friederike Wilhelmine geb. Ribbach. “Geb.” is the German equivalent of “maiden name” and Minna was a nickname for Wilhelmine. They were the same parents named on Carl Franz Otto's marriage record.

 

 


[1] Manifest, Herschel, 1 June 1855, Hamburg, Germany, p. 301, line 24, Anna Ladewig, 9; database and images, “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” Ancestry (ancestry.com: accessed 24 Mar. 2023) > 1850-1859 > Direkt Band 008 (6 Jan 1855-24 Nov 1855) > image 155 of 344; Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Bestand: 373-7 I VIII (Auswanderungsamt I).

[2] His 1898 death certificate said he had been in the U.S. for 48 years, so if correct, he arrived here about 1850.

[3] Manifest, Herschel, 27 July 1855, New York, N.Y., unpaginated, line 34, Anna Ladewig, 9; database and images, “New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (ancestry.com: accessed 24 Mar. 2023) > Date > 1855 > Jul > 27 > Herschel > image 5 of 6; NARA microfilm M237, 1820-1897, list 705.

[4] “Correspondence of the Baltimore Sun,” The Baltimore Sun, 28 July 1855, p. 4, col. 1; images, Newspapers.com: accessed 24 March 2023.

[5] 1860 U.S. Census > New York > Kings > Brooklyn Ward 11 District 3, p. 503, dwelling 39, family 61, Anna Ladwick [sic] in household of Edward Ladwick [sic].

[6] 1870 U.S. Census > New York > Richmond > Middletown, p. 182, dwelling 820, family 1067, Edward Ludwick [sic].

[7] Carl Franz Otto Ladewig, marriage record, 22 Apr. 1885, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, cert. no. 284; “Magdeburg, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1923,” > Altstadt > 1885 > image 569 of 2092, Ancestry. Magdeburg is about 52 miles from Brandenburg an der Havel.


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