Immigrant Ships

At the request of one of my blog buddies, I decided to write this brief post, rather than a lengthy reply to a comment.

Thus far, I have been able to find the names of four immigrant ships on which my ancestors sailed.  It’s tedious work, but I like that sort of research. I have found the transcriptions of three of the four passenger manifests, and I know the passenger numbers of my ancestors for the fourth ship.  I just haven’t found the passenger manifest yet.  I will.

The ships:

John Merrick

Tarquin

Doctor Barth

Fairfield

So, I haven’t seen any photos of any of the ships.  They may have arrived too long ago for that, however, I’ve seen an oil painting online that depicts the Doctor Barth.

Reading the passenger manifest is very moving for me – particularly the column that notes any deaths on board the ship.  Until yesterday, I didn’t recognize any of the names.  The ship that I found yesterday had one of my ancestors in that column:  a 3 1/2 year-old boy.

The New York Times published an article called Marine Intelligence that listed the ships that arrived each day, the ships that were cleared, and the ships that sailed etc.  Right now, I am going through those articles, looking for the ship names that I already have.  From the article, I can determine the length of the voyages and the number of passengers if I can’t find it on the manifest. 

Sometimes, after the ship was cleared, a bit more information was published about the voyages.  The Fairfield had a rough crossing, lost sails, rigging, bulwarks, and spars.  The ship passed another ship that had been abandoned due to the same high waves and bad weather.  That ship had lost its main mast, the mizzenmast, and the rudder.

I also use the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild website for more of my research.  Must scoot.  Goodnight has been at a sleepover and I have a couple more hours to use for research before I go pick her up.  Two ships’ arrivals left to find in the New York Times Marine Intelligence.

Taking the example from the squirrels

I simply meant to raise the window shades, open the drapes and windows, but squirrels with black walnuts in their mouths and tip-toeing into my yard to hide them for the winter always give me a reason to set a spell and watch the show.

While one hopped near my garden, another was in the walnut tree in my neighbor’s yard.

Plop!  Roll.  Thud.  The squirrel in the tree lost a nut.  It landed on the roof of my neighbor’s garage, rolled to the ground and landed in the grass.  I think it was a ploy for me to watch in that direction and ignore where the squirrel, already in my yard, was headed. 

Plop!  Roll.  Thud.  Another lost walnut.  I imagined the squirrel in the tree was planning to shake a few loose and then gather them from the ground later.  That didn’t happen. 

Meanwhile, the other squirrel buried its nut under my pine tree and went back to my neighbor’s yard for another.  The squirrel from the tree made its way down the trunk and ducked under the fence.  They usually go up and over.  Under is funny, too.  That squirrel buried its nut in the grass that runs along my driveway. 

I think I watched for an hour!  It was so entertaining.  The squirrels would go back up the walnut tree and once in a while take a leap to the adjacent maple tree, which is where I think their nest is.  They didn’t stay in the maple very long.  Soon they were back on the ground looking for more nuts and more hiding places.  The last squirrel I spotted had two walnuts in its mouth and was headed for another neighbor’s yard.  It might be time to draw them a map of where they hid their nuts, like I did last year.

But first, I decided to follow their example and begin the preparations of my own nest for winter.  I went to gather my own winter storage of  . . . nuts!  Filberts, Brazil nuts, cashews GN’s favorite), macadamias, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and peanuts (in the shell and shelled).  I seldom bake with them.  I usually take a few to work with some dried fruit and I prepare a little bag for Goodnight to toss in her backpack. 

Thanks to the squirrels for an entertaining and motivational morning!