18TH CENTURY SEIBEL GERMAN IMMIGRANTS
The first recorded ship with a large number
of Germans was the ship "America"
which landed at Philadelphia on August 20,
1683.
1710 Seibel Immigrants to New York
The first known Seibel immigrants from Germany
to America came with the group of Palatines
who left Germany in 1709, stopped in England,
and eventually settled in the Mohawk Valley
of New York. In his series The Palatine Families
of New York, A Study of the German Immigrants
Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710,
Henry Z. Jones, Jr. writes of the origins
of these early German immigrants. Several
Seibel families are included. The original
lists of immigrants to England includes Valentine
Seibel aged 22 and George Seibel, aged 20.
Both were of the German Reformed religion.
Although this web page is dedicated to all
families of the surname in America there
has been no known research done on these
New York Seibel families and is therefore
not included. If someone would contribute
information on these early New York Seibel
immigrants, those families will be presented
here.
Pennsylvania German Pioneers
In the three-volume set Pennsylvania Germans
Pioneers, A Publication of the Original Lists
of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia From
1727 to 1808, Ralph Beaver Strassburger lists
the arrivals in Philadelphia including a
copy of the original signatures of the male
immigrants. These lists exist because the
British were concerned about the great influx
of foreign immigrants to the American colonies.
Beginning in 1727, the British government
required all "continental immigrants
who arrived at Philadelphia to take oaths
of allegiance to the British crown. Two years
later the immigrants were required also to
take oath of abjuration and fidelity to the
proprietor and the laws of the province.
The oaths were administered and subscribed
to before public officials."
Due to various economic, social, and religious
reasons, there was a great tidal wave of
German immigration to America in the 18th
century from about 1725 to the start of the
American Revolution. These early German pioneers
mostly lived in the areas of Germany surrounding
the Rhine River. Strassburger wrote that
the journey to Pennsylvania fell "naturally
into three parts. The first part, and by
no means the easiest was the journey down
the Rhine to Rotterdam or some other port.
Gottlieb Mittelberger in his Journey to Pennsylvania
in the year 1750, writes:
'This journey lasts from the beginning of
May to the end of October, fully half a year,
amid such hardships as no one is able to
describe adequately with their misery. The
cause is because the Rhine boats from Heilbronn
to Holland have to pass by 26 custom houses,
at all of which the ships are examined, which
is done when it suits the convenience of
the custom-house officials. In the meantime
the ships with the people are detained long,
so that the passengers have to spend much
money. The trip down the Rhine lasts therefore
four, five and even six weeks. When the ships
come to Holland, they are detained there
likewise five to six weeks. Because things
are very dear there, the poor people have
to spend nearly all the have during that
time.'
"The second stage of the journey was
from Rotterdam to one of the English ports.
Most of the ships called at Cowes, on the
Isle of Wight. This was the favorite stopping
place, as 142 ships are recorded as having
sailed from Rotterdam to Cowes. Other ships
touched at one of seven other channel ports.
In England there was another delay of one
to two weeks, when the ships were waiting
either to be passed through the custom house
or waiting for favorable winds. When the
ships had for the last time weighed their
anchors at Cowes or some other port in England,
then, writes Mittelberger, 'the real misery
begins with the long voyage. For from there
the ships,unless they have good wind, must
often sail eight, nine, ten to twelve weeks
before they reach Philadelphia. But even
with the best wind the voyage lasts seven
weeks."
"The third stage of the journey, or
the ocean voyage proper, was marked by much
suffering and hardship. The passengers being
packed densely, like herrings, as Mittelberger
describes it, without proper food and water,
were soon subject to all sorts of diseases,
such as dysentery, scurvy, typhoid and smallpox.
Children were the first to be attacked and
died in large numbers. Mittelberger reports
the deaths of thirty-two children on his
ship. Of the heartless cruelty practised
he gives the following example: 'One day,
just as we had a heavy gale, a woman in our
ship, who was to give birth and could not
under the circumstances of the storm, was
pushed through the porthole and dropped into
the sea, because she was far in the rear
of the ship and could not be brought forward.'
The terrors of disease, brought about to
a large extent by and, near the poor food
and lack of good drinking water, were much
aggravated by frequent storms through which
ships and passengers had to pass. 'The misery
reaches the climax when a gale rages for
two or three nights and days, so that every
one believes that the ship will go to the
bottom with all human beings on board. In
such a visitation the people cry and pray
most piteously. When in such a gale the sea
ralzes and surges, so that the waves rise
often like mountains one above the other,
often tumble over the ship, so that one fears
to go down with the ship; when the ship is
constantly tossed from side to side by the
storm and waves, so that no one can either
walk, or sit, or lie, and the closely packed
people in the berths are thereby either tumbled
over each other, both the sick and the well-it
will be readily understood that many of these
people, none of whom had been prepared for
hardships, suffer so terribly that they do
not survive.
When at last the Delaware River was reached
and the City of Brotherly Love hove in sight,
where all their miseries were to end another
delay occurred. A health officer visited
the ship and, if any persons with infectious
diseases were discovered on the ship, it
was ordered to remove one mile from the city."
"A vivid account of the arrival of these
passenger ships in the harbor of Philadelphia,
is given by the Rev. Henry M. Muchlenberg,
in a report, which he wrote in the year 1769:
'After much delay one ship after another
arrives in the harbor of Philadelphia, when
the rough and severe winter is before the
door. One or more merchants receive the lists
of the freights and the agreement which the
emigrants have signed with their own hand
in Holland, together with the bills for their
travel down the Rhine and the advances of
the 'new-landers' for provisions, which they
received on the ships on an account. Formerly
the freight for a single person was six to
ten louis d'ors, but now it amounts to fourteen
to seventeen the louis d'ors. Before the
ship is allowed to cast anchor at the harbor
front, the passengers are all examined, according
to the law in force, by a physician, as to
whether any contagious disease exists among
them. Then the new arrivals are led in procession
to the City Hall and there they must render
the oath of allegiance to the king of Great
Britain. After that they are brought back
to the ship. Then announcements are printed
in the newspapers, stating how many of the
new arrivals are to be sold. Those who have
money are released. Whoever has well-to-do
friends seeks a loan from them to irs pay
the passage, but there are only a few who
succeed. The ship becomes the market-place.
The buyers make their choice among the arrivals
and bargain with them for a certain of years
and days. They then take them to the merchant,
pay their passage and their other debts and
receive from the government authorities a
written document, which makes the newcomers
their property for a definite period.'
1 Strassburger, Ralph Beaver, and edited by
William John Hinke, Pennsylvania German Pioneers,
Volume I, Second Printing, Genealogical
Publishing Co., Inc., 1980. Page viii.
2 Ibid, page xxxiii
3Ibid, xxxiv
4Ibid, xxxiv
5Ibid, xxxvii
Created: Sept. 2, 2001.