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To America |
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Anton Pederson Smeby, along with his wife, Mathilda, and sons Ole and Peder, left Oslo, Norway on the 20th of April, 1888. They sailed on the S.S. Angelo to the Port of Hull, England. From Hull they traveled by train to Liverpool, England where they boarded the Gallia. Our Smeby ancestors traveled below deck on the Gallia with 1,288 other steerage passengers. The Gallia landed at the Port of New York on the 4th of May, 1888. Castle Garden served as New York’s immigrant landing depot at that time. It is not documented exactly how our ancestors arrived in the Midwest. We assume they took the route of the majority of the immigrants. From New York on a steamship up the Hudson river to Albany. This took nine hours and the fee was one and one-half dollars. From Albany to Buffalo, either by rail or a horse drawn barge on the Erie Canal. It was very costly to travel by rail, so most likely Anton’s family traveled by barge. From Buffalo on a steamboat to Cleveland. From Cleveland the voyage continues to the Detroit Sound where Lake Erie joins Lake St. Clair. After the Straits is Lake Huron. Up Lake Huron to the Strait of Mackinaw which connects to Lake Michigan and Wisconsin. Innimgrants traveling to Minnesota go through the Strait of Saint Marie to Lake Superior and dock at Duluth, Minnisota. Our Smaby ancestors most likely took this route because the first evidence of our Smabys in the United States is the birth of Anna in Brownsville, Minnesota on the 22nd of April, 1889. |