Chapter two

ANCHORS AWEIGH

Voyage to New World

The difficult journey from the Palatine region in Germany to Philadelphia in the New World could take up to six months. The trip was divided into three parts. The first part, fraught with difficulty, led down the Rhine River to the seaport Rotterdam, Holland.

Feudal lords owned the land and ruled the principalities through which the Rhine River flows. Peasant farmers made up the major part of the citizenry living in these regions. The rulers lived in castles built on the hilltops overlooking the Rhine valley. They took advantage of travelers going down the river by charging tolls for passage through the lord's principalities. Historians have termed them 'The Robber Barons of the Rhine.'

Gottlieb Mittelberger in his book, Journey to Pennsylvania in the year 1750, writes:

"This journey down the Rhine can take up to six weeks due to having to stop at 26 different customs houses, where the ships are examined, which is done when it suits the convenience of the customhouse officials. In the meantime the ships with the people are detained long, so that the passengers have to spend much money. When the ships finally arrive at Rotterdam, they are detained there likewise five to six weeks. Because things are dear (expensive) there, the poor people have to spend nearly all they have during that time."

The second part of the journey led from Rotterdam to one of the English ports. Most of the ships stopped at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. In England a delay of one to two weeks might be necessary while the ships waited to be passed through the custom house with another possible long wait for favorable winds.

The third part of the journey, the transatlantic voyage, brought much suffering and hardship. When the ships finally weighed anchor at Cowes, writes Mittelberger:

"The real misery begins with the long voyage. The passengers being packed densely, like herrings, 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."

Thirty-two children died on Mittelberger's 1750 voyage. He continues:

"The terrors of disease, brought on by poor food and lack of good drinking water, were much aggravated by frequent storms. The misery reaches a climax when a gale rages for two or three nights and days, so that everyone 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 rages and surges, so that the waves rise often like mountains one over the other, and often tumble over the ship. When the ship is constantly tossed from side to side by the storm and the waves, so that no one can walk, or sit, or lie, and the closely packed people in the berths are thereby 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 from them that they do not survive."

The duration of the voyage depended on the wind and weather. Lack of wind, or storms in the Atlantic, could make a voyage take up to twelve weeks, adding greatly to the misery of the passengers. Under ideal conditions, arrival at the destination could take as few as seven weeks.

When at long last the ship reached the Delaware River in sight of Philadelphia, the city of 'Brotherly Love,' where all their miseries were to end, the travelers suffered another delay. A health officer visited the ship and, if he found any persons with infectious diseases, he ordered the ship to sail one mile from the city for their removal. In 1750, a hospital had been built outside the city limits to treat the sick persons arriving on the ships. Including burials at sea, hundreds died every year.

A registrar on each ship required those on board to sign the ship list of passengers. On most ships, some of the passengers who could not write would make an X and the ship's registrar would sign for them. The British registrars did not always clearly understand the German names, thus spelled the names as best they could. Illegible writing also caused the ship passenger lists to be sometimes inaccurate as to the spelling of names. This is believed to be the case with Peter Bolender, whose name cannot be located on any passenger list. A clue is to be found in several books of Ship Passenger Lists.* A list of foreigners imported in the ship, Patience, (Captain Hugh Steel from Rotterdam), sailing from Cowes, England (near Portsmouth), arriving, August 11, 1750, shows 121 passengers on board. The list shows a Peter Poland (X) and a Stephen Poland (X). The X by their names means the ship's registrar had them make an X and the registrar filled in their names, as he understood the pronunciation. These two men are believed to be Peter and Stephen Bolender (possibly brothers). Their point of origin in Germany is not certain. **

According to church records in Pennsylvania, the Bolenders and Shinkles attended the same church, thus the beginning of the close relationship of the two families. Marriages would take place between the Bolender and the Shinkle families for at least the next 150 years.

* "Collection of Upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French, and other Immigrants in Pennsylvania, 1727 to 1776." Rupp.

**In March 1998, I received a possible clue to the origin of Peter Bolender, from Mrs. Julie A Benston. She also is a descendent of Peter Bolender and his son Stephen. She writes, "At one time, I did go to the German church records. Nothing definitive, but there was a large incidence of baptisms of the Bolender family in the Bayern, Pfalz area of Germany, including a baptism for a Peter Bollender, son of Johannes and Eva Bollender on 10 October, 1703 in Bayern, Pfalz, Hassloch. Since this is the same area of Germany from which the Schenkel family is known to have come, and since the Bolenders do seem to be closely intertwined with the Schenkels, this might be a clue (though not confirmed) to the Bolenders' origins in Germany."

| Introduction |

| Chapter 1 |

| Chapter 2 |

| Chapter 3 |

| Chapter 4 |

| Chapter 5 |

| Chapter 6 |

| Chapter 7 |