Attached is the passenger manifest for the German ship Adolph, which arrived at New York Harbor from Hamburg, Germany on October 9, 1848. The first image shows the title page to the manifest; the second is taken from the passenger list itself. The ship bore several hundred passengers when it arrived that day, many of whom were immigrants from Germany and its provinces bound for a new life in America. One such immigrant, John Zastrow, arrived with his wife and five children from Pommern, Prussia. John Zastrow was my second great grandfather, and his name, along with those of his family, can be seen just down the page a bit in the second image. (Family tradition has always maintained that a sixth child died on the passage and was buried at sea- something that seems corraborated by the brief notation after Carl's name.)
Not much is known about John Zastrow's early life, or why his family ultimately migrated to the United States. Information passed down throught the family tells us he was born in Pommern (Pomerania), a fact later born out in census data and in the Ellis Island Foundation's archives. I've heard a number of conflicting stories in recent years regarding his reason for coming to America- some of which were plausible, some not so much. I've done some research on the subject and, having no written family record on the matter, can only offer the following data and speculation-
There was a fairly consistent migration of people from the German provinces to the United States throughout the 19th century. However, there were substantial peaks in the migration patterns at several intervals across that continuum. One such peak originated in the late 1840's and carried on through much of the 1850's. Immigration itself is usually predicated on two types of motivators- "push" motivators (famine, religious persecution, privation) and "pull" motivators (religious freedom, the promise of wealth and/or land ownership, etc.) During the period in which the Zastrows arrived in the U.S. (and for several years thereafter) there was a "perfect storm" of push/pull factors impacting immigration from Germany.
Push Motivators-In the 1840's, "Germany" was essentially a loose confederation of 38 states, nearly all of which were presided over by individual monarchies. On the heels of (and undoubtedly inspired by) the revolution in France, liberal protests swept through all of Germany in a wave of demonstrations and calls for unification of the government and representation of German citizens through parliament. By 1847 the individual protests had matured into an organized revolution operating throughout Germany, and actually resulted in abdication by several of the monarchs involved.
During this time, significant population growth coupled with the failures of harvests in 1846 and 1847 led to widespread famine. Additionally, in 1847, a cholera epidemic swept through Prussia, leading to much death and suffering. The revolution ultimately failed in 1848, but not before reducing much of Germany to a state of economic and political chaos. In Prussia, nearly 6,000 supporters of the revolution fled ahead of persecution by the re-established "old guard". This wave of political refugees was so significant, the immigrants became known collectively as the "Forty-Eighters". As this was the year the Zastrows arrived in the U.S. from Pommern, there may be at least some truth to the assertions I've heard that John and his family left Prussia due to his political associations. It is certain that Prussia in 1848 did not seem to be a very pleasant place to live.
Pull Motivators- Major crop failures similar to those of 1846-47 had previously swept through much of Germany in 1816, prompting a first wave of 20,000 immigrants to the U.S. throughout the teens and into the 20's. These immigrants traditionally settled in clusters in specific locations, most often associated by their regions of origin. This first wave of immigrants maintained contact with friends and family in their native lands, and often conveyed potent images of religious and political freedom and of opportunities for private land ownership to the folks back home. This image of life in America would have proven particularly compelling to those left sick and/or destitute by the massive crop failures and political unrest in 1848 Prussia.
Whatever the impetus for John to uproot his family from their native lands, make the trek to Hamburg and board a ship bound for the U.S.; we do know that he arrived here in 1848 and ultimately settled in Wisconsin along with countless other immigrants from Pommern and the surrounding region. There, the census records tell us, he remained for the rest of his life; his place of birth alternately listed in official records as Germany, Pomerania and Preußen, the German spelling of Prussia. Whatever station he'd held, and whatever travails he and his family might have experienced during his former life in Pommern, John passed his remaining days as a simple farmer, raising his family and working his own land; realizing the common American dream.
