5.  AMERICA!

Were the Fusts welcomed by Miss Liberty?  A gift from France, the Statue of Liberty was shipped in 214 cases aboard a French ship in May 1885.  President Grover Cleveland dedicated the finished monument and unveiled it in October 1886.  While the Fusts and Bungers did not see the Statue of Liberty in 1882 when they reached America, our Grandma Bertha Carl Fust and her parents and most of her siblings did get to see her in 1889 when they immigrated.

While entering the New York Harbor, most likely the family, who were happy as last to at least leave the open sea, clustered together on the foredeck for fear of separation and looked with wonder on this miraculous land of their dreams.  Passengers all around them crowded against the rail.  The officers of the ship strode up and down the decks, shouting orders and directions and driving the immigrants before them, pushing and pulling them, herding them into separate groups as though they were animals.

Finally the ship came to the dock and the long, long journey was over.  But not quite!  Did they go through Ellis Island?  Again, no, because Ellis Island was not operational until 1892, ten years later.  So, all of our Fust, Bunger, Carl, and Albers ancestor immigrants were processed at Castle Garden, also known as Castle Clinton, at the southern tip of Manhattan.

How was their experience at the processing center?