13.  THE CARLS ARRIVE IN AMERICA

Schleswig-Holstein was a land that went back and forth between Denmark and Germany for many decades.  Many wars were fought over this land, so another reason for leaving Germany for America was so that their sons didn't have to participate in any more wars.  Maybe they wanted their sons to go to America as soon as they could to escape the fighting, and they probably had only enough money to send their two eldest children at first.
  

Their oldest daughter Margaret Elisabeth, age 15-1/2, but claiming that she was 18, emigrated to America on the "S.S. Suevia" in May 1882.  The following September George Christian Carl, almost 12, but saying that he was 16 and with an occupation of "smith", made his voyage on the "S.S. Rhein" out of Bremen, Germany.  Margaret and George must have matured really early to look three or four years older than their real age, but were mighty courageous to each sail all alone to a strange country and also travel halfway across that America to the Midwest.  

(On an 1893 Schleswig-Holstein list online was the name of our Great-uncle "George Christian Carl, born in 1869,  accused of not showing for military service and of leaving the country without the required permit.")

It is interesting to note that daughter Margaret Carl immigrated just three weeks after her Uncle John William Albers's family, including her cousin, Nick Albers, whom she would marry in four years.  They first settled in Iowa for a few years.  This John W. Albers and our Great-Grandma Annie Alberts Carl had the same parents listed on their Minnesota death records, Claus Albers and Elizabeth Dorothy Hansen, so they must have been brother and sister.  Was there an attraction between Cousins Nick and Margaret back in Germany?

It's hard to see how a medium-sized, or smaller, man like Jacob Stamm Carl could make a successful living as a blacksmith - there was another blacksmith on the island - but on the ship's manifest, he is listed as a "Taylor".

Perhaps the Carl family would have immigrated earlier than 1889, but the selling of their big house and blacksmith business may have delayed their journey to America.  The remaining Carls finally met the requirements for the trip seven years later than their older children, Margaret and George, as they are listed on the German government list with permission to emigrate.  The ages of the five children are incorrect -- instead of their real ages -17, 15, 13, 9, and 8, their ages were listed in order as 14, 7, 6, 5, and 4.  Obviously, Marie, Magda, Adolf, Bertha, and Emma were not present for that listing! 

The Carl family set out of Hamburg on May 26, 1889, on the "S.S. Wieland", with a stop at Havre, France, and then continued to America.  In a family compartment in steerage, they were passengers numbered 186 through 192, and they had four pieces of luggage among them.  After ten days at sea, they got to see the new Statue of Liberty as they entered New York Harbor on June 8, 1889.  They still had to complete the harrowing processing at Castle Garden, much like the Fusts did seven years earlier.

(To read all the requirements for obtaining permission to leave Germany, what the voyage in steerage was like, as well as the experience at Castle Garden, you may read my blogs numbered 4, 5, and 6 in the Fust stories.)