A Short Immigration Story

The Trip to the New World
While we do not have any diaries, journals or first hand information documenting the Franz & Barbara Prokosch trip, I have included an interesting story of another family that made the trip, likely under similar conditions just a few months prior to the Prokosch trip....

Preparing to Leave
At last, we kids shouted, "Hooray, we are going to America!" We had no idea what lay ahead of us on the long journey. In the spring of 1878, we found a buyer who paid us 1600 Thaller for our house and land in Barkhausen, but left us the crop. We began our trip to America in August 1878. The last things we sold were the family dog and cat. The kitty brought 24 Groschen, or 48 cents.

At that point we said, "I sadly cry, 'Old house, good-bye!' In fact, tears flowed freely. The farewell from the church made the family especially heavy-hearted. By the way, we didn't go alone. Two other families from Barkhausen left with us, do we were together with good friends. Our [1878 traveling] family consisted of ten people.

Starting off to Bremerhaven
We began the trip to Bremerhaven with our chests and boxes in a big hay wagon. We were joined by other farm families, including some young guys who were a lot of fun. However, the children had to spend some very uncomfortable days sitting on the chests and in among the baggage, and we wished we were in Bremen where the beautiful ship waited for us. At least that is what they told us kids.

Immigration, The Trip to Port of Bremen

Many emigrants from Germany, Austria and Central Europe headed for the German port of Hamburg. Hamburg became a port of emigration because of its competition with Bremen as a seaport for trade. In the early 1830s, Bremen was doing well in its trade with America, while Hamburg trade was mostly with the West Indies and Latin America. When a ship arriving from America was ready for the return trip, Bremen often did not have enough export goods and the ship had to return to America empty. This made the shipping process very expensive. To combat this problem, Bremen began to lure part of the emigration traffic away from other European ports such as Le Havre, Antwerp, and Rotterdam. Its efforts were successful. Hamburg had a decree which forbid group emigration. Only single families or travelers could emigrate from Hamburg.

The collection of emigrants in Bremen caused some problems for the city. Often emigrants were stranded there without food and had to go through the city begging because they did not have enough money for lodging or passage. Unscrupulous ship's agents enticed them to Bremen with a promise to ship them to America and get them a plot of land. Then they took what money the emigrants had. There were many other underhanded deals as well. This left the city of Bremen responsible for providing financial assistance.


In order to safeguard its emigration business, Bremen passed a decree in 1832 which freed the city from giving financial assistance to emigrants, while making it obligatory for ship owners to certify the seaworthiness of their vessels, to keep passenger lists, and to keep provisions for 90 days on board. This meant that ship's agents had to deliver what they promised.