NJHUNTER-L Archives

Archiver > NJHUNTER > 1998-10 > 0909684156


From: Sandy Read <>
Subject: Castle Garden
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:02:36 -0600


Here you go!

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION THROUGH CASTLE GARDENS AND
ELLIS ISLAND
AND WHERE TO FIND RECORDS
contributed by Shirley Hornbeck


The history of immigration spans American history. This
movement of people
ultimately brought 42 million immigrants into this country.
The government
passed no immigration laws until 1819 and even then they
only covered the
standard for steerage conditions on sailing vessels and made
provisions
that limited immigration records must be kept. Not until
1882 were
immigration regulations made at all uniform. During the peak
years of
immigration, from about 1900 to 1914, as many as 5,000
people a day were
processed through Ellis Island.

But before Ellis Island, Castle Garden, an old fort on the
lower tip of
Manhattan (now Battery Park), was designated in 1855 as an
immigrant
station under state supervision. When the new federal law
was passed in
1882, Castle Garden continued to operate under contract to
the U. S.
Government, but by 1890, it's facilities had long since
proved to be
inadequate for the ever-increasing number of immigrant
arrivals.

After a government survey of potential locations, a 27 acres
parcel of land
called Ellis Island was the site chosen to establish an
entirely new U. S.
immigration station. The history of Ellis Island tells us
that the Dutch
had originally purchased the land from the Indians and
established the
colony of New Amsterdam. It had a succession of owners
before the American
revolution when Samuel Ellis bought and linked his name to
it. New York
purchased Ellis Island in 1808 and in turn sold it to the
federal
government who wanted to build a fort on it. Fort Gibson was
fortified just
before the War of 1812 but it saw little action during the
war. It was used
primarily as a munition depot until it was transformed in
1892 into an
immigration center. Construction began in 1890 and hundreds
of workers
labored at a large three-story reception center, hospital
for the ill and
quarantined immigrants, laundry facility, a boiler-house and
an electric
generating plant. Smaller buildings included a dormitory,
restaurant and
baggage station. Over the years, ballast from ships dumped
near Ellis
Island built it up, and the landfill and completion of sea
walls brought it
to it's present size. When it was completed and dedicated on
Jan 1, 1892,
it was a self-contained city.

Annie Moore from County Cork was the first person processed
at Ellis Island
from the SS NEVADA and she was presented with a ten-dollar
goldpiece. The
ships CITY OF PARIS and the VICTORIA were also processed
that day.
Passenger lists for these and hundreds of other vessels,
which entered New
York and other American ports, have been preserved on
microfilm and are
available for those who wish to trace their ancestor's
passage to America.

The life of the first station at Ellis Island was short. All
the pine-frame
buildings burned to the ground in a disastrous fire on June
15, 1897.
Construction began immediately to replace the structures
with fireproof
buildings of brick, ironwork and limestone trimmings. It
took 2-1/2 years
to complete and the station reopened again in Dec 1900.

Emigration became a topic of conversation in communities all
over Europe.
The United States promised fulfillment of grand dreams,
which could no
longer be kept alive in their native lands. For some it
meant religious or
political freedom; for others, freedom from conscription.
For the majority,
it meant opportunity and the chance to improve their
economic conditions.
However, rumors had circulated about those who were denied
entry because
they looked suspicious or did not promptly answer the
questions of
immigration inspectors. The joy and excitement of reaching
the "promised
land" was mingled with the terrible dread of being rejected.
Most had sold
all their possessions and property, often going into debt to
finance their
journey. Yet, they came by the millions.

Passengers of "means" escaped the rigors of the Ellis Island
ordeal by
being processed aboard the vessel itself, then delivered
directly to
Manhattan. The poorer classes sat sometimes three to four
days in the
crowded harbor waiting their ship's turn to disembark
passengers. Once on
the island, Inspectors who looked for the ill closely
observed them and
infirm, empty stares indicating feebleminded and shortness
of breath of
those who climbed the stairs to the registry hall. The room
looked like a
stockyard with its metal pipe partitions, which were later
exchanged for
benches.

The Registry Hall was frequently referred to as the "Hall of
Tears". It was
filled to the walls with would-be Americans wearing numbered
tags pinned to
their clothes awaiting the battery of legal and medical
examinations and
hoping to be allowed to stay. Some family members might be
accepted and
theirs rejected. The painful decision to stay or return with
a loved one
had to be made on the spot. Some could not face the disgrace
or ruin of
deportation and it is estimated that as many as 3000
immigrants committed
suicide. To enter the U. S. the immigrants knew that one
must be
disease-free and create the impression that they could make
a living.
The first doctors they saw made a quick examination and
noted any
suspicions with a chalk mark on the right shoulder of the
immigrant. People
thus marked were held back for further examinations by a
second group of
doctors. Trachoma, a potentially blinding and highly
contagious eye
disease, was the most common reason for detaining an
immigrant. Most though
got a clean bill of health and only about two percent were
turned back.
Once the doctors had passed an immigrant, they then
proceeded to the
registration clerks where names were always a problem. This
is where names
were twisted as most immigrants could not spell their name
so clerks jotted
down names as they sounded. Some name changes were
deliberate when
immigrants took new names for themselves knowing they had a
better chance
of getting a job. Once they were passed through here, they
went to the
baggage room to claim their belongings. Then they went to
the money
exchange desk where they exchanged their money for American
dollars. Next
to the railroad agent where they purchased a ticket to their
destination.
If they were bound for other than New York, they traveled by
barge to New
Jersey rail stations and from there they entered the
mainstream of America.

At the end of WWI, many Americans were eager to see
immigration restricted.
The Immigration Act of 1917 carried a demand for a literacy
test and
reduced significantly the number of arrivals but only for a
short time. The
number of arrivals in New York soon climbed again and
500,000 immigrants
entered through the Port in 1921. The government then
enacted newer and
more powerful methods of exclusion in 1921 and again in
1924. Soon the
traffic through Ellis Island subsided to a trickle. A final
revision of the
"National origins" quota system went into effect in 1929 and
the maximum
number of all admissions was reduced to 150,000. As a
result, in Nov 1954,
the last immigrant and the last detainee left Ellis Island
and the General
Services Administration (GSA) declared the immigration
center as surplus
property.

Ship arrival records had to be filed with the local Custom
House. It is
estimated that only about 40 percent of those records have
survived and was
turned over to the National Archives. All ship passenger
lists, which have
survived, have been microfilmed. Those microfilm copies for
the Port of New
York between 1846 and 1907 are not indexed. All other ports
are indexed.
Many immigrants before 1891-92 entered through cities such
as Boston,
Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans and cities on the west
coast of the
U.S.A.

Restoration of Ellis Island began in 1982 with the
renovation of the Great
Hall. A genealogy exhibit where visitors will be able to
search for
immigrant information is planned. A computer will retrieve
data on
individuals including the name of the vessel on which they
arrived, port of
origin, arrival date in New York and other relevant details.
It is expected
that the number of tourists visiting the reborn Ellis Island
will be the
same each day as the average number of immigrants who passed
through its
days of operation as a receiving station.

In your search for your immigrant ancestor, look for
Certificates of
Citizenship issued to individuals who had completed all the
requirements of
entry. They were often saved and passed down in families.
This certificate
may show no more than the name of the immigrant, the country
from which he
relinquished citizenship, the date of the event and the name
of the court
where naturalization was finalized. The location of the
court is the key to
finding additional papers, which may provide more detail.
Not all aliens
were naturalized but if they were, the documents in court
records will
provide information necessary to trace your ancestor's
Americanization. You
may find additional information including port of arrival
and name of the
vessel. Naturalization laws were not made uniform until
1906. Prior to this
time, aliens could naturalize in any court but information
varied from
court to court.

The National Archives and its eleven branches are natural
starting places
for obtaining naturalization information. It should be noted
that it was
usually required that an alien be a resident of this country
for at least
five years. The Declaration of Intention or "first papers"
were completed
and filed with a court soon after the immigrant arrived in
this country.
You might find these in port cities. After the five years
stay in America,
the immigrant was required to go to court once more and file
his "final
papers". It was not necessary to do this in the same court
as the "first
papers". Certain groups of people were naturalized without
filing a
Declaration of Intention. Wives and children of naturalized
males generally
became citizens automatically. Those who served in the U. S.
military
forces also became citizens after an honorable discharge.
Military records
then become another source of information.

Passenger Lists are available at the National Archives and
at some of its
branches. They consist of custom passenger lists,
transcripts and abstracts
of customs passenger lists, immigration passenger lists and
indexes to
these lists. The records were created by captains or masters
of vessels,
collectors of customs and immigration officials at the port
of entry. They
document a high percentage of the immigrations between 1815
and 1914 when
most immigrants came to the U.S. Most came through the port
of New York and
Ellis Island and there is an Index to Passenger Lists of
Vessels Arriving
at New York 1897-1902 however there is no index for New York
arrivals for
the period 1847-1896. An alphabetical index of passenger
lists for
1902-1943 has been microfilmed. Unless an exact date of
arrival is known,
it may take many hours of searching the lists of ship
arrivals. For more
specific information on passenger lists, naturalization
records, military
records and other collections, consult the Guide to
Genealogical Research
in the National Archives.

Over a million immigrants came to the colonies before 1820
but few were
recorded on passenger lists. Most of the known lists have
been published
and many have been indexed in Filby's Passenger and
Immigration List Index
and Supplements (11 volumes) but you must know the full
name, approximate
age and date of arrival, also their nationality. To search
the U. S.
Customs Passenger Lists in the National Archives after 1820,
you must know
the full name, age, approximate date of arrival and port of
entry. You may
find in these records the name, age, sex, occupation,
country of origin,
port of departure, destination, date of arrival, name of the
vessel.
Immigration lists or "ship manifests" which began being used
in 1883 give
more detailed information.

The genealogical treasure house of the world, the
Genealogical Department
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
is engaged in
the most active and comprehensive genealogical program known
to the world.
Microfilming is the center of this genealogical operation.
Trained
specialists throughout the word are micro filming documents;
land grants,
deeds, probate, marriage, cemetery, parish registers and
have accumulated
over a millions rolls thus far. They are available in Salt
Lake City and
through branch libraries across the country. Now there is an
extraction
program being worked on by the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints
where the subject is the records of Ellis Island from
1892-1924. The
finished product will become part of Family Search which is
the program
that includes the IGI, Ancestral File etc. held at Family
History Centers.
The LDS extraction statistics for 1997 show Ellis Island had
3,553,067
individual entries. Approximately 28% of the Ellis Island
project have been
completed. The Family History Library has microfilm copies
of county
naturalization before 1930 for many states and it has most
federal court
naturalization records before 1930.

Where records are available, it is quite possible to
reconstruct the
history of an entire family. Finding these records, however,
is only the
beginning of the project.

Check the Index to the Passenger Lists available at your
local Family
History Center and most large genealogical libraries. You
can request a
search of the Passenger Arrival Records by requesting Form
81 from the
National Archives or e-mail your request for the form to:


*************************

This thread: