Hopkin Thomas, together with his wife, Catherine, and three children set sail for America in 1834. The ship, the brigantine Egeria, left Newport, Wales with 20 passengers and arrived in Philadelphia on August 15, 1834. Being a small ship, it is likely that the voyage took more than a month. For example, the biography of Daniel Milson, a colleague and possibly a relative of HopkinÕs, is reported to have endured a long and dangerous journey of more than three months when he sailed from Wales to New York in 1851.
On the other hand, David Thomas sailed by clipper ship in 1839 and the voyage took a mere three weeks. Thomas was reported to have been exhausted by the venture, however.
A brigantine is a two-masted sailing ship with square
rigging. It was designed for ship-worthiness, not for speed.
Looking at the ship passenger list, below, you will see that Helen was a babe at the time of the voyage – actually about 14 months old. So what do you suppose was CatherineÔs reaction when Hopkin suggested that they sell everything in Merthyr Tydfil and take the children to America? With his credentials it is sure that he had a comfortable life in Merthyr – a burgeoning industrial town in Wales. Yes, there had been labor unrest, but would that be a cause to uproot oneÕs family and subject his wife and small children to the rigors of a trans-Atlantic voyage?
What was the attraction to America? This writer certainly does not believe it was a case of the survival of down-trodden searching for opportunity for themselves and their children. Hopkin was a man of talent and superior training. He was skilled in the engineering of steam engines – a background that many industrial firms of the day would have valued highly. Was it the case that he was informed about the emergence of locomotive design and erection firms in America -- in the Philadelphia and New York areas? It would be interesting to delve into the information sources that people of that day had relative to developments in Europe and America. For example, was the Journal of the Franklin Institute available in England and Wales? The Journal started publication in the 1820Õs and did have many articles on subjects intriguing to Hopkin.
One can only speculate on these matters. Until some genealogist tracks down information on the Hopkin Thomas family of Merthyr Tydfil, 1834, the likelihood of any leads developing is miniscule.
Passenger
List for the Brig Egeria
Source: Passenger and Immigration Lists:
Philadelphia, 1800 – 1850, Broderbund Software, 2000.
Arrived
Philadelphia August 15, 1834, Departed Newport, Wales
Name Age Occupation
Davis,
Elizabeth 5
Davis,
Elizabeth 28
Davis,
Ferdinand 0
Davis,
Jno. 31
Turner
Davis,
Mary 7
Davis,
Sophia 2
Hopkins,
Anthony 40
Hopkins,
Emp? 40
Hopkins,
M? 19
Hopkins,
Sarah 16
Howell,
Elizabeth 12
Howell,
Sarah 16
Hump,
James 28
Humphreys,
Evan 32
Lloyd,
Thomas 24
Smith
Thomas,
Catharine 31
Thomas,
Ellen 0
Thomas,
Hopkin 40
Engineer
Thomas,
Mary 3
Thomas,
William 5
Notes: The
name James Hump is likely Jane Humphrey (gender was given as F)
Ellen
Thomas is Helen Thomas
The
name of the sailing ship is Egeria, a brigantine.
This
is the only sailing to Philadelphia found in the data base.
Original
source: Nat'l Archives Series No.
425, Microfilm 49, List 139
Searched
source: Family Tree Maker CD #359,
Passenger and Immigration Lists: Philadelphia 1800 - 1850
Source information:
Passenger
Lists: Philadelphia, 1800-1850
Partly in an
effort to alleviate overcrowding of passenger ships, Congress
enacted legislation (3 Stat. 489) on March 2, 1819 to regulate the
transport of passengers in ships arriving from foreign ports. As a provision of this act, masters of
such ships were required to
submit a list of all passengers to the collector of customs in
the district in which the ship arrived.
The
legislation also provided that the collector of customs submit quarterly
passenger list reports to the Secretary of State, who was, in turn,
required to submit the information to Congress. The information
was then published in the form of Congressional documents. A
further Congressional act passed on May 7, 1874 repealed the
legislative provision requiring collectors to send copies of passenger
lists to the Secretary of State. Thereafter, collectors
of customs were to send only statistical reports on passenger
arrivals to the Department of Treasury.
These
passenger lists are important primary sources of arrival data for the vast
majority of immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth
century. With the single exception of federal census records they
are the largest, the most continuous, and the most uniform body
of records of the entire country.(Michael Tepper. "American
Passenger Arrival Records." Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing
Company, Inc. 1993. Page 64.)
The
information collected in this Family Archive was extracted from the National
Archives Microfilm Series M425, "Passenger Lists of Vessels
Arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1800-1882." This microfilm
series consists of baggage lists from 1800 through 1819 and original
passenger lists from 1820 through 1882. Some later baggage
lists and copies of original lists have been inserted as substitutes
for missing or unreadable originals. While the entire microfilm
series spans 108 rolls, the information collected here covers rolls
1 through 71. It includes individuals who arrived between
January 1, 1800 and December 23, 1850.
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About The Hopkin Thomas
Project
Rev. January
2011