This week's prompt was "Transportation." I decided to write on the different means of transportation my ancestors used to get to Michigan.
The first means of transportation used to get to Michigan is good old walking by foot. When Great Grandma Mildred Strand sat down and asked her grandfather, David Bellinger how he came to Michigan, he replied his father Oliver Bellinger was given a piece of land near Grand Rapids by the government. Oliver walked from near Cleveland, Ohio to Grand Rapids to claim it. The land proved to be too swampy to farm so he traded it to a man for an overcoat and moved further south. He found land near the Kalamazoo River and that's where he settled.
Walking is certainly one means, but it takes a long time. Another means of transportation to get to Michigan was horse and wagon. In a biographical sketch done on my great, great grandfather Orville Ashley,(grandfather to Lois Ashley Thompson) it states that he came to Michigan with his parents when he was 10 years old from New York. His parents, Joseph and Mary Ashley had a 2 horse wagon team. They came from New York via Ohio where they rested for 6 weeks, and bought a cow. Then, they and the cow continued on to Michigan where they settled in Allegan County.
Of course, before you can walk or ride to Michigan you have to get to America. The only way to get to America before jet airplanes was boat. Karl and Wilhelmina Strandt, (grandparents to Carl Strandt,) and their 3 children boarded the Hansa ship in Hamburg and sailed to Hull, England. They were in Steerage. Something I found out recently, but makes sense, is that immigrants on board ship had to bring their own supply of food with them on their journey to America. They didn't have All You Can Eat Buffets on the ship. Immigrants would bring their own food and be allowed to fix it and eat it every day. So, they not only had to pack their clothes and belongings, but they also had to pack food and supplies to get them to America.
Of course in later years I'm sure some ancestors came to Michigan via railway and automobile. I just haven't found any written records of that. When I read about ancestors walking to Michigan, or how long and arduous the journey by ship was across the Atlantic, I'm amazed we're here at all! Travel, no matter how frustrating today, is definitely easier than it was in the 19th century.
I remember mom telling me that the A&P store in Allegan used to be a livery stable for horses. A lot of farmers took horse and buggy into town. A&P was a grocery store and I don't know if they still have them or not
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