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Main
Wenzel Page (children)
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Immigrating to
Baltimore
The best theory at present is that George Wenzel arrived in the United
States sometime around July 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. In
addition to the federal law, a Maryland State law of March 22, 1833
(effective from September 1833 until October 1866) required that the
masters of vessels submit lists of passengers who arrived at Baltimore
to the mayor. The law required that these "city lists" report the
age and occupation of passengers and that the lists be sworn to by the
master of the vessel in the presence of the mayor. The passage of
that state law resulted in a dramatic increase in compliance with the
keeping of passenger lists. Between 1820 and 1833, fewer than 100
individuals were recorded on Baltimore passenger lists. Between 1833 and
1852, more than 89,000 individual were recorded.
Unfortunately, the books and online sources that index passenger
arrivals to the United States, such as “Germans to American (Glazier/Filby)”
and “Baltimore 1820-1850, Passenger and Immigration Lists (online)” have
errors and omissions. Our George Wenzel is not mentioned in either
series for any time period. A George Wenzel is listed more than
once, but further research on the these men prove they are not our
George Wenzel. There is hope that the immigration or emigration
record for our George Wenzel can be found, but it may take hours of
research analyzing microfilmed indexes and records. The original
passenger arrival lists are on microfilm at the National Archives.
The departure lists for selected cities such as Hamburg, Germany are
available on microfilm from the Family History Libraries of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Old
Otterbein Church
Old Otterbein Church is significant to the history of the German
community in Baltimore as well as the history of United Methodism.
It is the oldest church in continuous use in Baltimore City. The
sanctuary, erected in 1785-86, was built of ballast bricks discarded by
ships in the nearby harbor. All the nails used in construction
were handmade. The church bells were cast in London by the
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which also cast the Liberty Bell. The
bells were installed in 1789 and have been sounded for nearly every
important event in American history since the end of the Revolutionary
War. When immigrant ships would arrive in Baltimore Harbor, the
church would ring its bells to welcome the new arrivals. Services
at Old Otterbein Church were conducted in German until 1918, at the
start of World War I.
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