Life Was Rugged a Century Ago:
Experiences of an English Immigrant
By CARROL H. QUENZEL*
George H. Cadman was in his
thirty-fourth year when he left
Euston Street Station in his native
London on the first lap of the
trek to America. Rather than wait nine
whole days at Liverpool
for the delayed departure of the Cambria,
the ship on which he had
booked passage, he paid an extra fee to
be rowed seven miles to the
Benjamin Adams and was outward bound in considerably less than
twenty-four hours after his arrival.1
He paid for his impatience--he
subsequently categorized all Liver-
pool packets as "floating
hells."2 His fellow passengers included ap-
proximately a hundred Germans of the
British Foreign Legion, two
hundred Irish, forty Jews, and twenty
English; he was the only
Englishman in his section of the ship.
It was not long before "hell
broke loose." "Christmas
eve," as Cadman phrased it, "we began
our pantomime by one Paddy running his
knife into another fellow's
throat," and being put in irons.
The following day some of the
sailors got drunk and became involved in
a row with the Germans.
The Irish attempted to act as mediators,
but they joined the fray
when their efforts to make peace failed.
Resounding blows were
struck, knives were wielded, and order
was restored with great
difficulty.
The Benjamin Adams speedily
encountered foul weather and
spent two days "tacking about"
in sight of Holyhead, on the Welsh
* Carrol H. Quenzel is librarian and
professor of history at Mary Washington
College of the University of Virginia at
Fredericksburg, Virginia.
1 George H. Cadman to Esther C. Cadman,
his wife, February 22, 1857. This
article is drawn from longhand copies of
seven letters owned by Esther Cadman
Maglathlin of Tangerine, Florida. The
originals have been lost. All are addressed to
his wife.
2 Letter of September 8, 1857.
298
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
coast. For a fortnight it continued to
toss in the Irish Channel be-
fore it sailed "fairly out to
sea," and even then the storm raged
almost uninterruptedly. A gale subjected
the vessel to such a great
strain that in the steerage water was up
to the lower tier of berths
during most of the passage.
Early in the voyage a fever confined
Cadman to his berth for four
days, and when he finally went on deck
he was greeted by the
"awful" sight of the Welsh
mountains on the left, Ireland on the
right, and the ship "knocking
about, first to one coast and then to
the other." Giddy, when the vessel
gave a roll and the deck de-
scribed an angle of forty-five degrees,
he went down. Fortunately,
he was saved from drowning by a sailor
who caught him as he was
about to fall through a hole where some
of the bulwarks had been
washed away.
When I picked myself up [he wrote his
wife]I had blacked both my eyes,
broke my nose, but that I don't mind for
I think it has improved my appear-
ance, it don't look so much like a pug,
and knocked my mouth under my left
ear. I had seen quite enough of the sea,
and sneaked down like a dog that
had had a good kick.
The sanitary facilities on board the
ship apparently were woefully
inadequate. If Cadman's account can be
believed, an Irishwoman
borrowed the saucepan in which he cooked
his meals and washed
her face and hands in a solution of
dirty water and urine.
To celebrate his wedding anniversary
Cadman prepared soup by
pooling some peas with meal supplied by
the non-fastidious Irish-
woman, only to have it stolen from the
galley fire while he watched
some Irishmen drinking and fighting. The
steward stopped supplying
meat after the ship had been at sea four
weeks; eliminated potatoes
after five weeks; placed the passengers
on half-rations at the end of
six weeks; and finally reduced each
passenger's weekly allowance to
seven biscuits, two ounces of sugar and
approximately a half pint
each of peas, flour, oatmeal, and rice.
They were literally starving
and looked it, he wrote.
The progress of the ship was
tantalizingly and dishearteningly
slow, but at last, on January 29, land
was sighted. The next day
everyone on the Benjamin Adams boarded
a steamer and went
LIFE WAS RUGGED A CENTURY AGO 299
ashore, just as the "cursed old
ship" was dragged from her
moorings by the ice.3
Many months later, when Cadman was
writing his wife about
preparations for her coming to America,
he advised her that her
ocean passage and that of a son and an
infant child would cost seven
pounds. In addition, she would spend
approximately another six
pounds traveling by train from New York
City to Cincinnati, via
Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, and
Columbus. At the immigrant re-
ception center at Castle Garden, Mrs.
Cadman and the other im-
migrants might buy what they needed at
cost, because it was a
government facility designed for the
protection of new arrivals. He
urged her to travel light, reserving her
luggage exclusively for
clothes, bed clothes, and such small
articles as spoons, knives, forks,
and glasses.4 Shortly after
reaching Hamilton County, Ohio, he
wrote that he was able to save nine
shillings a week, which should
enable him to bring his family in about
a year, but business condi-
tions in the panic year of 1857 upset
this timetable.5
Cadman liked Hamilton County, but he
found it difficult to ac-
custom himself to the more emotional
manifestations of religion
he saw there. Characterizing a Methodist
camp meeting early in
September 1857 as "the meanest
humbug I ever saw," he told his
wife to "fancy six thousand people
come from all distances within
20 miles to worship God, stuff their
guts, show their fine clothes,
smoke their cigars, steal horses, and
stop in the woods to pray, and
you will have a faint idea of a camp
meeting." He agreed with the
elder of a more staid church who
contended that they made more
bodies at camp meetings than they saved
souls.6
Later that month he attended another
camp meeting with a con-
gregation of practically the same size
and heard the people "shout-
ing, singing, praying, smoking, drinking
and chewing like old
boots." He quoted a typical western
parson as petitioning for the end
of a two-year drought by praying,
"Oh Lord, hear thy servant and
3 The long account of the voyage is in
his letter of February 22, 1857.
4 Letter of September 8, 1857.
5 Letters of February 22, July 12,
September 8, September 29, 1857.
6 Letter of September 9, 1857.
300
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
send us copious showers so that we may
have dam great ears as
long as my arm, and not such little
things as we had last year."7
On the other hand, the women of the
West seemed to appeal to
Cadman.
About 4 weeks ago [he wrote] I went into
Kentucky and saw such a
beautiful critter. I could not help
making love to her just to keep my hand in.
We had a nice walk in the afternoon
through the woods, and made swings
of the wild grape vines. She's a stunner,
that's a fact. Just 17 years old, she
can ride, swim, climb, gnaw a tree
through with her teeth, ride horseback
on a bull, kill a pig, milk a cow, and
do everything . . . . The gals here
are some, I tell you.8
The violence of the storms and the size
of the insects he found
awe-inspiring. He described a June
storm as beginning Tuesday
afternoon and thundering and lightening
until Saturday evening,
"when it wound up with a
tremendous hail storm. Stones fell as
large as fowls eggs, two or three
people were killed and houses
and churches swept away by the wind.
Great trees in the woods op-
posite us were torn up by the roots, a
frame building we were
putting up was blown down,
nearly."9 When it rained, he said,
"it pours or rather falls down in
a lump."10 As to the insects, he
reported capturing a swallow-tail
butterfly measuring five and a half
inches from tip to tip, and swatting
myriads of mosquitoes.11
Farm work that often caused his legs to
ache with fatigue or
his hand to be painfully cramped by an
overdose of hoeing fazed
him not at all.12 He was
undaunted by an elderberry-picking expedi-
tion on which he scrambled through
brush twelve feet high, had
snakes glide between his feet, and had
the skin knocked off his
shins so thoroughly that not enough
remained to cover a dollar.13
Nor was he unduly upset by one day's
schedule which required him
to rise at 12:30 A.M., curry his
horses, feed them and himself, drive
six miles for a load of hogs, take them
ten miles to Cincinnati,
7 Letter of September 29, 1857.
8 Letter of July 7, 1857.
9 Ibid.
10 Letter of February 22, 1857.
11 Letter of July 7, 1857.
12 Letters of February 22, July 12, 1857.
13 Letter of September 29, 1857.
LIFE WAS RUGGED A CENTURY AGO 301
drive the seven miles home, and bring in
a load of fodder before
quitting about 4 P.M.14
Yet he never doubted the wisdom of
moving to the United States.
He found provisions cheaper than in
England, labor much better
paid, and the environs of Cincinnati
"a right nice place for any-
body that don't want to fix up too much
in the English fashion."
He was confident that he could save more
as a gardener-ostler in
America even during a panic than he
could earn in England.15 And
the life agreed with him. Less than six
months after arriving in
America he could describe himself as
being as "hearty as a Fox-
hunter, strong as a Bullock and as brown
as the devil."16
In persuading his wife to hasten to
America, Cadman assured
her that women were treated much better
here than in England, and
that few American women worked in the
fields.17 He was con-
fident that his wife would like Ohio as
soon as she became ac-
customed to the place and the people. He
relayed an invitation to
her from a kindly neighbor who wanted
the Englishwoman to come
and bring the children to see her as
soon as she arrived.18 Earlier
he had painted a glowing picture of the
openhanded hospitality she
would find.
If you are out and see any fruit that
you might fancy [he wrote] you
don't go buy it, you just open the gate
and take it. If you know the owner,
you wish him good day. If he is a
stranger you tell him he has good apples
or peaches as the case may be . . . . It
is a free country and you go your
way rejoicing.19
Cadman went his way rejoicing for only a
few years longer.
After two years' service with the
Thirty-Ninth Ohio Volunteer In-
fantry he gave his life for his adopted
country during the Atlanta
campaign of 1864.20
14 Letter of January 24, 1858.
15 Letter of July 7, 1857.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Letter of September 8, 1857.
19 Letter of July 7, 1857.
20 See the author's "A Billy Yank's Impressions of the South," Tennessee
Historical
Quarterly, XII (1953), 99-105; and "Johnny Bull--Billy
Yank," Tennessee Historical
Quarterly, XIV (1955), 120-141.