The ship, Queen Elizabeth, operated by or for the major shipping firm of Hope, left Rotterdam, Holland, on June 22, 1738,  and headed for the English port of Deal, England, for the customs clearance required by the Navigation Acts. The ship's captain was Alexander Hope. The ship apparently spent three to five weeks at sea due to a violent storm before reaching Deal, a trip that could take as little as eight days and in some cases two. From Deal, the trip to Philadelphia was generally about eight to twelve weeks.

In this year of 1738, it was said that of more than 15 ships to have arrived in Philadelphia, about 2,000 people died enroute of illness.  Henry was very lucky to have made it to America alive.  But if he didn't arrive healthy, he would have had to have remained on the ship, and the ship would have had to anchor a mile down from the city on the Delaware River, quarantined.  But did he have any money left over after the long trip down the Rhine and through the many ports of inspection before reaching Rotterdam?   If he didn't, he would have had to sign a contract with the captain of the Queen Elizabeth to pay his fare within a certain amount of time after arrival.   If, when he arrived in Philadelphia he had no funds to pay the fare (either by his own money or money from a relative already in America), he would have had to wait until his debt was paid by a local merchant--he would then be an indentured servant for three to six years or more.

It is a family story passed down from generations past that Henry worked for a family in Germantown as an indentured servant.  

Click here to see the Queen Elizabeth's passenger list thanks to the GenHome web site--an interesting site with other interesting and useful information.  Click here to see a copy of Johann Henrich's signature.    For a couple of drawings of ships of the time period, click here.   And, click here for further information about leaving the Palatine in 1738.  A portion of Gottlieb Mittelberger's diary of his 1750 and 1754 voyages to America and back to Germany again.

If you find you are descended from one of the Silvius immigrants, the SilviusWave e-mail list, SILVIUS-L, is available. 

To subscribe, send an e-mail to: 

[email protected], with the word subscribe in the body of the e-mail. 

After subscribing, to send a query, address the e-mail message to [email protected] 

Click here to search the Archives of the SILVIUS-L  Type in our list name and next choose the search query and the year to search.  Click here if you would like to browse the archives.  It goes back to 1999!!