A Passage to America

Hyman Wallach – arrives December 10, 1906

 

Family lore states that Hyman left Khotin to escape service in the Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War.  One story relates that he was drafted (forcibly dragged from the family home) and pressed into service in the Russian Army. After an incident where he beats a senior officer (identified as a Cossack) found harassing a peasant woman, he deserts and flees for his life. He is said to have bribed the guards at the border crossing and escaped through Germany. He was 19 years old.

Photo of Jewish Soldiers in the Russian Army in 1905, observing a Passover Seder. Hyman wore this uniform.

 

The Russo-Japanese war ended with a peace treaty concluded in September 1905. Sometimeover that next year Hyman makes his way to England. On November 25, 1906 Hyman Wallach boards the American Line Steamship Merion in Liverpool, England.

The Merion in pictures and postcards

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A 1906 American Line Passenger List, and an American Line Brochure

First page inside the brochure
(image is linked to pdf of the entire brochure - warning LARGE file 6.4 mbyte)

On December 10, 1906, after 15 days at sea, he disembarks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the scene that greeted Hyman when he first stepped on American soil in the City of Brotherly Love:

“Almost all immigrants made their first contact with America at the piers and immigrant stations and according to all accounts, for most who came through Philadelphia that was their only contact with the city, for relatives or employers quickly took them elsewhere.  From the 1870's through the early 1920's the waterfront was a bustling place, especially around the Washington Avenue wharves where the American and Red Star Lines docked.  This was an area of warehouses, factories, sugar refineries, freight depots, and grain elevators, all connected to the vast yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  The railroad owned the wharves, and because it effectively controlled the immigrant traffic, in the 1870's it had constructed a two-story facility for receiving immigrants.  Having already had their medical examinations downriver, at Washington Avenue the immigrants passed through customs inspections and then went downstairs to a ticket office and reception area from when they could board trains and leave the city…

Passengers now disembarked directly into the building's second story for what may have been their third medical examination and questioning.  The first floor had a ticket office, money exchange, women's dressing room, waiting room, and travel information bureau.  As up to eight inspectors greeted each ship, it was estimated that 300 English-speaking or 150 non-English-speaking passengers could be processed each hour.

The station naturally became one of the most colorful places in Philadelphia.  Inside, for example, was a part of the examination room called the ``Altar."  Since under some conditions single women were prevented from landing, many hurried unions were celebrated on the spot.  Outside, there was usually a crowd of entrepreneurs eager to charge the newcomers exorbitant rates for a variety of needed and unneeded services.” - PHILADELPHIA: IMMIGRANT CITY Fredric M. Miller

The Merion had a capacity of over 1,700 passengers. There are inspectors, there are more inspectors, and there are forms to be filled out. The lines to process the new arrivals were long. If the Merion was near capacity, it would have taken from 6 to 8 hours to process everyone on the ship. As he did for the thousands of Eastern Europeans that filed before him every day, the immigration agent that greeted Hyman to America undoubtedly just wrote phonetically the name as he heard it: Chaim Holoch

 

Hyman’s entry on the Merion’s Manifest for the December crossing from Liverpool

 

Possibly he stays with his brother Ben while in Philadelphia. Possibly he gets directly on a train for New York. But soon after arriving he travels to New York, seeks out a Temple with a Bessarabian immigrant congregation, and ultimately makes his way to Chicago.