It may have something to do with it being a visible symbol, made more so by the great work done in restoring it and making it an immigration museum, whereas Castle Clinton is a sandstone doughnut in the middle of Battery Park that for the first 50 years after Ellis Island took over was the New York Aquarium (thanks to Robert Moses for shutting that down) and is now the ticket office for the Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty ferries.

Or it may have to do with a large and vocal minority of New Yorkers (Southern Europeans–Italians, mostly and Eastern Europeans–including a lot of Jews) who in fact are descended from Ellis Island immigrants.

All my ancestors arrived at least 40 years before Ellis Island opened up, and most of them arrived in New Orleans, not New York. So, take that Ellis Island.

Jami, I’m with you.

A brief description of the site can be found here.

Some more photographs of Castle Garden and a short history of immigrant processing in New York can be found here.

One of the formal assignments of the elders who were tasked with shepherding emigrant companies by train (once the system was established, at least; maybe not this early) was to see that adequate fresh water was taken aboard each car. What “adequate” means, or what they could do about it if water wasn’t available, I have no idea.

There are historians who study the ocean crossing and others who focus on the plains travel. I don’t know anyone who is making a real study of the rail portion, to memorialize those who didn’t make it all the way. I’ll bet there are descendants of some of those named in this letter who don’t know what happened to their ancestors or where they were buried, and I’m looking forward to hearing from somebody someday who solved a longstanding mystery after Googling this post.

Can you imagine what it would be like for your last sight of a loved one to be wrapped up and lying on a train platform, unburied? The train had to go on, and they had to trust to the goodwill of strangers to see that their mother or brother was buried decently in a graveyard they would probably never visit.

I’m sort of surprised that there aren’t more “complete sets” of personal travel letters.

I am aware of at least two other instances of heatstroke deaths on trains (not counting Holocaust/Gulag-type indirect murder), but I’ve never seen a comprehensive analysis. I wonder how many people overall died from it? I wonder if they had enough drinking water in those un-air-conditioned cars before they sat in the sun all afternoon.

Sunstroke and heat exhaustion are dangerous. I’ve spent 25 years serving mostly in the YM organization, and have been on hundreds of campouts, outings, youth conferences, etc. There have been two close calls, and I have learned the importance of making sure that people have shade, and that they drink lots of water. I imagine those people who died waiting for the train in Albany were just sitting on their luggage on the platform, unsheltered, with little to drink.

On a lighter note, I have a friend whose family converted to the restoration in the 70s in New Jersey and later moved to Utah. He says they knew the gospel was true all along, they were just waiting for the invention of interstate highways and air conditioning before making the trek to Zion.