Update on the Portland Waterworks

I'll continue with the trip from Premione to Portland, but wanted to interrupt the thread briefly to update/correct my previous post on the Portland Waterworks on the 17th of March. Brian, the Wonder-Archivist at the Portland City Archives, sent me the following note:

Hi Dina,

I was looking at the image on the blog page you sent me of Joseph and his family. You have it labeled as being in front of a reservoir. It is not one of the reservoirs, but appears to be at the headworks where water first enters the pipelines to get to Portland. The railing and the background appear to be more consistent with the headworks, which are up in the Bull Run Reserve. Back then it would have been a nice day trip for a family outing. It's not so easy to do so these days.

Thanks Brian!

Coming to America... The Route

The above maps show the probable route the Parisi and Albertini families took to come to America. The top one shows (in red) the entire journey from Premione to Portland, while the bottom one is a close up of a segment of the trip: from Trento to Le Havre.
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From Premione to Trento

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Premione is very close to Trento, the travel distance 37.1km as per Google maps. They would first have traveled down to Stenico, the main, or at least biggest, village/town in their valley. My cousins Ed and Pam said it is about a 30 minute walk from Premione to Stenico. I assume from Stenico that they took a carriage or some kind of public transportation (horse-drawn). It would have been possible to walk from Stenico to Trento given a couple of days, but with two pregnant women, a small boy and luggage, this would have been impractical.

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Trento to Le Havre, France by train

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In the 1880's, Trento became a major railroad center, with new or improved tracks. I'm not sure which, but it was a significant improvement to cause Trento's rail business to boom. Not only did Northern Italians use Trento as a "jumping off" spot for their immigration, but nearby Austrians, Yugoslavians, Romanians and others did too.

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I've shown my guess as to the probable route above, using the current EuroRail system. I am assuming that they haven't changed the lines very much. I also am assuming they went through Switzerland as that is a more direct route than to cross through the top of Italy to France and then go up to Le Havre (a longer, more convoluted route, but also possible).

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Le Havre, known as "Le Porte Ocean", was the French port for Transatlantic liners. It is about 1300 km from Trento -- about 12 hours driving, and probably 2 days by train back then. All told, if there wasn't a problem or delay, it took them about 3 days to get to Le Havre, plus a few days to wait before the ship sailed.

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Le Havre to New York City by liner (Le Bretagne)

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The liner took 5-7 days to sail from Le Havre to New York. In the previous post, I talked a little about the conditions and their accommodations on shipboard. So far, we have say 5 days to Le Havre, and 7 on the ocean for a total of 12 days.

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By the way, they arrived the year before Ellis Island was opened, so they did not pass through that famous immigration station.

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New York to Portland by train

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The Parisi and Albertini families immigrated during the Golden Age of Railroad, when there were trains going and coming all over the United States and it was the premier way to travel. Even so, the travelling was not easy, nor short.

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Using today's Amtrak, you would travel from New York City to Pittsburgh to Chicago and finally on to Portland, OR. The entire trip would take you 64 hrs and 10 minutes! I am sure our group did go through Chicago as that was a major railway hub at the time, but their stops in between NYC, Chicago and Portland are less exact.

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They probably did not buy first class tickets, with its sleeper beds and Pullman cars. They probably bought had class tickets, both in the US and to Le Havre, which means that they sat in their seats the whole time. There was a dining car they could have bought meals, and walking up and down the aisles was the only moving about one did. If they were lucky, there were empty seats and they could lay down to sleep. Otherwise, they just sat in their seats as the miles ticked by and their destination grew closer. I cannot imagine this was easy on the pregnant women or on Tony, as even the best 6-year-old finds it difficult to sit still.

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I calculate that they were on trains for over 100 hours of their journey! I estimate that the total journey, with no delays, difficulties and getting right off one form of transportation and right on another, was 15 days.

Coming to America... Ship's Passenger List

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Top: Header for La Bretange Passenger List, 26 Jan 1891

Bottom: Detail showing Albertini and Parisi passengers

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Using some of the stories Diane Baldrica told me, and the Albertini name, I was able to locate the Passenger list showing Marina and Antonio Parisi immigration to the United States. I'll detail the passenger list on this blog entry, with the discussion and stoires on the entry after that. I'll also be showing the possible route, the reasons for immigrating and some of the pictures of the ship and of Premione, the village they came from.

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The header states that the manifest, and the entire sailing across the Atlantic, complies with the US Passenger Act of 1882. This Act set conditions for housing passengers, including the height of the deck they could be housed in, the minimum amount of space they must be given, the amount of light and air that had to be on each deck, etc. It greatly helped the immigrants' treatment and accommodations about ship, although it would be still considered crude by our standards today. You can read the Act, transcribed by Borge Solem, on the Norwegian Heritage website: http://www.norwayheritage.com/articles/templates/new.asp?articleid=132&zoneid=21. What is most startling about reading the Act is realizing that many, many ships had had far worse conditions for immigrants that made this Act necessary.

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The Header also states the date of 26 Jan 1891 and that the ship sailed from Havre, France.

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On page 6 of the seven page passenger list are the five people we are most interested in:

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Lines 336 to 340 (respectively)

Constante Albertini, 45, m, journeyman

Annetta Albertini, 24, f, (no occupation listed)

Davide Parisi, 31, m, miner

Mariana Parisi, 34, f, (no occupation listed)

Antonio Parisi, 6y 2m, m, (no occupation listed)

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All are listed as being from Italy with New York as their destination, and for all of them, one additional entry: "Midship Between decks family compartment". This means that they all crammed into a family cabin located between decks in the middle part of the ship. It could also mean literally the middle of the ship, an interior cabin with no port hole. Even now, cruise ship rooms are not spacious unless more monies are paid, and this one held two pregnant women, two men and a small child!

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One other small note: Marina's name is misspelled, an extra "A" being added. Having been Dina all my life, and having most people add an extra "a" when spelling or reading my name and making it into Diana, I can easily see where this happened!