Samuel’s Diary

A Move to America in 1868 S. M. Hill was an intelligent and observant young man. Having arrived in America, he understood that education was the key for any Swedish immigrant who wanted to move beyond a life of drudgery and servitude. After obtaining a degree from Augustana College, Hill became a life-long educator in two Midwestern Swedish colleges.

Part 9 Diary Kept on the Journey to America in 1868 by Samuel Magnus Hill

Introduction and translation by Lars Nordström

[Monday] June 2nd

The train ran all night again, which was rather annoying because the cars rattled so much that we could not sleep well. I had crawled under a bench and was positioned in such a way that some people kept stepping on me. The train stopped at 10 [AM], and we had to leave the cars and wait until 7 in the evening. We saw the waterfall from such a distance, that it did not look like much more than when a good size creek falls into a ditch.1

[Tuesday] June 3rd

At one train station we passed across a river, probably Detroit, and our baggage checks were replaced and we arrived in Chicago at 10 o’clock at night. [In Chicago] we had to walk from the train station to Westin Street, approximately one English mile, where the lodging cost 25 [cents per] person. Then we had to walk back to the same station and stay there the whole day. Around noon time Pastor Carlsson had gathered up most of the emigrants in some kind of loft, almost like a hayloft in a stable, and gave a sermon to us there. There was an old man with long hair at the station whose job it was to look after the emigrants. His name was Brown, and he helped us get some food for August. I went out into the surrounding streets to see if I could find any bread pieces in the trashcans. We had moldy bread, and some syrup that we had purchased. These were our [only] provisions. As I walked down one street, I found a fairly large piece of bread with butter on it, right in front of me on the street. I picked it up, wiped it clean, and ate it. Soon I saw another and picked it up too, but as I did I heard laughter from a window above. Some kids were having fun at my expense: They had thrown out those bread pieces to watch me pick them up. And then I noticed that there was spit on the one I had in my hand. Naturally I threw it away, and at the same time I experienced a feeling that I had never had before – that wild beasts existed in human form, who took pleasure in other people’s suffering. I had never observed this earlier, so the lesson was hard-earned and costly.

1Hill must be referring to Niagara Falls here, outside Buffalo, and if the following entry is correct, the train must have passed through Southern Ontario in Canada to get to Detroit, Michigan.