SAMUEL BLACK & TWO SISTERS - IMMIGRATION - MAY 23, 1905

DOCUMENTS:
black-samuel-arrival-1905-05-23-passenger-manifest.jpg -- see lines 7 through 9
black-samuel-arrival-1905-05-23-special-board-of-inquiry.jpg -- see the top of the right-hand page
black-samuel-arrival-1905-05-23-uk-outward-passengers.jpg -- see lines 3 through 5

NOTES:

• Knowing Samuel's date of arrival (May 23, 1905) and ship (the Westernland, from Liverpool to Philadelphia) made it possible to find Samuel in the passenger manifest from that voyage. (The date of arrival and ship were determined by ordering his 1920 and 1922 naturalization documents from the U.S. government.)
• He is listed as Schmuel Blech, a 16-year-old travelling with two sisters, 12-year-old Etel and 7-year-old Perl. They are going to join their father, Abram Blech, 329 Arch St., Philadelphia. (See this address today in Google Maps. It's about a block from Benjamin Franklin's grave).
• For place of last residence it seems to say something like: "Podolska 10 weeks". We already knew (from Samuel's U.S. draft registration and his Ukraine passport) that Samuel was from Balta (or more likely from Kruti, near Balta), in the province of Podolia. Perhaps this "Podolska" (if that's what it says) refers to the town known as Kamianets-Podilskyi or Kamenetz-Podolsk or Kamenets-Podolski.
• This made us wonder why the three children, who were going to meet their father, were not accompanied by their mother -- might she have passed away? But no! as the fascinating document transcript of the Special Board of Inquiry shows.

• This is from a fascinating collection of records called "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Immigration Records, Special Boards of Inquiry, 1893-1909." These are transcripts of hearings to admit or deny immigrants entry into the United States. Apparently detailed records of such hearings no longer exist for most ports of entry (including New York) but luckly they were preserved for Philadelphia, so we can see what questions Samuel was asked and what answers he gave! For instance, under questioning Samuel (Schmuel) says:
• that his mother has remained in London with his 9-year-old sibling because his sibling is sick;
• that his father has been in Philadelphia for 5 years;
• that he (Schmuel) has a brother in New York who has been there for 2 years;
• that he (Schmuel) was in London for 10 weeks, working as a tailor;
• that at home he had worked as a clerk in a store.
• that he last heard from his father five weeks ago.
• that his father sent money to pay for the passage.
• The Board's decision is "to send to father, and S.S. Co. to take father's receipt for the children."
• One confusing thing is that Leia gave her husband Abram's address as 105 Rivington, New York City in the passenger manifest for the voyage she and her five children were planning to take in March 1905 (but didn't), and for the voyage she and two children were planning to take in June 1905 (but didn't), and in the voyage that she and two children finally did take in July, 1905. Yet when Samuel and two 1905 siblings sailed in May, they gave Abram's address as 329 Arch St., Philadelphia. (Perhaps Abram was in Philadelphia and was planning to move to New York, but when they couldn't come in March, he stayed in Philadelphia for the time being? Perhaps 105 Rivington was where Schmuel's (Samuel's) older brother was living? Or perhaps Abram was living in New York, but Leia for some reason Leia had tickets for Philadelphia, so Abram went back to Philadelphia to meet the family? This is all just conjecture.)

• According to the Ancestry site, this document from "UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960" (a database which "contains passenger lists recording the names of people leaving from UK ports for destinations outside of Europe") is for the following voyage:

  Departure Date: 10 May 1905
  Port of Departure: Liverpool, England
  Destination Port: Philadelphia, USA
  Ship Name: Westernland

  This seems to show that the original plan was for Leia Blech (Samuel's mother) to sail on May 10 with her son Chaim and her daughter Beile. But their names on the list of outward passengers have been crossed out (in red ink) and replaced with the names of Samuel and his two younger sisters, who (as we know from the second and third documents above) sailed on May 10. So perhaps there was a last-minute decision for Samuel, Etel, and Perl to use the tickets instead of Leia, Chaim, and Beile? -- presumably because Beile was sick (as Samuel stated to the Special Board of Inquiry when he arrived in Philadelphia). You can see that the third, fourth, and fifth passengers on the list have had their first names crossed out and replaced in red with other names:
  • The third passenger name on the list is Leia Blech, Wife, age 35; "Leia" has been replaced -- perhaps with "Sch"?
  • The fourth passenger name on the list is Chaim Blech, Servant, age 14; "Chaim" has been replaced -- perhaps with "Etel"?
  • The fifth passenger name on the list is Beile Blech, Child, age 9; "Beile" has been replaced -- perhaps with "Perl"?

• Samuel and his family were probably from Kruti, near Balta, in the province of Podolia, Ukraine.
• To learn more about what the province of Podolia was like at the time, see this entry about Podolia copied from the Jewish Encyclopedia published in 1906.
• The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) has an entry for "KAMENETZ-PODOLSK" (which may be what Samuel indicated as his last place of residence?), which says:

  Russian city; capital of the government of Podolia. In 1900 it contained a population of 34,483, about half being Jews. [...] During the latter half of the nineteenth century many Jews emigrated from that city to the United States, especially to New York, where they organized a number of societies; among these are the Kamenetz Hebra Kaddisha and the Kamenetz-Podolsk and Kamenetz-Podolia Krankenverein.

• See the page about Kruti (where Samuel's Ukrainian passport was probably issued) on the jewishgen website. It says that in 1900 Kruti had a Jewish population of 2,389. It's "19 miles W of Balta, 10 miles SSE of Kodyma, on the border with Moldova."
• See this map of Podolia on the jewishgen website, which shows the historic location of towns and shtetls in the province, including Kamyanets-Podilskyy, Balta, and Krutyye.
• And see this Google Map showing all three places today: Balta, Kruti, and Kamyanets-Podilskyi.