A fellow passenger on the Kummerlin family's 1750 voyage to America included his dark description of that voyage in a horrific account pf his 4-year stay in America
The Kümmerlin family's 1750 voyage to America was documented by a fellow passenger, Gottlieb Mittelberger, who spent four years in America testing and repairing pipe organs. He told a horrific story of
Theft and depravation onboard the ship
Deceptive descriptions of an American Utopia through which <> would persuade Europeans to sell their homes and posessions cheaply, and to borrow money for the voyage
Desceptive assurances that relatives in America would repay those loans upon the ship's arrival or that immigrants were certain to find well-payings jobs that would allow them to repay those loads easily,
The need for many victims of fraud (including their children) to enter indendentured servitude, and
Fraudulent letters and messages to visitors to American reporting that their relatives in Europe have died, or perhaps have decided to join them in America,
The 129-page English version of Mittelberger's story, translated by Carl Eben and published in 1898, preserves the original title
Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania in the year 1750 and return to Germany in the year 1754
and subtitle
Containing not only a description of the country according to its present condition, but also a detailed account of the sad and unfortunate circumstances of most of the Germans that have emigrated, or are emigrating to that country
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