SAMUEL GASS, BusinessMAN
 A TRUE TALE OF RAGS TO RICHES

young Sam Gass?

The young man in this photograph is probably Samuel Gass.

 According to family tradition, Shloime Goos, the oldest child of Pesach and Chana Goos, left his home in the Ukrainian town of Turiysk in 1898 and immigrated to America. A mere 15 years of age, Shloime arrived at the Port of Boston, alone and destitute. He could not even afford the two-cent fare from the port to East Boston, so he walked. He soon settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and Americanized his name, calling himself Samuel (Sam) Gass.

The passenger list for the ship that Shloime sailed on reveals a different story.[1] It shows that Shloime sailed from Hamburg Germany, aboard the S.S. Batavia on May 25, 1903, and landed 14 days later on Ellis Island in New York Harbor.”[2] [3] According to the ship’s manifest, Shloime was 22 years old at the time of his arrival. (It is not clear that this was his true age as the year of his birth was never firmly established and Sam Gass gave different birth years on different documents.)

Ship manifest showing Sam listed as Leb [sic] Guss.
Turiysk railroad station

When Samuel Gass left his home in Ukraine, did he depart from this railroad station in Turiysk or did he walk? (Many emigrants were too poor to afford train fare so they walked to the nearest seaport, often traversing hundreds of miles.)

 

Hamburg’s port Hamburg’s port

These colorized photographs were created between 1890 and 1900 and show the docks and warehouses in Hamburg, Germany, as Samuel Gass probably saw them.

Credit: Detroit Publishing Company; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca, no. 00426 and LC-DIG-ppmsca, no. 0427]

 

engraving

Wood engraving of German emigrants in Hamburg boarding a steamer bound for New York, 1874. The conditions were not much different when Samuel Gass sailed from the same port 29 years later.

Credit: Illustration in Harper’s Weekly, 7 Nov 1874; pp. 916-917. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number: LC-USZ62-100310].
Hamburg Harbor

When Samuel Gass sailed out of Hamburg’s harbor in 1903, he probably saw masted ships similar to these.

Credit: Detroit Publishing Company; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca, no. 00420]. Created between 1890 and 1900.

     
[1][2][3][4][5][6]

[1]Leb [sic] Guss, passenger arrival manifest (arrived 8 June 1903), SS. Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, NY, 1897-1957, vol. 636, p. 123, line 8, NARA microfilm T715, reel 365 [at National Archives]. It is not clear why Shloime’s first name is listed as Leb, but the embarkation manifest for the SS Batavia from Hamburg gives the correct name.

[2] SS Batavia, embarkation manifest (embarking 25 May 1903), Hamburg, Germany Direct Emigration Passenger Lists, bd 144, list #1427, FHL microfilm #0472971 [at LDS Weston].

[3] Samuel may have left his home in Russia in 1898, but needed five or more years to make his way to Hamburg and raise the money to pay his passage to the United States.