On October 10, 1891 my grandfather boarded The City of Chicago, a steamer on the German Line. For the first leg of his journey George obtained the special rate of $45 for the voyage to Liverpool England, a distance was 3,040 miles across the Atlantic. The ship was scheduled to arrive in Liverpool on October 31st. This was the first of several ships that he would take to complete his voyage to Bombay, India.
October 28, 1891 – In his first letter to his family, he writes:
“Dear Folks, We have been out 7 days now and expect to reach Queenstown, Greenland on Friday morning…. We hope to reach Liverpool on Saturday morning, Oct. 31st. We have averaged 13 1/4 miles an hour since starting. We are now about 52 degrees N. latitude and 23 degrees W. Longitude. We passed many ships at a distance. The City of New York was one. We have had a very smooth voyage and I have enjoyed it very much.”
The ship made one stop at Queenstown, Iceland, where passengers could leave letters.
Sea Route New York City to Liverpool, England
His daily record of observations.
“The pole star seems very high in the sky. I think it rises 1 degree with each degree of latitude northward.”
Each day at noon George recorded his observations. These observations included the ship’s location, longitude and latitude, as well as the distance traveled during the 24 hours since the last recording.
He shared the following observations: I “saw a school of porpoises also saw phosphorescence in the foam, it looked like stars in the water”.
There were 48 passengers on board, 20 preachers. The City of Chicago was “heavily laden with grain. The meals are very good. The plates are changed six-eight times with different forks and knives.”
” The Captain read the English worship service on Sunday. ”