The bark OLOF is identified as arriving in the Port New York City five times between 1844-47 carrying passengers requiring the submission of a Passenger List.

Source: www:cimorelli.com search on “Almgren”and “OLOF”.  This is an on-line search index of passenger lists with citation to National Archive passenger list micro-films based on the Allan-Morton Directory.  Michael Roanhouse reviewed September 13, 1844 and June 4, 1845 OLOF ship lists in National Archive.

Commercial Voyages: Based upon the limited Lloyds Registry information, after 1848 most OLOF routes involved London and the Mediterranean ports.

Source:  Lloyds Registry, information supplied by Gilbert Probst for 1846 through TheShipsList.  Lloyds Registry 1845-62 reviewed and copied by Michael Roanhouse at Library of Congress (see summary table at Exhibit 1).

InvarHendicson

It is really misleading to say that the “Olof” was in the emigrant trade. It was rather a story of coincidences. When Almgren arrived in Antwerp he probably first checked if there were any messages for him from Gefle or elsewhere. Perhaps he even contemplated the alternative to sail without any paying load to Cardiff or Grimsby to get a coal freight to Sweden or some other place. Sailing ships in these days were “tramps”, they were looking for cargo that would be profitable.

Probably Almgren heard about the German emigrants through some of  the shipping agents in Antwerp and found it a good enough cargo. Some kind of small “rooms” with no roof were probably hastily built by the carpenter on the “Olof”, Wetsregren, and some sort of agreement, charter-party, must have been written and undersigned by the captain and the passengers but I have never seen such a paper concerning emigrants.  I know of no other Swedish ships that picked up passengers in Antwerp. But certainly there must have been some.

The Swedish painter Johan Christian Berger (1803 – 1871) was a lover of ships and in Le Havre he painted a water colour “German emigrants in Havre”. See enclosed picture. Germany in those days was really a rural country. Look at the wagon! If you are interested I could try to find a better picture of this water colour.

In my book “Tur och retur Amerika” I’m telling the story of a skipper here in Gefle, Johan Back on the ship “Wilhelmina”, who in 1846 took ca 120 emigrants from Gefle to New York. The contract said that the price for 200 passengers was 6.666 riksdaler that should be paid in advance. If fewer than 160 passengers turned up the price should be reduced to 6.500 riksdaler. This fare did not include any food, only fresh water. If the ship was wrecked before it reached Helsingör, north of Copenhagen, the passengers should get back half of what they had paid. The passengers had to promise that if the American government wouldn’t let them settle in America they would return to Sweden on the “Wilhelmina” and pay in advance in New York for the journey back a sum corresponding to what the skipper would get for a paying load. This skipper really had covered his ass.

As you have found a new master A Medin took over from Wesström during 1847 and arrived in New York on June 28. This skipper, Anders Medin, was an old salt, born at Gefle in 1790. He got his first command in 1824, the little two-master “Alfred” with a crew of 5 hands, all told. He had 1841 – 1844 been the master of Daniel Elfbrink’s second largest ship, “Thore Petré”, built in 1841, also by Lars Bång at Norra varvet. Anders Medin got a long life, he died on April 14 in 1876.