A quick note following up yesterday’s post about Henry Debosnys and the S.S.Cimbria (that Debosnys claimed to have caught from Le Havre in June 1871).
According to a February 1980 article (in issue #105 of The Chronicle of the US Classic Postal Issues) called The Hamburg American Line – Mail Packets from New York 4 January 1870 to 23 December 1875 – via Plymouth and Cherbourg to Hamburg by Clifford L. Friend and Walter Hubbard, the S.S. Cimbria did not (just as I suspected) call at Le Havre on the crossings arriving at New York on the 21st May 1871 or 2nd July 1871.
Here’s a table containing links to all the information I have for Cimbria arrivals in New York in 1870 and 1871:
- Le Havre -/- New York - 23 Jan 1870 / 04 Feb 1870 - Roll 323, but Cumbria out of Glasgow rather than Cimbria? 05 Mar 1870 / 15 Mar 1870 - Roll 324, pp.253-264 16 Apr 1870 / 26 Apr 1870 - Roll 326, pp.299-315 04 Jun 1870 / 14 Jun 1870 - Roll 330, pp.151-166 ........... / 14 Nov 1870 ........... / 05 Jan 1871 19 Feb 1871 / 01 Mar 1871 - Roll 339, pp.317-323 01 Apr 1871 / 09 Apr 1871 - Passenger list ........... / 21 May 1871 - Roll 343, pp.118-139 ........... / 02 Jul 1871 - Roll 345, pp.141-153 15 Sep 1871 / 25 Sep 1871 - Roll 349, pp.34-49 28 Oct 1871 / 08 Nov 1871 - Passenger list
(Say what you like: people may keep trying to stamp it out, but philately will get you everywhere.)
Hence Debosnys plainly could not have caught the Cimbria at Le Havre in Jun 1871, because the ship didn’t stop there on that Atlantic crossing.
Moreover, even though 1871 saw many people emigrating from France to America, this is not reflected in the passenger lists of the Cimbria, in which I have seen not a single French person in 1871, and but a handful in 1870 (almost all of which were people in their 20s). I cannot help but suspect that the Cimbria did not normally take on passengers at Le Havre. As a result, right now I am deeply skeptical that Debosnys travelled across on the Cimbria in either 1870 or 1871.
Hence I think it far more likely that Debosnys came over on one of the numerous ships from Le Havre during 1871 carrying French emigrants. But trawling through those passenger lists (many of which are quite poor quality in the PDFs of the microfilms) would be quite an epic task, with only a small chance of success.
It might be better to first narrow down the range of years in which he made this journey. Currently, the earliest external record we have of Debosnys in America is from the French Society in Philadelphia in December 1878, where he and his wife Celestine were the recipient of charity until her death in 1882 [Adirondack Enigma, pp.90-91]. Celestine certainly existed, because commenter Misca found this entry on ancestry.com:-
Name: Celestine Debosnys
Birth Date: abt 1839
Death Date: 5 Mar 1882
Death Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age at Death: 43
Gender: Female
Race: White
Cemetery: Alms House
Marital Status: Married
FHL Film Number: 2057163“I checked the Alms House cemetery. She is not listed there but this may be an oversight of some sort. Not sure.”
I guess the next step back in time would be finding the date of their marriage. Hmmm…
Buddy, Nick.
No search Frenchman. Frenchman’s not.
Champallion.
Strangely, there are three death records for Celestine. Two are identical and include the information that I have already posted but, they have different FHL Film Numbers. One is #1003708 and the other is #2057163. The third record is as follows:
Name: Celestine C Bosngs
Birth Date: abt 1839
Death Date: 5 Mar 1882
Death Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age at Death: 43
Gender: Female
FHL Film Number: 974675
So, possibly we have a middle initial or the first letter of her maiden name…
Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate a marriage record for her so far.
Page 226 of Cheri’s book…A poem:
“A little word in kindness spoken,
A motion or a tear,
Has often healed the heart that’s broken,
And made a friend sincere.”
…etc…
Written by Daniel Clement Colesworthy.
Google and ye shall find.
Nick – I posted another pilfer but it was removed by the spam filter. It’s particularly interesting as it relates to his story about his uncle(s). “…a slender figure dressed in white with a blue sash round her waist…” Much of this story was taken word for word from a story called “A Rebel” that was published in Harper’s Magazine 1882 and in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineer’s Monthly Journal.
I’m not sure if this story and the one about the duel were written while he was in jail but, if they were, someone was bringing him reading materials as he couldn’t have memorized them line for line,
Sorry, given the dates that the two stories were published it is most certain that he wrote his versions of them while he was in jail.
Misca: thanks for that! Henry Debosnys the literary thief…
Nick – I have found something interesting. I searched for one of the passengers that fit Henry’s age/description from the July 1871 Cimbria crossing. I don’t necessarily think this is Henry. What is more important is that there are TWO manifests for that crossing. The departing manifest and the arrival. So, here is the first that we found (the arrival):
Name: Ed Kopitzke
Arrival Date: 3 Jul 1871
Birth Date: abt 1836
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/ Nationality: German
Place of Origin: Germany
Port of Departure: Hamburg, Germany and Le Havre, France
Destination: United States of America
Port of Arrival: New York, New York
Ship Name: Cimbria
And here is the departing manifest for the same individual:
Name: Ed. Kopitzke
Departure Date: 21 Jun 1871
Destination: USA
Birth Date: abt 1836
Age: 35
Gender: männlich (Male)
Residence: Neustettin, Pommern (Pomorskie)
Occupation: Arbeiter
Ship Name: Cimbria
Captain: Haack
Shipping Clerk: Aug. Bolten Wm. Miller`s Nachfolger
Shipping line: Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft
Ship Type: Dampfschiff
Accommodation: Zwischendeck
Ship Flag: Deutschland
Port of Departure: Hamburg
Port of Arrival: New York
Volume: 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 025
Note that the “arriving” manifest specifically lists:
Port of Departure: Hamburg, Germany and Le Havre, France
Note also that in both manifests there are some French names and there are also many passengers claiming to be American…Something that Henry may well have been in a position to do if he had already naturalized prior to departing for France.
It’s a shame that we can’t google cipher text images. I will put my money on his copying these (with slight variations) as well.
How is it that no one can/has translated his “greek” version of the code? Not so difficult for someone who can read/write greek? Nothing at all on that???
I understand that cranium is on display at the county museum, and I would think that the museum authorities would not be fussed about donating a tooth (assuming there are any teeth). I have successfully traced a previously anonymous grand-father of a friend using a cheap genealogical DNA test, and the case was complicated by the fact that his father had altered the surname. But it was a relatively simple search that only took about 30 hours of research. I think that a documentary TV producer would be more than happy to fund some DNA testing and the genealogical research.