Can someone please explained this reason why a immigrant was being detained when the ship came into Philadelphia? My great-grandfather was suppose to go to Boston. The ship docked at the Philadelphia port. He decided to get off in Philadelphia instead. But the Immigrant Inspector detained him and another fellow who were both 19 or 20 for the following reason Detained as "being persons likely to become a public charge". Needless to say, the Captain let them escape and the Captain was charged and held for violating the Unite States Immigrant laws at the time. He later had to pay a fine. Be kind to be now, lol Kathy ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.
One reason is that people were not allowed into the country who were destitute, i.e. had no money. That's why ships' logs so often list people carrying $1. Merle -----Original Message----- From: Kathysean@aol.com To: philly-roots@rootsweb.com Sent: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 3:47 PM Subject: [Phly-Rts] Immigrant being detained Can someone please explained this reason why a immigrant was being detained when the ship came into Philadelphia? My great-grandfather was suppose to go to Boston. The ship docked at the Philadelphia port. He decided to get off in Philadelphia instead. But the Immigrant Inspector detained him and another fellow who were both 19 or 20 for the following reason Detained as "being persons likely to become a public charge". Needless to say, the Captain let them escape and the Captain was charged and held for violating the Unite States Immigrant laws at the time. He later had to pay a fine. Be kind to be now, lol Kathy ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. ********* Visit the threaded archives of this list: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/PHILLY-ROOTS ********* ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PHILLY-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.