Percy Hemingway, age 8
Percy Hemingway was a little boy with a big tag and minimal luggage when he made the journey from England to America by himself at the advanced age of eight. Fellow passengers on the S.S.Teutonic said he showed no fear and required little assistance.
Ellis Island was under construction, so when he arrived in New York on November 6, 1890, he was processed at the Barge Office. The tag attached to his coat explained that he was to be forwarded to his father in Philadelphia, so that may be how he came to meet E.W. Austin, the money changer whose station was near the booth for railroad tickets.
Percy’s departure and arrival (Ancestry)
Austin was intrigued by this pint-sized, solo voyager and asked to take his photo. Luckily for Percy’s future descendants, he agreed. When he did, he became part of Austin’s collection of immigrant photos taken between 1890 and 1892, predating by a generous margin the better known photographs of Augustus Sherman (roughly 1904 to 1924) and Lewis Hine (1905–1909 and 1926).
It’s also thanks to his photo that I was able to identify E.W. Austin as the man behind the camera. Since the picture was included in an album owned by John B. Weber, the Commissioner of Immigration who oversaw the opening of Ellis Island, I had long thought that Weber was the likely photographer. But an 1891 Harper’s Weekly article included a sketch that I instantly recognized as Percy, as well as other drawings from the collection (now housed at the NPS library at Ellis Island), and the helpful explanation that these illustrations by Thure de Thulstrup were based on photos taken by E.W. Austin.
“from England without escort” (Harper’s Weekly, 24 October 1891)
Percy, whose full name was Harold Percy Hemingway, was born on July 6, 1882 in Horbury, England to Levi and Ann (Shaw) Hemingway. He was the middle of three brothers, sandwiched between Wilfred and Herbert, but Herbert died in 1886 and was soon followed by the boys’ mother in 1887. It wasn’t long before Levi, a tailor by profession, decided to take his chances in America with his remaining two sons.
What’s puzzling, though, is how they made the trip. Many families traveled one or two at a time so the first to arrive could earn enough to money to pay for the rest to follow, but in this instance, there were only three in the whole family and two of them were children. Even so, they didn’t journey together because Levi made the curious decision to take his 11-year-old son with him and leave his 8-year-old behind to cross the Atlantic on his own almost two months later. But Levi clearly knew his cool-headed younger son who made his way to Philadelphia with no issues.
Departure of Levi and Wilfred Hemingway (Ancestry)
After a brief stay in Philadelphia, the trio moved about 85 miles northwest to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where among other things, they were known for their singing talents. It was here that Percy would embark upon his communications career, learning telegraph skills that would land him a job back in Philadelphia and then another in New York.
He worked in the brokerage industry, and as it happens, so did my grandmother before she married. Thanks to her, I know that telegraph operators were highly valued because the best ones could shave critical seconds off trades, giving their companies a competitive edge.
Percy, it seems, worked well under pressure, which makes it somewhat surprising that he dillydallied about getting naturalized, not bothering to start the process until around the time of WWI. But even after all that time, he remembered the ship he came on and his date of arrival, so his paper trail removed any doubt that this was the correct fellow. Several candidates of his name were floating about at the time, so it was helpful to have this confirmation.
Percy’s declaration of intent to become an American citizen (FamilySearch)
His American-born wife — a fellow Pottsviller (Pottsvillian?) — probably wished he had gotten naturalized earlier as she lost her citizenship by marrying him due to U.S. immigration laws at the time. She consequently had to go through the same procedure despite having been born in Pennsylvania, and given that she waited about a decade after her husband, it’s possible she didn’t realize for some time that she had lost her citizenship.
Though Percy lived in Brooklyn for more than half a century, he returned to Pottsville often to visit his family, as well as his wife’s, and he sang in churches — sometimes solo and sometimes as part of a choir — in both locations. It says something of his interests that his obituary summarized him as a “broker and singer.”
The World Telegram and Sun, 16 October 1962 (FultonHistory)
The little boy with a big tag seems to have carried his easy-going attitude throughout a life well lived, so I was excited to reach out to his great-grandchild 131 years after his photo was taken, but was met with silence. As someone who cold calls strangers on almost a daily basis (tracing families who have relatives still missing in action from WWI, WWII, and the Korean War), this is familiar territory for me. Some don’t answer phone calls at all, some screen, some never listen to messages, some assume it’s a scam, and some are skeptical for other reasons.
Photo of Percy colorized and enhanced through a combination of MyHeritage and PhotoShop
It’s all understandable, and given that I only have a virtual item this time — not a physical photograph — I was reluctant to push too hard in my outreach, but the virtual world also provides a safety net by allowing me to share this online. So I’m writing this article in the hope that the Internet will carry this image to his family just as the S.S. Teutonic carried Percy across the ocean all those years ago.
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