Home | Angelillo Family History - Ship Passenger Arrival Record for Raffaele Angelillo - S.S. Werra, New York 6 May 1901

Ship Passenger Manifest for Raffaele Angelillo

LIST OR MANIFEST OF ALIEN IMMIGRANTS FOR THE COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION

List No.___

Required by the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, under Act of Congress approved March 3, 1893, to be delivered to the Commissioner of Immigration by the Commanding Officer of any vessel having such passengers on board upon arrival at a port in the United States

N  S.S. Werra  sailing from  NEAPEL , 20 APR 1901
1901  Arriving at Port of  New York , May 5th  1901

X 1  No. on List.  9
 2  NAME IN FULL.  Angelillo Raffaele
 3  Age. Yrs. Mos.  15
 4  Sex.  M
 5  Married or Single.  Single
 6  Calling or Occupation.  peasant
 7  Able to Read Write  no
 8  Nationality.  Italian
 9  Last Residence.  S. Angelo Alife
10  Seaport for landing in the United States.
  New York
11  Final destination in the United States.  (State, City or Town).
  Bristol  RI
12  Whether having a ticket to such final destination
  no
13  By whom was passage paid.  father
14  Whether in possession of money, if so, whether more than $30 and how much if $30 or less.
  6
15  Whether ever before in the United States, and if so, when and where.
  no
16  Whether going to join a relative, and if so, what relative, their name and address.
  father Nicola
17  Ever in Prison or Almshouse or supported by charity.  If Yes, state which.
  no
18  Whether a Polygamist.  no
19  Whether under Contract, express or implied, to labor in the United States.
  no
20  Condition of Health. Mental and Physical.
  good
21  Deformed or Crippled, Nature and Cause.
  no

Notes: the (11) Final destination "Bristol RI" might be read as "Bristol Pa".

X  Record of detained Alien Passengers.

S.S. Werra from Naples arrived May 6 1901, at 3:00 P. M.

No.  13
NAME  Angelillo Raffaele
Manifest: Group  N  Number 9
Number of Aliens  1
CAUSE OF DETENTION  To father Minor
DISPOSITION  to fath., Nicola, Bristol, Pa.
Discharged: by Inspector  Flany
  Date  5/6/5:00
Meals:  Breakfast ___  Dinner  1  Supper  1
REMARKS

This Sailing of the S.S. Werra

The Steamship Werra, under Captain Polack, sailed from Genoa on 19 April 1901 with 161 steerage passengers. It left Naples on 20 April with 962 more passengers. At Gibraltar it did not take on (steerage) passengers (because none are listed in the passenger manifest); it sailed from there on 24 April for America, arriving at the port of New York City on Monday 6 May 1901 at 3:16 PM. Thus the voyage from Naples to New York lasted seventeen days.

The ship's manifest had places for 1,230 steerage passengers; it was booked for 1,190 passengers, of whom 103 did not sail. Of the 1,087 who did sail, 6 were refused entry to the United States, though more than a few had Canada as their final destination.

At Ellis Island 97 of the 1,087 passengers were detained before being admitted to the United States, among them Raffaele Angelillo. Of the 46 passengers detained for Special Inquiry, 3 were refused entry, on the ground that they had no relative or friend in the United States to go to. Of the 12 passengers quarantined, 3 were refused admission, 2 for having no relative or friend in America, one for senility.

Besides Raffaele Angelillo, there was only one passenger from Sant'Angelo d'Alife, a 27 year old married, illiterate peasant named Pasquale PEZZULLO, who was traveling alone, had paid his own passage, possessed $10, and was going to his brother-in-law, Liberato CIALLELLA, in Bristol, PA. (Manifest: Group M, no. 5) There is no evidence that he and Raffaele were acquainted.

Another person from Sant'Angelo d'Alife, bound for Cleveland, Ohio [?], was listed on the manifest to sail, but did not. That person's name was on a corner of the manifest list which was torn away and apparently lost.

The seal on the Commanding Officer's affidavit reads: UNITED STATES CONSULATE NAPLES.

Source: the S.S. Werra's passenger manifest was microfilmed on 31 March 1944 by the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service. It consists of 41 sheets. National Archives Microfilm Publication T-715, Roll 192, Volume 314, Page [N].

Arrival of the SS Werra

SS Werra, (Ger.,) Pollack, from Genoa, April 19; Naples, 20, and Gibraltar, 24, with mdse. and passengers to Oelrichs & Co. Arrived at the Bar at 3:16 P. M.

Source: New York Times, Monday 6 May 1901, Page 2

The S.S. Werra, steamship of the North German Lloyd line, 14 KB

The S.S. Werra, commissioned in 1882, was a steamship of
the North German Lloyd line.

Image Source: based on the photograph reproduced courtesy of the Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut, in Michael J. Anuta's Ships of Our Ancestors (Baltimore: 1983), page 345. [Original photograph]

Description of the S.S. Werra

Operated by Norddeutscher Lloyd ("North German Lloyd") between the Mediterranean and New York from 1891-1901 when Italian emigration to the U.S. was booming. 5,109 ton "express" steamship. Dimensions in feet (between perpendiculars): 433 x 46. Straight (as opposed to a Clipper) bow; two funnels, four masts; constructed of iron; single screw; compound engine with three cylinders; service speed of 16 knots [18.4 miles per hour]. Shipbuilder: John Elder & Co., Glasgow. Maiden Voyage 9 October 1882 Bremen-Southampton-New York. Scrapped in 1903. Passenger capacity: 1,255 (I-125, II-130, III-1,000).

From 1889 the funnels of the ships of the North German Lloyd were buff-colored ("express" steamers had always had buff funnels, others had had black). The company's rectangular flag was "white; blue key and anchor crossed, with oak wreath in centre".

(The word "Lloyd" in the company's title alluded to the insurance firm Lloyd's of London, under whose supervision the early ships of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship company were built in Britain.)

Source: North Atlantic Seaway: an illustrated history of the passenger services linking the old world with the new by N.R.P. Bonsor (Prescot, Lancashire: 1955), pages 167, 170-172 185, 191. There is a silhouette drawing of the Werra on page 565 of this book.

Passenger Index to the Port of New York
1897-1902

Reel 6, starting with ANDRULIS

This reel contains all the index cards for soundex A-524 (ANGEL). Most are very difficult to read as photographed.

The surname Angelo and Angelillo

The index cards also have many people with the surname ANGELO, and from many places in Italy, which shows that ANGELO is not a surname found only in America as a shortening of various Italian surnames.

ANGELO
(Italian) from a popular medieval personal name Angelo (Latin angelus, from Greek angelos: messenger, angel (see ANGEL).

Source: Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names (2003, 2006)

ANGEL
(English) nickname (Latin angelus, from Greek angelos: messenger) denoting someone of angelic temperament or appearance [or just the opposite], or denoting one had who played the part of an angel in a mystery play.
Cognate: (Italian) ANGELO (chiefly southern).
Diminutive: (Italian) ANGELILLO.

Typical Italian surnames end in -i (northern Italy) and -o (southern Italy). Surnames derived from given names are extremely common in Italian.

Source: Hanks, Hodges, A Dictionary of Surnames (1988)

Other diminutives are ANGIOLILLO and ANGELILLI. Judging by the many documents I have studied, priests tended to end names with the letter 'o', civil servants with the letter 'i', though the reverse also occurred. (In south central Italian dialects the ends of words are usually not pronounced and of course illiterate people have no control over how their names are written: they sign with a Segno di Croce, the Sign of the Cross.)

In all the documents concerning Raffaele Angelillo's family in Italy that I have seen, the surname is written ANGELILLO, although Raffaele's own father Nicola signed those same documents as Nicola Angelilli, and when Raffaele married he gave his name as Raffaele Angelilli.

From the Internet I have discovered that there are many people, both of Italian and German origin, named "Robert ANGELO". The German name is pronounced with a hard "g" (cf. Gregory), equivalent to the Italian "gh", rather than the Italian soft "g" (cf. George). This is mostly or partly why I use my middle name to identify myself further.

Discoveries - Tracing back to Italy

S.S. Werra manifest, entry for Raffaele Angelillo (partial), 12 KB

And so I began only with Ralph ANGELO (16 August 1888 - 25 September 1965), and from Ralph's Certificate of Naturalization, which Eleanor had saved, I found his name as it had been in the Kingdom of Italy, namely Raffaele ANGELILLO.

Then from the Certificate to the typewritten Petition for Naturalization, held at that time by Burlington Country, I learned the date of arrival, and "Guerra" for the ship's name, as well as "San Angelo" for Raffaele's place of birth.

When I learned from a reference book that a ship named "Werra" had landed in New York on the day Raffaele arrived, I requested the microfilm and searched the manifest line by line. That was how I found Ralph's name on that list, and first learned about Bristol, Pennsylvania, and that the "San Angelo" of the Petition -- which was "not too far from Naples" (as Ralph wife's Eleanor's first cousin Warren Hutchison, who had known Ralph since the 1920s, told me) -- was Sant'Angelo d'Alife.

To learn the specific place name was very helpful, because there are many villages named "Sant'Angelo" in Italy: there are 18 comuni and 22 frazioni (Italian-English Glossary) whose names are or begin with "Sant'Angelo".

To correct the ship's manifest: Raffaele, who was born 16 August 1888, was in fact three months short of his 13th birthday at the time of the Werra's sailing.

The URL of this Web page: https://www.roangelo.net/angelo/arrival.html
Last revised: 18 March 2007 : 2007-03-18 and 31 May 2018 by Robert [Wesley] Angelo.

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