This is an excerpt from “Faith, Family & Music”, 150 Years of History and Tales of the Ed & Irene (Lamie) Fleis Family in Leelanau County by Ruth Anne (Fleis) Smith.
At age 19, Tomasz sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Bristol, a 37-foot-wide by 304-foot-long vessel. It had three masts and one funnel, as ships at that time were transitioning from wind power to steam. Among the few belongings Tomasz carried on this journey in 1873 was his treasured violin. According to the ship’s passenger list, he departed from Hamburg on March 1, then sailed to Liverpool and on to Ireland. On April 8, the Bristol docked in New York City.
Tomasz traveled along. He was the only Fleis family member listed on the manifest. From there, he might have traveled through the Eric Canal as most immigrants to Wisconsin did at the time, and then by steamship across the Great Lakes to Milwaukee on Lake Michigan.
