My father and mother emigrated from their home in Germany about the year 1840.  After eight or nine weeks of a stormy voyage, they landed at New York with their little boy, Henry, who was about four years old.  They found a great many emigrants in New York and some of the directed my Father to a German inn, where he took lodging for his family for a few days.  The German landlord advised him to go to Philadelphia, as there was not work in New York.  Father had friends in Pittsburgh, so felt that was the place for him.  He took his family to Philadelphia, and while lodging at another German inn, he met an old German who was captain of a canal boat.  The boat was loaded with merchandise for Pittsburgh and would leave the next night.  The captain’s wife and little granddaughter were going with him.  So Father placed Mother and Henry in the captain’s care; he went with a pack train over the mountains to Pittsburgh and in that way earned money to pay for mother’s trip.¹⁾My Early Life and the Civil War, Conrad Smith 1920, pages 5-6