Pictured here is Fredericka Christina Henrietta Stamer Schmaltz' sister, Elizabeth Catherine F Stamer Wagner.
Courtesy Joe Schallan:

The
Hamburg-America Line's steamship Borussia arrived in New York on 1 May
1858, from Hamburg, and the manifest shows two sisters on board,
Elisabeth and Fredericka Stamer, aged 18 and 16. The names match, and
the ages are a very close if not exact match (I have Elisabeth's birth
date as October 9, 1841, and Ricca's as 1840 or 41, according to the
1880 U.S. Census). In my branch of the family, there is a story that
the two sisters came over together. (Jul 1856 brother Heinrich immigated on the Deutschland)

The odds are pretty heavily against there being two other Stamer
individuals, with these first names, traveling together from Hamburg
shortly before 1860. It has got to be them!

The Borussia was the Hamburg-America line's first large, iron-hulled
steamship, able to make the crossing in 16 days. (Sailing ships took
30 days or more.) Her maiden voyage from Hamburg to New York was on
June 1, 1856, so Elisabeth and Fredericka Stamer traveled on what was
one of the most modern, up-to-date ships of the time -- only about two
years old at the time of their voyage. According to a record I found,
the Borussia could accommodate 54 in first class, 146 in second class,
and 310 in third class. The manifest simply lists all the passengers
and does not separate them according to travel class, but I would guess
two immigrant German girls would probably have traveled as cheaply as
possible.

How Elisabeth and Ricca ended up in Benton County I do not know.
(Ricca married a Charles Schmaltz and they farmed and had a family in
Eden Township.) Usually immigrants did not go to a place in the US
without already knowing someone there. I believe there was a Stamer
brother (biological or brother by adoption), and he may have already
been in Iowa. (This is just my speculation, of course.)


Born at Harmsdorf
Ostholsteiner Landkreis
Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Fredericka was b. March 31, 1841 in