LAST BORN, WITH EXPECTATIONS
Indiana Chapter 2
INTRO EUROPE GERMANY OHIO INDIANA SOUTH DAKOTA NEW MEXICO KANSAS DEEPER LOOKS BOOK
Two of Jacob and Elizabeth's children, Charles, age five and Margaret, age 15, in 1874. Charles was the only Link child of this generation born in Indiana.
A powerful name for the only child of eight to be born in Indiana
The last of Jacob and Elizabeth's children was named Charles Ulysses Link, born in Indiana, on January 19, 1869.
The name Charles is derived from the Germanic “karl” which means full-grown, or a man. That word has the same derivation as “ceorl” from Old English meaning a freeman or a man. It was carried by a king of Wurttemberg as well as by ten kings of nearby France (near to where Charles’ father lived in Germany), and also by kings of Hungary, Naples, and Sardinia. It was a name of weight, of expectation.
Ulysses, used as Charles’ middle name, was the moniker of the Union general - later elected President of the United States that very year - Ulysses S. Grant. Grant’s tenacity and ability to plow forward in the face of great opposition were well-known and appreciated qualities throughout the North, if not a select portion of the South he proved instrumental in defeating. In literature, Ulysses was the iconic Greek king who took on Poseidon, god of the sea.
As a president, however, Grant’s administration proved less than admirable. It was acknowledged as a nest of corruption, something that Ulysses never seemed able to get a handle on. While personally honest and a champion of reconciling North and South while trying to protect the rights of freed slaves, his political skills seemed inadequate. Nevertheless, his first electoral victory over the today almost unknown Democrat Horatio Seymour was 214 electoral votes to 80. After four years, Grant’s next election over the newspaperman Horace Greeley of “Go West Young Man,” fame was 286 to 0. Grant was, in short, extremely popular. To have his name incorporated as part of your own would be regarded as an expression of strength and an implicit prayer to prevail against tough odds.
One minor issue with that strong, expectant handle was inculcated within the last name. Something its designers inherited. “Link” meant in its original language a left-handed person. It came from the Middle High German word, “linc.” Perhaps one or more of the original persons to carry the Link name in Charles’ lineage, and it was a common name in Germany, had been left-handed. However, therein lies the speed bump. Throughout most of Europe left-handed people were regarded as clumsy, awkward, or untrustworthy. Obviously superstitious, but something that was known by Germanic speakers of the time. Jacob and Elizabeth may have felt the strong first and middle names given their last born somehow helped to balance the one they had little choice regarding. And one, despite the ancient meanings, they were almost certainly very proud of.
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, after nearly six years of effort by the Central Pacific Railroad, coming out of Sacramento, and the Union Pacific Railroad, beginning in Omaha, NE, shortened a four- to seven-month trip to under one week. The time and dangers involved were not the only factors to fall. The cost of the overland wagon route dropped from about $1,000 to $136 in first-class Pullman sleeping car comfort. $136 in 1869 was equivalent in purchasing power to about $3,018.36 in 2023.
Westward focused people
Five months and seven days after Charles Ulysses Link's birth, the country was joined coast-to-coast by the Overland Route, also known as the Transcontinental Railroad.
The “Overland Route” was - and is today - a transcontinental rail line linking the Central Pacific Railway coming up from Sacramento, CA, west through the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and the Union Pacific Railroad which had forged west from Omaha, NE. It was the first, completed in 1869, and today is owned exclusively by the Union Pacific. The nation was shrinking dramatically, and travel across it suddenly became a matter of about six days rather than four to six months by ship or crossing the continent by wagon which had been done for centuries. Half a million people had just crossed the continent on foot, in wagon and on horseback using the California, Oregon and Mormon Trails.
Trips around the Cape Horn or down to and across the isthmus of Panama were very risky and took over half a year. In 1865, a trip documented in detail by Edmund Hope Verney took 42 days to cross America. It was by stagecoach from San Francisco to New York via Salt Lake, Omaha and Chicago during the summer. An average of 70 miles a day was covered by this method. The Transcontinental Railroad allowed for crossing between New York and California in less than a week.
Three roughly equal-threat methods to travel America coast-to-coast before the Transcontinental Railroad
The first method was to cross the plains by wagon route. Most today are familiar with that dangerous trek from stories written of and by the pioneers. The Oregon or California trails took immigrants to the West Coast, with some taking the Santa Fe Trail to the Southwestern region encompassed almost entirely in the mid-1800s by New Mexico Territory. The Mormon Trail let to Utah.
Disease, accident, animal or reptile attack and conflict with Indian communities made that route not only lengthy (five or six months), but frequently deadly. So, there were two other methods used by others. Both of those were primarily by ship or ships.
Passengers either risked their lives going through the Strait of Magellan at almost the southern extent of South America, or crossing the isthmus of Panama by railway after 1849. They would interline with another ship on the Pacific side of the country. Many passengers contracted malaria or yellow fever taking the Panama crossing route. Before the rail line linking Atlantic and Pacific, there was simply a road crudely scraped out of the relentless jungle and mountains that many walked along with guides. The trip included recollections by many that it was the worst and most treacherous and time-consuming 48 miles they traversed in their lives.
All routes from New York to San Francisco were fraught with danger and took months in 1850. Base map, Library of Congress.
Many immigrant ships were sunk trying to round South America
The route around Cape Horn at the very southern tip of South America took passengers near to Antarctica, a stormy, cold voyage
That route was well known as one of the most dangerous passages in the world. Both sea journeys were lengthy and filled with discomforts and extreme dangers. Many ships went down rounding the cape or navigating the straits. Disease was ever present. Stops at ports were fraught with danger.
Timing
Those who crossed America by wagon were fortunate if they could make the trek in four or five months (120-150 days), and the risks were, just as by ship, very great. Disease, attacks by Indians defending their homelands, raging rivers, wildlife predators, difficult mountain passes and tremendous weather challenges all conspired to make this approach terrifying at its best.
In 1847 it could take as long as 200 days to sail from New York, NY, around Cape Horn to Monterrey, CA. More often the journey ran about 135-150 days, almost the same as by wagon. As clipper ships began to ply the South American route, times dropped to in the range of 120 days. By 1852, it took a relatively miraculous 50-75 days to sail from New York to Panama, cross on the Panama Railroad from Aspinwall (Colon today) to Balboa, board another ship and continue sailing on to San Francisco. A diary kept by David Knapp Pangborn starting in New York in 1850 documented concisely events of his trip from June 1st through August 15th.
Work along the Transcontinental Railroad.