Chapter I: Childhood and Youth

1834-1853

I was born in Loebau, West Prussia, on the 5th of July, 1834, the son of Philipp and Esther, _née_ Meyer, Neumark; and I have reason to believe that I was not a very welcome guest. My parents, who were poor, already had five children, and the prospects of properly supporting the sixth child were not bright. As I had put in an appearance, however, and there was no alternative, I was admitted with good grace into the family circle and, being the baby, soon became the pet.

My father was born in the ancient town of Neumark; and in his youth he was apprenticed to a dealer in boots and shoes in a Russian village through which Napoleon Bonaparte marched on his way to Moscow. The conqueror sent to the shop for a pair of fur boots, and I have often heard my father tell, with modest satisfaction, how, shortly before he visited the great fair at Nijni Novgorod, he was selected to deliver them; how more than one ambitious and inquisitive friend tried to purchase the privilege of approaching the great man, and what were his impressions of the warrior. When ushered into the august presence, he found Bonaparte in one of his characteristic postures, standing erect, in a meditative mood, braced against the wall, with one hand to his forehead and the other behind his back, apparently absorbed in deep and anxious thought.

When I was but three weeks old, my father's business affairs called him away from home, and compelled the sacrifice of a more or less continued absence of eight and one half years. During this period my mother's health was very poor. Unfortunately, also, my father was too liberal and extravagantly-inclined for his narrow circumstances; and not being equipped to meet the conditions of the district in which we lived and our economical necessities, we were continually, so to speak, in financial hot water. While he was absent, my father traveled in Sweden and Denmark, remitting regularly to his family as much as his means would permit, yet earning for them but a precarious living. In 1842 he again joined his family in Loebau, making visits to Sweden and Denmark during the summer seasons from 1843 until the middle fifties and spending the long winters at home. Loebau was then, as now, of little commercial importance, and until 1849, when I was fifteen years of age and had my first introduction to the world, my life was very commonplace and marked by little worthy of special record, unless it was the commotion centering in the cobble-paved market-place, as a result of the Revolution of 1848.

With the winter of 1837 had come a change in my father's plans and enterprises. Undergoing unusually severe weather in Scandinavia, he listened to the lure of the New World and embarked for New York, arriving there in the very hot summer of 1838. The contrast in climatic conditions proved most disastrous; for, although life in the new Republic seemed both pleasing and acceptable to one of his temperament and liberal views, illness finally compelled him to bid America adieu.

My father was engaged in the making of ink and blacking, neither of which commodities was, at that time, in such universal demand as it is now; and my brother, Joseph Philipp, later known as J. P. Newmark, having some time before left Sweden, where he had been assisting him, for England, it was agreed, in 1849, after a family council, that I was old enough to accompany my father on his business trips, gradually become acquainted with his affairs, and thus prepare to succeed him. Accordingly, in April of that year, I left the family hearth, endeared to me, unpretentious though it was, and wandered with my father out into the world. Open confession, it is said, is good for the soul; hence I must admit that the prospect of making such a trip attracted me, notwithstanding the tender associations of home; and the sorrow of parting from my mother was rather evenly balanced, in my youthful mind, by the pleasurable anticipation of visiting new and strange lands.

Any attempt to compare methods of travel in 1849, even in the countries I then traversed, with those now in vogue, would be somewhat ridiculous. Country roads were generally poor--in fact, very bad; and vehicles were worse, so that the entire first day's run brought us only to Lessen, a small village but twelve miles from home! Here we spent the night, because of the lack of better accommodations, in blankets, on the floor of the wayside inn; and this experience was such a disappointment, failing to realize, as it did, my youthful anticipations, that I was desperately homesick and ready, at the first opportunity, to return to my sorrowing mother. The Fates, however, were against any such change in our plans; and the next morning we proceeded on our way, arriving that evening at the much larger town of Bromberg. Here, for the first time, the roads and other conditions were better, and my spirits revived.

Next day we left for Stettin, where we took passage for Ystad, a small seaport in southern Sweden. Now our real troubles began; part of the trip was arduous, and the low state of our finances permitted us nothing better than exposed deck-quarters. This was particularly trying, since the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous, and I both seasick and longing for home; moreover, on arriving at Ystad, after a voyage of twelve hours or more, the Health Officer came on board our boat and notified us that, as cholera was epidemic in Prussia, we were prohibited from landing! This filled me with mortal fear lest we should be returned to Stettin under the same miserable conditions through which we had just passed; but this state of mind had its compensating influence, for my tears at the discouraging announcement worked upon the charity of the uniformed officials, and, in a short time, to my inexpressible delight, we were permitted to land. With a natural alertness to observe anything new in my experience, I shall never forget my first impressions of the ocean. There seemed no limit to the expanse of stormy waters over which we were traveling; and this fact alone added a touch of solemnity to my first venture from home.

From Ystad we proceeded to Copenhagen, where my father had intimate friends, especially in the Lachmann, Eichel and Ruben families, to whose splendid hospitality and unvarying kindness, displayed whenever I visited their neighborhood, I wish to testify. We remained at Copenhagen a couple of months, and then proceeded to Gothenburg. It was not at this time my father's intention to burden me with serious responsibility; and, having in mind my age, he gave me but little of the work to do, while he never failed to afford me, when he could, an hour of recreation or pleasure. The trip as a whole, therefore, was rather an educational experiment.

In the fall of 1849, we returned to Loebau for the winter. From this time until 1851 we made two trips together, very similar to the one already described; and in 1851, when I was seventeen years of age, I commenced helping in real earnest. By degrees, I was taught the process of manufacturing; and when at intervals a stock had been prepared, I made short trips to dispose of it. The blacking was a paste, put up in small wooden boxes, to be applied with a brush, such a thing as waterproof blacking then not being thought of, at least by us. During the summer of 1851, business carried me to Haparanda, about the most northerly port in Sweden; and from there I took passage, stopping at Luleå, Piteå, Umeå, Hernösand, Sundsvall, Söderhamn and Gefle, all small places along the route. I transacted no business, however, on the trip up the coast because it was my intention to return by land, when I should have more time for trade; accordingly, on my way back to Stockholm, I revisited all of these points and succeeded beyond my expectations.

On my trip north, I sailed over the Gulf of Bothnia which, the reader will recollect, separates Sweden from Finland, a province most unhappily under Russia's bigoted, despotic sway; and while at Haparanda, I was seized with a desire to visit Torneå, in Finland. I was well aware that if I attempted to do so by the regular routes on land, it would be necessary to pass the Russian customhouse, where officers would be sure to examine my passport; and knowing, as the whole liberal world now more than ever knows, that a person of Jewish faith finds the merest sally beyond the Russian border beset with unreasonable obstacles, I decided to walk across the wide marsh in the northern part of the Gulf, and thus circumvent these exponents of intolerance. Besides, I was curious to learn whether, in such a benighted country, blacking and ink were used at all. I set out, therefore, through the great moist waste, making my way without much difficulty, and in due time arrived at Torneå, when I proceeded immediately to the first store in the neighborhood; but there I was destined to experience a rude, unexpected setback. An old man, evidently the proprietor, met me and straightway asked, "Are you a Jew?" and seeing, or imagining that I saw, a delay (perhaps not altogether temporary!) in a Russian jail, I withdrew from the store without ceremony, and returned to the place whence I had come. Notwithstanding this adventure, I reached Stockholm in due season, the trip back consuming about three weeks; and during part of that period I subsisted almost entirely on salmon, bear's meat, milk, and _knäckebröd_, the last a bread usually made of rye flour in which the bran had been preserved. All in all, I was well pleased with this maiden-trip; and as it was then September, I returned to Loebau to spend one more winter at home.