Voyaging with Henry

some...... facts , fallibilities ,

and fantasies


Thomas Ieuan Hagedorn Davies


Around the middle of the 19th century two teenage brothers, Charles and Henry Hagedorn, left their farmstead home in Schleswig Holstein in order to avoid enforced conscription into Bismarck's growing army. Working their passage on a merchant ship, probably from Bremerhaven, Charles went ashore at Bristol, Henry at Swansea. Charles is thought to have emigrated to America and simply disappeared. Their 'story', and story it is - it has to be, as very little hard information is available of Henry's life, other than he was a seaman, was twice married, and was the founder (if that's not too grandiose a title) of the Hagedorn family in and around Swansea, Loughor, and Kingsbridge. This story is an attempt to put some flesh on the bare bones of his life and times so that his voyage through life does not disappear without trace, but is there for us his descendants, not only to trace our roots but to give a flavour of the way of life and the dramatic tides of change which were obviously influencing society in those far off days, whilst at the same time making due allowance for the author's imagination and apocryphal accounts gleaned along the way.

Preface Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5
© March 2001