A letter from Father Hecker announces his departure for New York as fixed for some time in October, 1890; but delays occurred, and the following is an extract from one to his mother, dated January 17, 1851; it says that the departure is fixed for some day the same month:
"Oh! may Almighty God prosper our voyage, and may His sweet and blessed Mother be our guide and protector on the stormy sea. And may my arrival in America be for the good of many souls who are still wandering out of the one flock and away from the one shepherd! I hope that to no one will it be of more consolation and benefit than to you, my dearest mother."
The ship was named the _Helvetia_ and sailed from Havre the 27th of January, the captain being a genuine down-east Yankee, and the crew a mixed assortment of English and American sailors. Father Bernard's party consisted of Fathers Walworth, Hecker, Landtsheer, Kittell, Dold, and Giesen, and the students Hellemans, Müller, and Wirth, the American fathers having come to Havre from London by way of Dover, Calais, and Paris. The weather was unfavorable during nearly the entire voyage, the ship being driven back into the English Channel and forced to anchor in the Downs. They were beaten about for two weeks before they got fairly upon the Atlantic, and while crossing the Newfoundland banks were in danger from icebergs. Nearly all the party were more or less sea-sick, including Father Hecker. This did not prevent his attempting the conversion of the boatswain, who seemed the only hopeful subject in the ship's company. There were a hundred and thirty steerage passengers, emigrants for the most part from Protestant countries, though a party of Garibaldian refugees and a few equally wild Frenchmen enlivened the monotony of sea-life by some bloody fights. There were but two cabin passengers besides the Redemptorists, and the former being confined to their staterooms by nearly continual sea-sickness, the cabin was turned into a "floating convent," to borrow Father Dold's expression in a long letter descriptive of the voyage, given by Canon Claessens in his _Life of Father Bernard._
The wintry and stormy voyage had already tested the missionaries' patience for some weeks, when Father Bernard informed the captain that he and his companions were going to make a novena to St. Joseph to arrive at New York on or before his feast, March the 19th. "St. Joseph will have to do his very prettiest to get us in," was the answer. And when the ship was still far to the east, being off the banks, and the weather quite unfavorable, and only three days left before the feast, the captain called out: "St. Joseph can't do it--give it up, Father Bernard." But the latter would still persevere; and that night the wind changed. The Yankee ship now flew along at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. When the eve of St. Joseph's Day came they were wrapped in a dense fog, and the captain, dreading the nearness of the coast, hove to. When day dawned the fog lifted, and the ship was found to be off Long Branch, and a wrecked ship was seen on the shore; she had been driven there during the night. The pilot soon came aboard and they sailed through the Narrows and into the harbor of New York, having spent fifty-two days on the ocean. As they approached the city a little tug-boat was seen coming to meet them. It bore George and John Hecker and Mr. McMaster, whose cordial greetings were the first welcome the young Redemptorists heard on their return to the New World. They were soon at their home in the convent in Third Street, and on the sixth of April following the first mission was opened in St. Joseph's Church, Washington Place, New York.