This group, and others took boats up the Rhine to Rotterdam in May, 1740 where they boarded the ship "Friendship" commanded by Captain William Vettery. The passage was rough with a "terrible storm at sea". Nearly sixty people from the Basel area died on that journey, mostly of hunger, because they lost their provisions and cooking utensils in the storm. The ship arrived in Philadelphia in August of 1740.

On September 23, 1740 as required by law, the passengers appeared before the Pennsylvania Court to take the "Oath of Allegiance" to the King of England. The court recorded Elsbeth's family name as "Spainehower". see "Lists of Swiss Emigrants in the 18th Century to the American Colonies" compiled by Dr. Albert Faust & Cains M. Brumbaugh, edited in 1968 by the Genealogical Publishing Co."