San Francisco, July 1, 1923 - A little bit of Russia drifted in through the Golden Gate this morning on the US Army Transport Merritt, 526 men, women and children refugees, the last of the white army and white navy. For two years they have been seeking a home. For two years they have wandered from port to port, enduring hunger and disease and hardships innumerable, nowhere welcomed, nowhere aided until America took note of them and held out a helping hand.
Some of them wore the uniform of the armies of the Czar, of Generals Denikin and of Wrangel. Some of them wore the clothes the American Red Cross gave them in Manila. Lieutenant General Peter Heieskanin is in charge of the refugees. The Rev. Serge Denisoff is the chaplain. These and Prince Alexis Chegodaieff, a powerful figure in the czar’s regime, are the important influential men among these people. There are 254 single men, 70 married couples, 87 single women and 45 children. Five of the children have lost both father and mother.
New York Times
USAT MERRITT 1923 ... On July 1, 1923, the army transport ship USAT Merritt out of Manila, Philippines, docked at Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. It carried five hundred and twenty-six Russia "boat people" survivors of some seven thousand who had fled Vladivostok eight months previously as victorious Communist forces advanced on the last out post of resistance to the Bolshevik revolution.
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