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California Gold Rush via Sea
Once news of California's Gold Rush reached the East Coast, groups of men began forming mining companies to help defray the great expenses of reaching the gold fields, and with the hope of having more success by banding together. Groups chartered or purchased a ship, many of which were extremely small, and sailed from their homes to the fields of gold. It was a long, difficult journey, and some members left their ships on ports enroute, other groups disbanded by the time they reached San Francisco due to the extreme tensions on board during their five and six month journeys in cramped quarters. And others were penniless by the time they reached the Pacific because of underestimating the cost of such a journey. Forty-Niners coming to California from the east had three travel choices - whether to go by sea via Cape Horn or Panama, or overland. The amazing Cape Horn route was popular in the early days of the Gold Rush, with hundreds of vessels of varying quality making the more than 13,000-mile voyage around the tip of South America. If weather conditions were unfavorable, this voyage could take as long as eight months.
Due to great demand, the ships were often jammed with passengers, and unsanitary conditions prevailed. A number suffered from scurvy from a lack of sufficient variety in their diet. Worse yet, since the crews often took off in search of gold once arriving in San Francisco, many people were left behind waiting for ships in the east. Others failed to account for the reversal of the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere, and suffered from bitter wind and cold as the ships rounded Cape Horn in July or August. Some intrepid Forty-Niners saw a possible shortcut in the sea route- instead of going all the way around Cape Horn, why not cross through Panama in Central America? This route was indeed much shorter on paper, but suffered from its own pitfalls. In sailing from the east coast of the United States, one had to disembark on the Atlantic side of Panama, and since neither railroad service nor the canal existed at this time, cross overland across the Isthmus to the Pacific coast. The tropical climate and endemic diseases claimed many victims. Many people found that having to rely upon two ships for passage to San Francisco merely doubled their chances of being delayed, with disastrous results. In spite of all of these difficulties, it has been estimated that as many as 25,000 persons made the sea journey to California in the aftermath of the gold discovery, or about as many as lived in the whole territory before 1848. One particular vessel that left the Eastern Seaboard for California in 1849 and 1850 was the Belvideria. It departed New York on February 14, 1849, and arrived in San Francisco on October 15, 1949.
The Captain was Samuel Barney and chose to take the Cape Horn route. Passenger J. Hascall Stearns was one of the directors of the Cayuga Joint Stock Company, which was organized at the Western Hotel in New York City on February 15, 1849. His notes, held by the California Historical Society, include a list of the 79 members of the company. Each member paid $500, which was used to purchase and outfit the vessel. A photocopy of the Articles of Association of the company copied from the Beinecke Library at Yale University is included in the volume. A journal by H. F. W. Swain from March 1-October 13, 1849 is held at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California, # C-F 151. Four women and a little girl were also on board. One of the women was the wife of Captain Barney. Another appears to have been the wife of Swain. Has numerous gaps between entries near the end of the voyage and no entries at all during June as they rounded Cape Horn. Another particular vessel, named the Henry Lee, departed New York on February 17, 1849, and arrived in San Francisco on September 13 of that same year; the ship carried one hundred and twenty-five passengers.
The ship was built in the 1830s in Boston. When three weeks out from New York, a heavy blow struck the starboard quarter and careened the ship over on her side, throwing those on the weather side out of their berths and across the lower deck against the staterooms opposite. The dim lights which usually hung above the tables were put out. A crash was heard overhead -- chains rattling and falling, sails madly flapping, yardarms snapping and masts breaking. Two masts splintered. The farmers, machinists, shoemakers, blacksmiths, harness-makers and upholsterers of the Hartford Mining and Trading Company were landsmen from Connecticut, unacquainted with the violence of the sea. They were craftsmen, men who could built and fix things. They were also New Englanders: they aspired to good order, good citizenship, and sobriety. Each had signed a solemn pledge of temperance. Strict rules (lights out at ten, no smoking in the 'tweendecks sleeping area) regulated their shipboard behavior. They planned to vote in the upcoming Connecticut election and tabulate the returns in spite of their isolation. They had transformed their vessel into a floating New England village, tidy and righteous and tight as a tick. At dawn the next day, the deck was a tangled and soggy mass of canvas, shattered wood and rigging, but they were still afloat and the storm was past. The task now was to clean up the mess and repair the damage, a job that landsmen understood.
They unpacked their tools and went to work, pausing only on Sunday to sing a hymn of gratitude: "Safely through another week, God has brought us on our way . . . ". In twelve days the masts were repaired. Linville Hall sketched this scene on the Henry Lee's deck late on an 1849 afternoon: “There are on the hurricane deck, at this moment, twenty-five persons, four of whom are playing backgammon; two chess; four checkers; one reading . . . one on his side sleeping soundly; tow are on their backs, and three on their faces, musing; one is whittling; two are a little separate, engaged in conversation, three are overlooking the plays; two are sitting cross-legged looking at me while writing this note.” Hall saw two men in a longboat pulling each other's legs; several were on potato bins, guessing ages; a man on the stern polished a dirk while thee others supervised; six were high up the mizzenmast; twelve watched a checkers game near the wheel; seven stared at sea.
Contributed by Mike Champion