On January 4, 1848, the keel for the California was laid at the Webb Shipyard, and with all possible speed the construction of all three vessels went ahead. Despite a fire at the Webb shipyard on the night of April 8th, the California was launched on May 19, 1848, and towed over to the wharf at the Novelty Iron Works at 12th Street to be fitted with her engine, boilers, and paddle wheel.
On October 6, 1848, the California, under the command of Captain Cleveland Forbes, left the East River 12th Street wharf under her own power and traveled the distance around the tip of Manhattan to the North River. There, the California was met by the steam launch General Lincolm. William Aspinwall and his partners came aboard the California, as did William Webb, along with about 100 invited guests.
With the greeting party soon aboard the California, she paddled her way south down the North River past the Battery out into the bay, slowing down to a stop off Sandy Hook. William Aspinwall and his partners were in good spirits. Speeches and toasts to future success were offered to the assembled guests. Aspinwall had final words with Captain Forbes, suggesting that he could crowd passengers a bit if he happened to have the good fortune of finding additional passengers en route. He had no idea of just how prophetic those parting words would be.
After some final words about making sure that any coal acquired en route was dry and not wet, Aspinwall and his guests boarded the Orus, which had followed them out into the bay, to take them back to the East River. Whistle blasts were exchanged as the California headed out to sea on her maiden voyage around the Horn to the Pacific.
The California, under steam power and sail, made her way down the Atlantic averaging nine to twelve knots with only seven passengers, none bound further than Callao, even though she was built to accommodate 50 passengers in cabin and 150 in steerage. She carried 520 tons of coal and a duplicate set of engine parts, along with a year's supply of stores. Numerous mechanical problems with the steam engine sprang up every day and had to be attended to. The intense heat in the stoking room was appalling.
All the while, Captain Forbes had his doubts about steam power, but was determined to do his best. On the twenty-fifth day, Forbes brought the California into Rio de Janeiro for coaling and repairs.
The day before sailing into Rio, Forbes was laid low by a hemorrhage of the lungs that would plague him for the rest of the voyage. The coaling of the ship while in port aggravated the condition; forcing Forbes, under doctor's orders, to convalesce on shore while the ship loaded coal. Trouble with the Rio port authorities slowed down the loading of coal, that dragged out to 17 days. After 25 days, the California finally cleared Rio and made her way to the entrance of the Straight of Magellan in eleven days. There, she gingerly made her way through the straight, often anchoring in fog and when the tides were foul and against them. In six days, she reached the Pacific, the third steamship to make the passage through the straight. Twenty-four days out of Rio, the California reached Valparaiso.
With his health deteriorating and his chest racked with pain, Captain Forbes met with Howland & Aspinwall's shipping agent in Valparaiso, Alsop & Co., and requested that they find a replacement for him. By chance, the Natchez was in port at the time. Captain John J. Marshall of the Natchez came aboard the California, after relinquishing command of the Natchez to his first mate Duryee, and it was agreed that Marshall would take command when the California reached Panama.
Two days later, the California left Valparaiso for a five and a half-day voyage to Callao. There, the California was re-supplied over the next thirteen days. Sixty-nine Peruvian gold miners came aboard for the voyage to San Francisco. The California departed Callao on January 9, 1849, for Paita, Peru for a day, where more Peruvians boarded, and then steamed north for Panama with, no doubt, a premonition of just what to expect when they got there.
* * * * *
On December 1, 1848, the small steamer, Falcon, owned by Abiel Low, set sail from New York with twenty-nine passengers--bound for New Orleans, the Caribbean and Chagres, Panama--totally oblivious to the news of gold. The Falcon sailed under charter to George Law, the president of the United States Mail Steamship Company, who had the New York to Chagres, Panama mail contract. He had chartered the Falcon to meet his contract deadline, while his own steamers, the Georgia and the Ohio, were being completed for service. The passengers were assured by shipping agents that the California would be there to pick them up on the other side of the Isthmus for the continuing sea voyage to San Francisco.
The Falcon, under the command of Captain Notestein, was en route somewhere off the southern coast of the United States when President Polk made his report to Congress on 5 December 1848. By the time she made the Port of New Orleans, Notestein found the docks swarming with gold seeking backwoods ruffians spitting tobacco juice and waving pistols and axes in the air, all anxious to get aboard. The hard-pressed Captain did his best to accommodate the mob overloading his vessel that had berths for only 100, with 212 passengers. Also to come aboard, was General Persifer F. Smith, along with his small staff, en route to California to replace Colonel Richard B. Mason as Governor of California.
The Falcon proceeded on its course south as the gold-seekers had the run of the ship and were drunk much of the time, all eager to play their roles to the hilt as Californians dressed in boots and flannel shirts and waving guns and knives around. Dolphins were considered fair sport whenever they were sighted. Havana, Cuba was the next port of call, where the Argonauts, as they were called around that time, got their first glimpse of tropical Spanish culture as the Falcon loaded coal.
At Kingston, Jamaica, the Americans cooled their heels on the deck and watched the slow steady procession of native women porters carrying coal in baskets on their heads up the gangplank to the Falcon's coal bins. Many of the gold-seekers for the first time saw a country where free blacks were in the majority and had been free for almost twenty years.
Chagres was the end of the line where the Argonauts were "unceremoniously dumped ashore." The Falcon then left for the return journey back to New York. The barque John Benson arrived around that same time with sixty passengers, mostly gold seekers, who had left New York on December 11th.
The long abandoned fortress of San Lorenzo, once conquered in 1670 by the pirate Henry Morgan and 400 Buccaneers, greeted both parties from a bluff at the mouth of the Chagres River, as well as did large numbers of huge carrion birds that circled overhead.
Tropical jungle and swamps surrounded the town, a motley collection of dilapidated buildings and muddy streets. It was a place of sweltering heat, ferocious insects, and foul smells. The natives were a mixture of races; mostly Indian, Black, and Spanish. After a period of haggling, a negotiated fee of up to $15 per person was reached. The natives were hired to transport the argonauts in large dugout canoes, called bongos, propelled by pole and paddle, some with crude sails, for a two-day ride up the Chagres River for thirty miles through the rain forest to Cruces.
The hours of midnight to sunrise were the best hours for travel in the tropics. The afternoons were the time for siestas. Upon completion of negotiations, the bongos were loaded up with Argonauts and baggage and underway by the midnight hour.
In the early morning light, the Argonauts marveled at the splendid vegetation, strange new plants, and colorful flowers, as the bongos glided over the water. The shore was alive with the chatter of monkeys in the trees. Shrieking parrots of many colored plumes filled the trees and skies. To the Argonauts turned voyagers not already laid low with Panama Fever, it was all so new and exciting and all thoughts of hardship temporarily shrugged off.
On the second day, the river became more difficult to navigate because of the heavy rains and swift moving rapids. It often became necessary to pull the bongos upstream by ropes from the riverbanks. The jungle slowly receded, replaced by cultivated fields. Some of the argonauts wore India rubber and oilcloth suits to fend off the rain. The natives didn't mind the rain at all.
At Cruces, the Argonauts bargained with the natives again, this time paying a very high price for pack mules, horses, and native porters who would carry their loads. An ancient cobblestone highway ran through the jungle that was once used by the Spanish to transport the treasure of Peru to the waiting Spanish galleons in the Atlantic.
Under a lush green canopy, the trail wound over the cobblestones, through tortuous muddy hilly terrain and gullies, and had been in a sad state of disrepair for many years. The Argonauts, mules, horses, and porters gingerly made their way for the last twenty miles over the cobblestones and mud, sometimes up to their horse's bellies, westward over the rough and narrow trail; seldom seeing the sun through the thick jungle canopy. Vultures waited silently up in the boughs of trees for the Argonauts to pass and feasted upon the dead animals at their leisure. Eventually, the cobblestone highway left the jungle for the coastal plain.
The weary Argonauts got their first views of the red tiled roofs and church bell towers of Panama City on the far horizon with the blue Pacific and azure sky beyond. The hearts of the Argonauts danced as they hurried along, anxious now to complete their 75-mile Isthmus journey, board the waiting ships, and sail on to San Francisco. Even the mules, carting along the iron chests with which the Argonauts planned to fill with gold, quickened their pace.
As they drew nearer, the Argonauts spied the centuries old massive Spanish fortifications on a rocky hill that jutted out into the bay. "Where was the California?" The Argonauts muttered those words over and over as they scanned the bay. As they got closer, they saw that the old fortifications and nearby buildings were in ruins, their days of treasures and grandeur long gone, and were now overrun with vines and creepers.
The anxious Argonauts soon descended on the Pacific Mail office of Zachrisson, Nelson & Co., agents for Howland & Aspinwall, to find out where the California was and when she would take them to San Francisco. The company didn't know, but expected her arrival any day. The argonauts would just have to cool their heels amidst the mud and mosquitoes and wait. After grumbling about their fate, some of them found temporary accommodations, while others camped on the outskirts of the city.
There was nothing much to do but take in the sights. Some of the Argonauts explored the ruins of the old fortifications out in the bay, wandered through the cathedral, walked around the dry fountains and plazas overgrown with grass and tried to conjure up what it must have been like in the early Spanish days.
Others were laid low with dysentery and diarrhea. Many tired of the boredom and got drunk. Bad food and the dreaded "Panama Fever," brought on by inappropriate behavior in the tropics, took a heavy toll on the Argonauts. Tempers flared among the survivors and frequent fights were settled with a Bowie knife or pistol.
All the while, a steady stream of Argonauts arrived in the city from Chagres day after day. Later arrivals brought Cholera with them and increasingly had fallen out with their native hosts, who had grown tired of blustering blow-hards waving pistols in their faces threatening them and not paying for food. Many of the later arrivals were dumped at Gorgona before reaching Cruces as the rumors of Cholera spread down the river from bongo to bongo: "Cruces . . . mucha colera!"
When the California steamed into Panama Bay on January 17, 1849, 1500 Argonauts roared in jubilation. Each one clamoring for passage. The Argonauts became enraged as soon as they heard that there were upwards of 100 Peruvians aboard. The offices of Zachrisson, Nelson & Co. were soon mobbed by irate Argonauts demanding that the Peruvians be thrown off the ship and their berths given to Americans. Pistols and knives were drawn to make their point.
Some of the more adventurous Argonauts tried to storm aboard the California by paddling in hired bongos out to the ship, anchored well out into the harbor, but were fended off by officers and crew. It was all too much for Captain Forbes and he passed on command to Captain Marshall, who bravely held to the "first come, first served" policy and refused to throw off the Peruvians, as did William Nelson who also served as U.S. Consul. As the hours passed, the crowds grew uglier almost to the point of mob violence.
Cooler heads prevailed with Governor-to-be Smith and his staff. A public indignation meeting was hastily arranged at the American Hotel. An off-the-cuff authoritative pronouncement by Smith stating that the law prohibited aliens from entering and mining gold on public lands of the United States brought a roar of approval from the crowds.
This did not sit well with Consul Nelsen who doubted the legality of this dictum. A compromise was duly reached. The Peruvians would not be thrown off the ship, but would relinquish their staterooms and move to improvised quarters. The first of the Argonauts to be accepted aboard were those with through tickets. The rest were chosen by lottery, bribery, ticket scalping, and by trickery. Steerage passage went as high as $1,000. The rest of the argonauts were assured by Consul Nelson that the next ship, the Philadelphia, a coal carrying sailing vessel, "would be along soon," and the Oregon and the Panama were surely on their way.
The California steamed off fourteen miles to Taboga Island for a haphazard loading of coal and water and returned to Panama. Carpenters worked frantically over the next few days slinging hammocks and setting up extra bunks wherever possible.
Passengers and baggage were lightered out to the California that was anchored well out into the harbor due to high tides and a shelving beach, and crowded aboard. The California steamed out of Panama Bay on January 31, 1949, with 375 passengers, one stowaway, and 75 officers and crew, bound for San Francisco and El Dorado.
By all descriptions, it swiftly turned into a voyage from hell for those passengers of more refined sensibilities. The large numbers of passengers quickly exhausted the food supply and the California was forced to put in to Acapulco, San Blas, and Mazatlan on their way up the Mexican coast to take on more provisions.
Finding the tropics of Panama disagreeable to his failing health, Captain Forbes stayed aboard the vessel after relinquishing command to Captain Marshall and soon found himself in conflict with Marshall over the chaos on board concerning the conduct of unruly passengers and the provisions. In his journal, Forbes duly recorded the scene on board:
Ship filled to cramnation with passengers & stores & everyone looking out for himself with particular aptness. . . we have many on board of very high standing both in cabin & steerage, but we also have many of the scum of creation, black legs, gamblers, thieves, runners & Drunkards, and if we make the trip up without difficulty & great loss to the ship by their acts of pilfering & waste, I will be much surprised. . . . It is heart rendering to see them abuse the furniture. Handsome cushions & mattresses are brought on deck and laid on the wet & coal dust and are spit upon & trodden on by those one might expect the worse conduct from, but all seem to be bound to California with the idea that low conduct & uncouth deportment is necessary to make them appear of importance. . . . Every one looks out for himself at the table & the grab game is practiced at every meal.
Even the Rev Devines [sic] are very apt in the great profession. In one instance one of these worthy gentlemen while saying grace was hauling a dish of green peas towards his plate and in conclusion emptied the whole on his plate & sought for other requisites with a most hungry & wild countenance & devoured his meal as if his life depended upon it.
I am heartily sick & tired of this life of vulgar deportment & if the present is a sample of Passengers in general bound to California, I would not command this ship for $10,000 a year, for one cannot handle pitch without soiling his hands.
The chaos brought on by the gold fever was affecting the crew as well who increasingly made no secret of their intention of deserting for the gold fields as soon as the ship made port. At Mazatlan, the Mexican authorities were brought aboard to put down a minor mutiny. Several hundred gold-seekers that had trekked across Mexico to Mazatlan were refused passage as the California steamed away on its hellish voyage to El Dorado.
The coal supply loaded at Tobaga Island proved to be inadequate and the California crew was forced to burn extra spars, deck fittings, and cabin transoms to keep the steam engine going.
The California limped into a foggy Monterey Harbor on February 23, 1849, seven weeks overdue and out of fuel. A national salute was fired from the presidio on shore. Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman and a couple of his friends had two soldiers row them out to the California, where they were bombarded with questions by the anxious argonauts who were greatly relieved to learn that there was still plenty of gold left to be found.
Of immediate concern to the California crew, was the fuel situation. There was no coal to be had anywhere in California and no one who would chop wood for less than an ounce of gold a day. Somehow, 30 cords of pine-wood came aboard the California, as did 100 bags of coal that were discovered in a storeroom. Enough coal for the California to steam on to San Francisco.
On 28 February 1849, the California, 144 days out of New York, entered the Golden Gate to a 21-gun salute from each of the six U.S. Navy ships of the Pacific Naval Squadron under the command of Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones. She was the first steamship to enter and anchor in San Francisco Bay. Seventy-six days were spent at sea and 58 days spent in ports along the 14,000-mile journey around the Horn. Jubilant San Franciscans exchanged cheers with those aboard the California.
The eager gold-seekers swiftly departed the vessel; anxious to get to the gold fields. The officers and crew quickly followed, including Captain Marshall. The only people left aboard the vessel the next day were one of the engine-room boys who had been in the brig and Captain Forbes. The California remained stranded in San Francisco for a time. The ship couldn't have left even with a crew, for there was no coal to be had in San Francisco until the arrival of a collier from England.
With a new crew, Captain Forbes, again in command, steamed back to Panama later in the spring and was relieved of command there, crossed the Isthmus, and returned to New York.
Meanwhile, the gold-seeking forty-niners stranded back at Panama City grew more desperate by the day. The Panama, that followed the California into service, was felled by engine trouble on her maiden voyage and had to return to the East River wharf in New York City for repairs. The Oregon thus became the second of Howland & Aspinwall's steamships to sail around the Horn and steamed into Panama Bay on February 23, 1849. Soon,1,200 gold-seekers clamored to get on board. Only 250 of them could be taken to San Francisco.
The Panama finally rounded the Horn with 81 gold-seekers and reached Panama Bay on May 18, 1849, and met the steadily growing mob of 2,000 stranded forty-niners. Only 209 were allowed aboard for the final journey to San Francisco.
All three Howland & Aspinwall steamers made regular runs back and forth from Panama to the gold fields from that point on, but the human flood across the Isthmus was just too much for them to handle. Colliers, brigs, whalers, and schooners were pressed into service by desperate forty-niners willing to pay any price to get to El Dorado. Some even tried to sail to San Francisco in bongo dugout sailing canoes, but there is no record of them ever completing the voyage.
The Pacific Mail eventually bought and chartered additional steamships to meet the growing demand. The Unicorn, Tennessee, Carolina, Columbia, Frémont, and the Golden Gate were added to Howland & Aspinwall's fleet. Steady improvements were made in service. Great efforts were made to make the steamer runs as punctual as possible.
The Isthmus route became known as the white-collar route to El Dorado.
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