In 1855, only 42 clippers slid down the ways at Atlantic shipyards and all of them were of the medium clipper variety. Freight rates continued to plunge. An ominous quiet loomed along the waterfront and the smell of fresh sawdust no longer filled the air as shipyards along the East River had little work and began to lay off workers in great numbers.

A major contributing factor to the economic decline in traffic around the Horn was the completion of the Panama Railroad in late January, 1855, which now made it possible to ship goods to California in three weeks time. This astounding feat of engineering was accomplished after many years of toil and a work force of thousands under the guidance of none other than William Henry Aspinwall whose farsighted vision had spurred on the era of the clipper ships with the building of the Rainbow and the Sea Witch.

Aspinwall had earlier secured the lucrative mail contract for the Panama-Oregon run in 1847 for his Pacific Mail and Steamship Company. He saw to the construction of three wooden-hulled, paddle-wheel steamers; the California, Panama, and the Oregon, as well as others.

Despite all the gloomy predictions over such a move at that time, Aspinwall had gone ahead with this vision and had established coaling stations, repair yards, and other facilities all along the route around Cape Horn. His steamship line had achieved financial success with the advent of the California Gold Rush.

Even though Aspinwall had lost the much more lucrative New York to Charges run to George "Live Oak" Law, no one was laughing at William Henry Aspinwall anymore after the discovery of gold. The idea of a railroad across the Isthmus that had been in Aspinwall's mind all along began to take hold with the rest of the New York financial community.

The hostility that the owners of the Pacific Mail and the United States Mail steamship companies felt toward each other flared again in 1849. Aspinwall and the other Pacific Mail Steamship Company owners became increasingly dissatisfied with the low quality of service that their rivals were offering over the Atlantic route. At the time, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was booming and becoming very profitable, even the West-to-East traffic, and new steamships were needed on the West Coast.

The United States Mail Steamships were of inferior quality and had earned a reputation as rollers as to the primitive manner in which they were constructed. Also, their arrival times at Chagres did not mesh very well with the departure times of the Pacific mail steamers at Panama, thus marring the carefully cultivated reputation of Pacific Mail on the West Coast.

For this reason, Aspinwall deemed it expedient to establish his own line on the East Coast in order to service his Pacific Mail travelers, and turned again to William H. Webb for some new steamships.

With Webb's help, Aspinwall was immediately able to purchase the Cherokee and Tennessee from the New York & Savannah Steam Navigation Company, both Webb-built steamships, that were built around the same time as the California and Panama.

The Tennessee was sent around the Horn to join the Pacific Mail fleet. The Cherokee began service on the Atlantic side offering competing service on the New York to Chagres run, along with another chartered steamboat Philadelphia.

After realizing a handsome profit, Mitchill ordered two more even larger steamships from William Webb, the Alabama and Florida.

George Law was having problems with the continued operation of his United States Mail Company. At the time, the only company steamship covering the route was the Falcon, and Law was forced to rely on chartered steamers from time to time.

Two steamships were on order and the Ohio did not arrive from her builders until September 20, 1849, and the Georgia arrived in January 1850. Both steamships proved to be very unsatisfactory and the service provided between New York, New Orleans, Havana, and Chagres proved to be somewhat erratic.

At this same time, the United States Mail Steamship Company began to compete on the Pacific Coast with Pacific Mail with their own "Law Line," inferior steamers and lower fares which appealed to the unsavory sort of passengers that were flocking to California at that time. Pacific Mail continued to carry the more discriminating passenger trade.

As the trade became more lucrative, two more competitors entered the scene around this time. One was Charles Morgan who expanded the operations of his Empire City Line to include two recently built chartered steamships, Empire City and Crescent City, both built by William H. Brown, on the New York to Chagres run. On the West Coast he had chartered two lesser steamships for the Panama to San Francisco run.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Then there was Cornelius Vanderbilt who in his robber baron style decided that he wanted a route between New York and San Francisco for himself. The railroad route across Panama was already taken so Vanderbilt looked farther north and found what he was looking for in Nicaragua. It was a longer overland route, but it was 400 miles closer to the United States and the land was easier traveled.

The journey from the Atlantic side could begin with a sternwheeler cruise up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. From there, a railroad could be built to the Pacific port of San Juan del Sur. Vanderbilt was able to secure the necessary permits from the Nicaraguan government and soon the Accessory Transit Company was formed with Vanderbilt the major stockholder.

The company began limited operations in late 1850, even though facilities were lacking. For the time being, Vanderbilt offered up only a chartered steamer to Chagres where passengers continued on with their journey across Panama from there and boarded steamships from the two competing lines to San Francisco.

Before going after their competitors, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company increased its capital stock from $500,000 to $2,000,000. Much of this amount was subscribed by Aspinwall's business associates, including William Webb, and the Pacific Mail stock never went on the market. The first shrewd move that Pacific Mail made was to purchase all of the steamships chartered by the Empire City Line and put them out of business. Pacific Mail then sent the acquired steamships back around the Horn to compete with George Law on the New Orleans to Chagres run.

Aspinwall then went on to order two more steamships. The contract for the Golden Gate went to William Webb, and once built, was said to be the largest and finest steamship built up to that date.

This steamer, intended for the New York to Chagres run, was 265 feet long and had accommodations for 800 passengers with 300 in cabin and 500 in steerage. Morgan Iron Works supplied the two oscillating engines and the Golden Gate was said to be the fastest steamship in coastal waters. The other Steamship that Aspinwall ordered was the Lousiana that was built at the Smith and Dimon yard.

With boldness, Aspinwall had taken the initiative and had already sent a team of engineers to Panama in 1847. John L. Stephens headed the team, along with Henry Chauncey and engineer James L. Baldwin, to survey a route across the Isthmus, a most challenging task.

The party had charted a route along the valleys of the Chagres and Obispo rivers to a 300 foot pass they had found at the continental divide and from there on down the Rio Grande Valley to Panama on the Pacific.

Stephens then traveled to Bogota, the capital of New Grenada, and secured a charter in 1850 to build and operate the railroad. A treaty had already been negotiated the year before that gave the United States free and interrupted access across the Isthmus in return for the recognition of New Grenadian sovereignty over the area.

There had already been an unsuccessful French attempt to build a railroad across the Isthmus in 1838. The French had lost the contract by default when they failed to raise the necessary funds.

There were a number of provisions in the new charter granted on April 15, 1850 to the Panama Railroad Company. Among the provisions, they would have eight years to complete the road.

Panama would be the Pacific terminal, and Manzanillo Island would be the selected site for the Atlantic terminal. New Grenada was to receive 3 percent of all stockholder dividends. The company was to put up a $120,000 construction bond that they would get back with the first dividend or forfeit if the road was not completed within eight years.

No competing canal, railroad, or highway could be built without the consent of the directors and the contract was to run for forty-nine years.

The obstacles that Aspinwall faced with the building of such a railroad were formidable, the worst being the vast areas of mangrove swamps opposite Manzanillo Island, the site of the Atlantic terminal. The board of directors could not have picked a worse site, but they were forced to make their selection because George Law was determined to have a piece of the pie.

He had sent his agent, "Colonel" Albert Zwingle, down to Chagres with a large sum of money to buy or take land options on all the coastal property between Porto Bello and Navy Bay that could be used as possible terminal sites, in an attempt to bully his way on to the Panama Railroad Company board and obtain stock in the company.

Aspinwall and the board of directors resisted this strong-armed attempt and after going over old maps of the area they discovered Manzanillo Island. After a discussion, they decided that they had little choice in the matter other than to locate the terminal there on a coral-ringed 650-acre mangrove swamp surrounded by seaweed that almost disappeared at high tide. A determined effort was made to build up the island and a causeway was constructed to the mainland. Manzanillo Island was renamed "Aspinwall." Of this place H. H. Bancroft wrote:

Searching for the specialty in which Aspinwall excelled, we found it in her carrion birds, which cannot be surpassed in size or smell. Manzanillo Island may boast of the finest vultures on the planet. Originally a swamp, the foundations of the buildings were below the level of the ocean, and dry land was made by filling in as occasion required. The result in this soft soil made of filth and vegetable putridity may be imagined. The very ground on which one trod was pregnant with disease. . . . Glued furniture falls to pieces; leather molds, and iron oxidizes in twenty-four hours.

The condemned steamer Telegraph was purchased at Chagres and brought over to Aspinwall to use for worker accommodations. Frame houses were sent down from New York and erected with all due haste as breaks in the rainy season permitted. Disease and sickness took a heavy toll on the men.

Eventually, a frame storehouse was completed at Aspinwall with a second gang of carpenters after the first gang had run off to the California gold fields. They could not have picked a worse place to begin a railroad, as the swampy land that they initially had to traverse was a bottomless sea of mud. It swallowed up the thousands of tons of rocks that were dumped along the surveyed roadbed only to spread out along the bottom 180 feet down below the mud

By March 1851, the tracks stretched out only two miles from the terminal to Monkey Hill, a small ridge of solid ground appropriately named after the hordes of chattering monkeys that inhabited the place. From there, Baldwin, the construction engineer, established a camp.

From that point, Baldwin faced a three-mile stretch of bottomless quicksand swamp over which he had to lay a roadbed. The solution that he came up with was to couple a string of flat cars together and sink them beneath the sand, thus providing a floating foundation of sorts and a "bridge" across the quicksand. This certainly turned out to be a most ingenious engineering solution to such a problem.

Then there were the numerous mosquitoes, sand flies, cougars, and alligators. The stifling heat and sickness took a heavy toll on the labor force, mostly from the West Indies and Cartagena, of which there was a constant turnover, with new boatloads of workers arriving every week. Upon receiving their first week's pay, the workers who had not been laid low with fever or disappeared into the quicksand muck, would take off for "Yankee Chagres," opposite "native Chagres," and spend all their money in the saloons and brothels.

Aspinwall now had to worry about that old robber baron, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had intentions on building a competing railroad across Nicaragua, which was three hundred miles closer to California. Vanderbilt was already running steamers up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and from there sending on traffic over an improvised overland road to Realjo on the Pacific coast in his initial effort to capture a monopoly on the California traffic.

Vanderbilt even sent his agents to Chagres to try to entice railroad workers away from that project with the lure of higher wages. This added to the difficulties and delays that Aspinwall's engineers, George Totten and John Trautwine, were encountering.

By November 1851, the Panama Railroad Company was faced with a bleak financial situation as construction costs soared and funds, supplies, and equipment were running low and financial disaster loomed. Board meetings turned into gloomy affairs. Aspinwall had to dip into his personal fortune to keep the project going for a time. Trautwine resigned and left for the United States.

A lucky moment came a few weeks after Trautwine's departure with the arrival of two of George Law's United States Mail Steamship Company steamers at Chagres in the middle of a bad storm with over one thousand passengers aboard. Several passengers tried to row ashore and were drowned. The steamers then steamed on to safe anchorage in Navy Bay to wait out the storm.

After the storm had passed, the steamers prepared to return to Chagres when passengers aboard heard the sound of a train whistle coming from a work train at nearby Manzanillo Island as the train was chugging across the causeway to the mainland. Many of the passengers demanded to be put ashore and a delegation sought out Totten to inquire as to the possibilities to ride the railroad out to the end of the line, a mere eight miles, and proceed with their overland journey from there.

Totten then huddled with his assistants and came up with some totally outrageous terms. That he would take on the passengers at the rate of fifty cents a mile and three dollars for each pound of baggage. All 1,100 of the passengers went for it to Totten's amazement and filled his hat with bills and soon clambered aboard the flat cars with their baggage. $7,000 in cash was collected by the end of the day.

When news of this amazing story reached New York, there was a dramatic rise in Panama Railroad Company shares. Both Aspinwall and Law came to the realization that it would now be to their mutual interests and the interests of their stockholders to come to a business agreement and save their respective companies a lot of money. The two signed a settlement agreeing to divide up the routes as they had originally been at the beginning.

The Pacific Mail would take over all the United States Mail's Pacific routes and steamships and the United States Mail would take over all the Pacific Mail's Atlantic routes and steamships. The two would then try to mesh their schedules.

The steamships that the Pacific Mail took over in the Pacific were not of the same quality as Pacific Mail's steamers so Aspinwall put them on the subsidiary runs to Oregon and Mexico. Pacific Mail retained the Golden Gate and Aspinwall sent her around he Horn to join the Pacific Mail fleet. The Louisiana was sold to Law and her name was changed to the Illinois and she took up service on the New York to Chagres run.

Law went on to place an order for a new steamship with William Webb that was to be named the George Law to be delivered in 1853.

George Law's steamers from that point on ran directly from New York, Havana, and New Orleans to Manzanillo Island. Law purchased a large chunk of Panama Railroad stock, took a seat as a member of the railroad's board, and broke off his negotiations with Vanderbilt.

Law traveled down to Manzanillo for a look at the situation and initiated the construction of wharves and a large warehouse at the terminal. The Panama Railroad was a public carrier from that point on. Railroad directors shipped passenger coaches to Totten and soon they were transporting passengers and baggage to the railhead that was constantly being extended further toward the Pacific. There was no longer any question that the railroad would be completed much to the relief of William Aspinwall, who then took the opportunity to slip off for a vacation to England with his wife, Anna, and then on to the Continent.

More formidable problems would have to be overcome before completion of the railroad. A cholera epidemic took a heavy toll in 1852 where Baldwin's entire engineering staff of fifty-one died except for him.

A whole new engineering staff had to be sent down. Then there was the matter of building a bridge to cross the three hundred feet wide Chagres River to be crossed in the middle of the Isthmus at Barbacoas.

In their rush to push on, the directors opted for a wooden trestle. Totten did not think much of that idea and was opting instead for an iron trestle of much greater expanse and expense.

Around that time, John Stephens, the current president of the company who was leaning toward Totten's position, died of cholera. The new president, William C. Young, appointed Minor C. Story as the new chief engineer acceding to George Law's wishes, and Totten was appointed as operating superintendent of the railroad.

Upon seeing the wooden structure that was being built across the river under Story's supervision, Totten predicted disaster saying, "It cannot possibly survive a ten-foot rise."

When the first floods came to the Chagres, the trestle collapsed and was washed away. Story resigned and left for home. David Hoadley replaced President Young and Totten got his old job back. With a new labor force, Totten built a 625 feet long iron Barbacoas Bridge across the Chagres and in November 1853 during a flood the first locomotive went out across the bridge and reached the other side.

Delays continued to slow things down, and from Gorona, a range of broken hills still barred the way to Matuchin. The company decided to flood the project with laborers, regardless of the high toll taken by tropical diseases. A flood of nationalities soon followed, the first being the 360 Irish arrived in January 1854.

On the morning of March 30, 1854, the Sea Witch arrived at the Panama City Harbor, soon to be followed by two other sailing ships of Howland & Aspinwall's fleet, all of them transporting coolies. They had been brought over to work on the railroad.

Some of the Panama City sea wall strollers rowed out to get a closer look at the venerable old Sea Witch, only to be disappointed following a closer inspection.

The Sea Witch, still under the command of Captain Fraser, had lost much of her earlier grandeur as had many of the early clippers, and was now a foul-smelling unkempt ship, a far cry from her early days of glory. After putting the coolies ashore, the Sea Witch sailed on down the coast of South America to Coquimbo for another cargo to haul around the Horn to New York.

The moralistic directors of the Panama Railroad Company decided to ban the supply of opium. Many of the coolies, deprived of their opium, committed suicide at Matachin.

Accidents, malaria, and cholera also took a heavy toll on life. Then there were the native bandits, the Derienni, who robbed the pack trains of their sacks of California gold and ran off to the hills.

The Panama Railroad Company sought help from Wells, Fargo & Company and a private police force was organized and led by an ex-Texas Ranger, Randolph Runnels. He wasted little time identifying the ringleaders and hanged them in a public square, and the trouble ceased. By the end of 1854, the railroad line neared completion.

The first coast-to-coast train made the run from Aspinwall to Panama City on Sunday, January 28, 1855, with Alexander Center, the vice-president of the railroad, along with George Totten aboard, who waved to the crowds all along the route. With a salute from the whistle, the Norris-built locomotive entered Panama City that afternoon at half past three.

The railroad had taken five years to build at a cost of eight million dollars and six thousand lives, but at last it was finished. The event was hailed by the Panama Star & Herald as "the ultimate triumph of Yankee enterprise."

The Panama Railroad Company directors sailed down from New York on the United States Mail Steamship George Law along with their invited guests and arrived on February 15th at Aspinwall, the day that the celebration was to take place.

A special train of nine passenger coaches was adorned with flags for the occasion that would pass through floral arches at all the stations along the route. The company directors and their guests boarded the train and proceeded along their journey waving to all the crowds that had gathered along the way. As the train passed through Gatun, the guests encountered a sign that read "The problem is solved, success ever attends an enterprising people."

A brass band greeted the train at Panama City followed by speeches. The steam launch Columbus then took the party for a ride out to Taboga Island and there was a reception aboard the British steamer Bolivia.

The party then visited the Pacific Mail steamer John L. Stephens. Totten hosted a banquet that night at Aspinwall House. A day of rest followed the festivities, and the next day the party boarded the train and left Panama City, returning as far as Bohio Soldado, where they spent a pleasant afternoon picnicking along the banks of the Chagres River and spent the evening aboard the train at that station. They rode back to Aspinwall the following morning and soon the party departed for New York.

William Aspinwall, for reasons unexplained, had not accompanied the party down from New York aboard the George Law for the opening ceremonies. Aspinwall arrived at Chagres a short time later for an inspection of the facilities and the railroad and to discuss business and maintenance affairs in great detail with Chauncey, Center, and Totten.

Feeling satisfied with the progress of the enterprise and greatly relieved that revenues were at last pouring in, Aspinwall boarded the John L. Stephens along with Chauncey for the passage to San Francisco to visit for his first and only time that city along with all the Pacific Mail's installations.

After a tour of the city, the two men visited the terminus at Benecia along with the one at Sacramento. The two men left San Francisco on April 17th aboard the Golden Age, the fastest steamer of the Pacific Mail fleet.

Mrs. William Tecumseh Sherman was also a passenger on board en route to the East Coast. Aspinwall promised Lieutenant Sherman that the lieutenant's wife's personel comfort and safety would be looked after by Aspinwall himself.

The Golden Age struck a rock when just a day's run from Panama and began taking on water. Aspinwall quickly decided to order the ship run aground on Quicara Island and no lives were lost. The John L. Stephens came by two days later and picked up the passengers and took them on to Panama City.

Aspinwall paid a call to Taboga Island and made a more thorough inspection of the Pacific Mail facilities before returning to Aspinwall. By that time, he was well satisfied that the business was organized and running on a sound basis and William Henry Aspinwall returned to New York knowing that the enterprise he was leaving behind for the last time would be a resounding success.

The commerce of the ever expanding United States between, east and west, was at last linked up with the completion of the Panama Railroad across the Isthmus and William Henry Aspinwall was universally recognized as the major figure who made it all happen. Though his partners must also get some of the credit along with the engineers, surveyors, and construction chiefs who had overcome great odds and hardships and persevered to bring it all to fruition.

The firm of Howland & Aspinwall went on to reap handsome profits and earned their place as the foremost mercantile firm in New York, a position that they would hold for some years to come. From that point on, fewer clipper ships would make the run around the Horn to San Francisco.

For the next four years, from 1855 to 1859, The Pacific Mail Company would fulfill all their lucrative contract obligations required of it in the transportation of United States mail from Panama to the West Coast. But the ten year contract would expire in September 1859, and the old robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt who, after being run out of Nicaragua for getting too involved in Central American politics, had steamship lines operating on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides by that time. He also had influential friends in Washington and was bound to make a grab for both mail contracts. Of this Aspinwall was certain.

Over the years, mismanagement, accidents, and poor maintenance problems had plagued the operations of the United States Mail steamships in the Atlantic and the word was out that the government was not going to renew the mail contract. The tragic loss of the San Francisco, a Webb built steamship for the United States Mail Line, in an 1853 hurricane off the Carolinas, had made a profound impression on the American public. This anguish was undoubtedly spurred on after the losses of the Collins Line steamships Arctic and Pacific.

The Arctic with many passengers aboard, having sailed from Liverpool, was lost while steaming through the fog fifty miles off the Newfoundland coast in September 1854, when she collided with the French steamship Vesta.

Both steamers made for St. Johns and the Arctic rapidly began to take on water and within an hour her sinking bow forced her captain to give the order to abandon ship. The Arctic went down very fast and heavy seas hampered the abandon-ship operations. There was great loss of life including the loss of the wife of the line's owner, Edward Collins, and two of his children. Three hundred and twenty-two passengers died. Passing ships saved 48 passengers and crew. Horrendous tales of lifeboats filled with women and children smashing up against the side of the ship in the heavy seas filled the newspapers.

The Pacific sailed from Liverpool on June 29, 1856 on her regularly scheduled run to New York. She disappeared never to be seen again. It was presumed that she struck an iceberg and sank taking her passengers and crew down with her. There were no survivors to tell the tale.

With the completion of the Panama Railroad, California was but three weeks away from New York for everyone anxious to get out there. The shipments of gold from El Dorado could reach the South Street waterfront in an equal amount of time thanks to the steamships and they continued to make their scheduled runs with increasing frequency. The Pacific Mail Line and the United States Mail Line sent steamships from San Francisco and New York to the Isthmus every two weeks.

The SS Sonoma was a Pacific Mail Line sidewheel steamer that sailed from the Golden Gate to Panama City on August 20, 1857. Aboard were 500 passengers, many of them returning home from the gold fields for the first time. Many of the passengers were carrying their fortunes of gold back with them. A consigned shipment of close to three tons of gold said to be worth $1,595,497.13 had come aboard for the voyage.

Fourteen days later, the Sonoma arrived at Pamama City, where her passengers and precious cargo boarded the Panama Railroad cars for the 48-mile journey to Aspinwall, where the Atlantic steamer SS Central America, (Originally the George Law) awaited them.

From Aspinwall, the SS Central America embarked for Havana for an overnight stop before proceeding on for the continuation of the voyage to New York. The SS Central American, however, never reached that port. For she tragically went down on September 3, 1857 off the coast of North Carolina in heavy seas during a ferocious hurricane with 593 passengers and $1,590,000 in gold specie aboard. Four hundred and twenty passengers lost their lives.

[ * ECS - There is an outstanding account of this disaster in the book: Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kindler. ]

With these tragic losses at sea the government, spurred on by the citizenry, began to question the wisdom of supporting American steamship lines with subsidies.

Early in 1854, Vanderbilt started up his new steamship lines on both coasts. By 1859, without the renewal of the lucrative mail contract, the United States Line was sure to go out of business and that would leave Vanderbilt with the only operating steamship line in the Atlantic.

Aspinwall moved swiftly in early 1859 to form the North Atlantic Steamship Company with interests from the Panama Railroad. The Pacific Mail steamers and a fleet of recently idled steamships were drafted into immediate service including the Atlantic, Baltic, and Adriatic from the Collins Line that had been laid up when the Collins Line's mail contract for the Atlantic run was not renewed. One of the major stockholders in this newly formed North Atlantic Steamship Company was William Webb.

Much mystery and confusion surrounded the granting of the Atlantic and Pacific route mail contracts that had expired in September 1859. Both lucrative contracts for unexplained reasons were awarded to Daniel H. Johnson, an unknown man at that time in shipping circles.

He in turn in a few days sold the contracts to Vanderbilt. United States mail quickly ceased operations and went out of business with many of the officers joining Vanderbilt's fleet. The whole series of events no doubt orchestrated behind the scenes by Vanderbilt.

Aspinwall decided, however, that with the superior service that Pacific Mail and North American Steamship offered, along with the Panama Railroad which had the contract to carry the mail across the Isthmus, that they could still reap reasonable profits from their steamship operations.

However, a bitter rate war soon followed in the fall of 1859 and all parties then began to lose money. Vanderbilt made an offer to buy Pacific Mail for $2,000,000 Which Aspinwall and his colleagues rejected because Vanderbilt also wanted a guarantee that the directors of Pacific Mail would quit the California steamship business for good.

Finally, an agreement was reached in February 1860 that divided up the ocean routes that gave Vanderbilt the Atlantic New York-to-Aspinwall route and the North Atlantic Steamship Company ceased operations and their fleet was placed in lay-up again.

The Pacific route would remain with Pacific Mail and this company went on to purchase Vanderbilt's Pacific fleet. It was agreed that Vanderbilt would hold on to both mail contracts but would pay Pacific Mail to carry all the West Coast mail. Vanderbilt would also become a major Pacific Mail stockholder from that point on.

The struggle for control of the lucrative east-west cross-Isthmus American trade would go on amongst the powerful shipping moguls and robber barons for most of the next decade. Until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, and from that point on the cross-Isthmus route would become less significant in profitability and importance.

Next: The Wreck of the Sea Witch

The Era of the Clipper Ships
Bibliography / Sea Witch / Directory / Maritime Links
Home / McKay Clan / Ship's Store / Introduction / Tradewinds