Pioneer Profiles – July 2020
During the 1850s, California and the Oregon Territory seemed like the “promised land” to individuals in the eastern half of the United States dreaming of riches, adventure, or better lives. But first they had to get here. There were basically two routes—by land and by sea. Those who set out from Missouri for the 2,000-mile trek across plains, mountains, and deserts were mostly farmers and mechanics accustomed to handling wagons and livestock and living with the frontier. In April we described their experience of overland travel. This month we’re sharing the experiences of those who traveled by sea.
The overland passage via the California and Oregon Trails was not viable in winter. The alternatives were a voyage around Cape Horn or a Central American crossing. These routes also could be faster.
Most sea travelers were not settlers bringing remnants of their previous lives and goods needed to start new ones. They were largely East Coast city men, described by John W. Caughey, the “dean of California historians,” as “editors, ministers, traders, the briefless lawyer, starving student, the quack, the idler, the harlot, the gambler, the hen-pecked husband, the disgraced…” A brief nod was also given to “many enterprising honest men and devoted wives.”
For those choosing to sail around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, the length and distance of the voyage was an unknown—it could be 14,000 miles and three months; it could be 19,000 miles and six-months or more. Some ships rounding the Horn had to go as far as the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) to find the wind current needed to get them to California. If weather conditions were unfavorable, this voyage could take as long as eight months.
With tremendous profits to be made transporting people to California, entrepreneurs converted all kinds of vessels into charter ships. Tiers of narrow bunks were installed in cargo space, ships were jammed with passengers, and unsanitary conditions prevailed. On a typical converted cargo ship, 30 cabin berths could be sold at $350 each; 70 below-deck bunks could be sold at $250 each. There was little free space and during foul weather passengers had no choice but to return to their bunks. But the total charter could gross $30,000, three times normal.
The waters around Cape Horn are particularly hazardous, owing to strong winds, large waves, strong currents, and icebergs. The crossing meant rough storms, sea sickness, and lack of fresh water, fruits, and vegetables. Passengers inevitably suffered with scurvy from an insufficient variety in their diet. Many stories are told of hazardous journeys around the Horn, describing fierce storms, and loss of life. Charles Darwin wrote: “One sight of such a coast is enough to make a landsman dream for a week about shipwrecks, peril and death.”
Other travelers failed to account for the reversal of the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere and described extremes of temperature and suffering from bitter wind and cold as the ships rounded Cape Horn in July or August. Still others described days of fatigue and boredom, “confined for near seven months on board a small vessel, with little chance for exercise and no manual labor” to harden them for the quest ahead.
Once arriving in San Francisco, many crews took off for the gold fields since they had only signed on for access. Hundreds of ships were abandoned in San Francisco’s harbor. Some were converted to stores and hotels. Others eventually became part of San Francisco’s landfill and now provide underpinnings for high-rise buildings.
Amalia Grob is one who made the trip around Cape Horn. At the time she was a recent widow with a seven-year-old son. She had been the childhood sweetheart of Peter Britt in their native Switzerland, but her father refused to allow her to marry an itinerant portrait painter. The Britt family immigrated to Illinois in 1845. Amalia later married a distant cousin and immigrated with her husband and infant son to Wisconsin in 1854.
In 1861, when Britt learned of the death of Amalia’s husband, he was becoming a successful Jacksonville entrepreneur, photographer, orchardist, and horticulturist. He sent money for Amalia to return to her family in Switzerland or to join him in Jacksonville. She chose Oregon and Britt. With her young son Jake, Amalia made the arduous journey down the Mississippi to New Orleans, around Cape Horn to San Francisco, by steamer to Crescent City, and finally by stage to the Applegate stop. Britt met her there, and they were married at the home of a fellow Swiss emigre.
Those individuals in a hurry to reach California or Oregon—either in search of gold or to find relatives preceding them—chose a Central American crossing, potentially shaving 8,000 miles and several months off the trip. The Panama isthmus became the favored crossing point. It was the cheaper route, but it also involved a 60 to 70-mile dangerous trek on foot, or an up-river trip by open canoe, often in driving rains, followed by a mule-back slog through dense jungle. Many forty-niners who chose this route died from poisonous snakes, malaria, yellow fever, or cholera before reaching Panama City. Survivors making their journey across the Isthmus in four weeks might then wait months for ship passage to San Francisco.
Cornelius Beekman, a young New Yorker seeking gold, chose the Panama route, taking passage in 1852 on a sailing ship to Colon by way of Havana. He was one of the 400 plus traveling in steerage, “huddled together like so many hogs.” He successfully crossed the isthmus to Panama City, only to find “several thousand men, most of whom had paid for through transportation to San Francisco, anxiously and impatiently waiting for steamer accommodation.”
Beekman had paid for transportation only as far as Panama City. When he learned that a British bark was in the harbor, he hired natives to row him to the vessel and made a desperate appeal to the captain. He eventually secured the last passage to San Francisco the captain agreed to sell. When Beekman returned to shore, he could have easily hawked his ticket for a $500 profit but declined to do so.
So Beekman set sail. However, the vessel was becalmed on the way and seven weeks elapsed before he arrived at San Francisco, eager and fearless, but with just enough money for a day’s board and lodging.
Beekman employed his skills as a carpenter, mined for gold, came to Jacksonville in 1853 as an “express rider,” established the first financial institution in the Pacific Northwest, invested in multiple enterprises, and eventually became Jacksonville’s most prominent and wealthiest pioneer
Mary McGhee arrived in Oregon in 1854, also by way of the Isthmus of Panama. She was traveling with her mother and brother to join her father, a minister who had come west in 1851 and filed a donation land claim in the Rogue Valley. Although only a child of 12 at the time, Mary vividly recalled the hardships connected with the trip.
They were “compelled to voyage up the Chagres River in open boats for a day and a night with absolutely no shelter from the driving rain, which fell continuously. The remainder of the distance was made on muleback.” As a result of this exposure Mary’s mother died and was buried at sea on the voyage between the Isthmus and San Francisco. The ship’s supply of drinking water had also turned bad, and for three days the emigrants suffered severely from thirst.
Mary eventually reunited with her father, became a teacher, and married Silas Day, the Jackson County Judge (today’s Commissioner) who initiated the construction of the historic Jackson County courthouse, laid out the Southern Oregon Wagon Road, and founded the Jackson County chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows.
Despite all the challenges of the Cape Horn and Panama routes, as many as 25,000 persons made the sea journey to California in the immediate aftermath of the gold discovery—about as many as lived in the whole territory before 1848. For years, until the coming of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, sea travel remained the route for mail, East Coast supplies, purchases, and cargo.