When shown the accompanying photographs and asked to identify the scene, I failed to recognize Telegraph Hill in its natural state, and for the moment was nonplussed.
Then inspired by the recollection in two wars of “hurry and get the boys home” and “stop everything where it is to save money,” I ventured to ask if it were the United States Navy laid up immediately after the Civil War.
It was a wild guess, as the scene is San Francisco Harbor one hundred years ago, when cluttered with abandoned merchantmen whose entire crews had decamped for the gold diggings. Many of us have heard stories of ships arriving at San Francisco during the gold rush and being deserted by everyone from captain to cabin boy before their ladings could be started, but never did I imagine any such number of deserted ships as are shown in the accompanying photographs.
In January, 1848, gold in quantity was found in the raceway of Sutter’s sawmill located on the south branch of the American River where the town of Coloma now stands. This discovery took place only a few days before Mexico formally ceded California to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby inadvertently divesting itself of territory which produced several hundred million dollars worth of the yellow metal during the next few years.
News of the find traveled slowly and it was not until the following August that it appeared in the New York Herald, the first eastern newspaper to carry the information. The public was not inclined to place much credence in stories of fabulous wealth being so easily plucked from stream beds, but in a few months there was a change and what was to be the greatest gold rush in history began. The wild scramble which developed beggars description. Adventurers from all over the United States, Mexico, South America, and Europe set out for California.
By New Year’s Day, 1849, thousands of prospectors were at work along the streams flowing into San Francisco Bay, and San Francisco had become a tent city of some 2,000 widely diversified inhabitants.
Clamor for transportation crescendoed. Parties going overland met with such appalling hardships that voyages around Cape Horn, long and disagreeable as they were, were preferable, and newspapers in the East carried columns of advertisements of ships destined for San Francisco. Later the easier passage by way of the Isthmus of Panama was inaugurated and became very popular.
More than 90 ships carrying over 8,000 passengers left the Atlantic Coast for California in January, 1849, and the following month saw some 140 depart for the same destination. Because many slow old ships were pressed into service to take advantage of the extraordinary demand for transportation, the average length of these voyages was five months. Very long passages were not infrequent. The bark Onyx, for example, arrived at San Francisco 335 days out of New York.
Subsequently when the famous clipper ships went into this service, they frequently made the voyage in about three months. On its maiden voyage, and twice thereafter, the Flying Cloud was at sea only 89 days. The clippers capitalized on their speed by charging high rates for passengers and cargoes, often earning enough in one voyage to pay their construction costs.
The Pacific Mail Line was organized to run a shuttle service between Panama and West Coast ports as far north as Oregon. This project was planned before the discovery of gold became known, and three wooden side-wheel steamers were ordered early in 1848. When the first vessel, aptly named California, and the first steamer to ply the Pacific, arrived at San Francisco February 28, 1849, the passengers were amazed to find the Bay crowded with shipping. Passengers and crew lined the rail and made eager inquiries about the prospect of finding gold. The response was so convincing that the California’s crew went over the side along with the passengers, and the ship had to remain in port for weeks before sufficient men could be obtained to make the return voyage to Panama, calls north of San Francisco having been cancelled.
Pacific Mail’s second steamer, the Oregon, arrived on April 1, and finding the California at anchor deserted by its crew, rounded to under the guns of U.S.S. Ohio. The Ohio furnished assistance which permitted the Oregon to retain its crew and depart two weeks later for Panama.
Bayard Taylor, the writer and traveler, who was sent by the New York Tribune to report on conditions in California, stated that when he arrived at San Francisco in mid-August, 1849, he found the harbor filled with deserted ships, several of which had been dragged bows-on onto the muddy waterfront and converted into hotels and warehouses.
Old prints show some of these vessels, one of which was the Niantic Hotel. Top-heavy with a two-story superstructure, this hostelry was well-known in its day. Over its entrance on Clay Street was the quaint sign “Rest for the Weary and Storage for Trunks.”
By August, 1849, there were some 200 crewless square-riggers in port, and by July the following year the number had increased to more than 500. In addition 100 or more seagoing craft had been abandoned in the rivers flowing into San Francisco Bay. The records show that many of the deserted ships remained in port until they fell to pieces at their moorings. In many instances owners in the East sent new captains to California to bring home deserted ships, only to have them succumb to the “gold fever” on arrival and depart for the diggings, leaving the owners to wonder about their ships.
Desertion of seamen was a problem in California before the discovery of gold, the lush new country being attractive to men tired of the hard life at sea in ships of that day. In 1847 during the ad interim occupation, one of California’s first labor legislative acts was an ordinance against desertion by sailors, an award of $50 being allowed for each offender turned in. When the gold rush developed, this law could not be enforced.
Desertions were not confined to the crews of merchant vessels. The redoubtable Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, commander of the squadron of United States vessels in Californian waters, reported to the Secretary of the Navy that the gold rush had demoralized business ashore and had depleted the crews of ships including those under his command.
He said, “When I wrote my last letter, I had no conception of the state of things in upper California. For the present I fear it will be impossible to maintain any naval or military force in California. No hope of reward or fear of punishment is sufficient to make binding any contract between man and man on the soil of California. Among the deserters from my squadron are some of the best petty officers and men having only a few months to serve and a large balance due them, amounting in the aggregate to $10,000.”
On July 25, 1848, Governor Richard B. Mason, the Army officer who organized the first temporary civil government of California in 1847, issued a proclamation calling on all good citizens to assist the authorities in apprehending the numerous deserters from the Army and Navy. We can imagine how much response was made to this appeal by people in the rowdy community of San Francisco. Inflation had taken a firm hold. The smallest coin in use was the fifty cent piece, labor was paid as much as two dollars an hour, boots were $40 a pair, and other prices were in proportion. Violence was rife, and conditions eventually became so bad that law and order had to be enforced by- citizens who organized themselves into vigilantes and summarily hanged several notorious characters.
After a few years the easily secured gold began to peter out. Disillusioned men returned from the mines tired of the mud, turmoil, the discomfort that was commonplace experience, only to find San Francisco inhospitable to those without funds. Attracted by offers of high pay for seamen and the prospect of getting home, men began to return to ships. Vessels securing men often left port manned by only eight or ten hands instead of a normal crew of perhaps forty men, hoping to be able to pick up additional men at the next port of call. These departures made little difference in the appearance of the Bay, because the berths of departing ships were soon taken by new arrivals.
The rush to California did not begin to abate until 1853, during which year 1,902 ships entered San Francisco Bay. Thereafter there was a gradual decrease in prices, wages, and output of gold, and a considerable migration to the East Coast began. The resultant demand for transportation gradually cleared the Bay of vessels which could be made seaworthy, and San Francisco ceased to be the port of deserted ships.