Sea Letter Sails Again! The Re-inaugural Issue

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

Wilhelm Hester — Frontier Marine Photography

The San Francisco Waterfront in 1872 | The Kid Who Fell in Love with a Ferry Steamer | Why I Picked the Eureka | Letters from Home | The Niantic

M E S S AG E

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME NATIONAL PARK ASSOCIATION

from the

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR / CFO John R. Tregenza

Executive Director After a long spell out of the water, we are delighted to re-launch the Sea Letter, a journal of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association. Most of the articles you will see were selected from more than 60 years of past issues, by contributors Robert A. Weinstein, Russell Booth, Michael Jay Mjelde, Karl Kortum, and the inimitable Carl Nolte. These are not “greatest hits,” but rather a selection of writing and imagery that span the decades of partnership between the Association and the Park, and the spectrum of maritime heritage, memory, and experience, of which we are stewards. We include also the kind of fresh research that has always enriched Sea Letter: a new perspective by Dan Brogden on the Gold Rush-era vessel that still rests beneath the ground at Clay and Sansome Streets.

Thanks are due for the efforts of editors Sandy Stadtfeld, Elspeth Martin, Victoria Cooper, and designer Tony Mesler, who have given generously of their time and talent to produce this issue.

PRESIDENT / CHAIRMAN Robert A. Bleicher

Our special gratitude is due the Bank of the West, for their commitment to learning through experience and their generous sponsorship of this issue. We are already looking ahead to our next issue, which we plan to publish this Fall. For now, I hope that Association members will welcome this Sea Letter as the return of an old friend, and that new readers will be excited about beginning this next leg of our voyage together.

Sincerely,

VICE PRESIDENTS Robert F. Sappio Thomas Thompson

EDITOR D. Sanford “Sandy” Stadtfeld

SECRETARY Richard Pekelney

MANAGING EDITOR Elspeth Martin

TREASURER Jack Lapidos

COPYEDITOR Victoria Cooper

TRUSTEES Susan E. Brown Eric Danoff Robert H. Enslow Thomas C. Escher Rodney A. Fong Ronald J. Forest Charles Gibson Anne Halsted Sanford Livingston, Jr. Michael L. Meyers Tom Mowbray Brian Mullins Victor L. Rollandi D. Sanford “Sandy” Stadtfeld Edward Suharski David F. von Winckler Charles “Bruce” Woodward Andrew C. Woodard

DESIGN Tony Mesler PHOTOGRAPHY & DIGITAL IMAGE PRODUCTION Tim Campbell Steve Danford Taylor Horton

John R. Tregenza

SENIOR TRUSTEES Mark Scott Hamilton, Esq. David E. Nelson

Executive Director, San Francisco Maritime National Park Association

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK SUPERINTENDENT Craig Kenkel

from the

Photo by Lydia Gonzales

A

Superintendent It’s my pleasure to welcome you to this re-inaugural edition of Sea Letter. For many years, Sea Letter was a premier maritime history publication. In addition to showcasing original research, the magazine was a wonderful venue for showing off the park’s photo, artifact, and archive collections. So, while you are enjoying the historical articles in this issue, be aware that you are now part of a rich tradition and making a bit of history yourself.

And speaking of making history, it’s hard to believe that San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park will be celebrating 25 years as a unit of the National Park System this June. The voyage hasn’t always been easy, but we have much to be proud of, and there are some exciting events on the horizon. The 1895 C.A. Thayer has been saved, and we plan to have her sail-ready by 2016. The Aquatic Park Bathhouse

Building has been rehabilitated, and we will be bringing it to life as the Maritime Museum again with a series of in-house and visiting exhibits. And of course, we’ll be front and center for maritime history in the making as the America’s Cup happens on San Francisco Bay during the summer of our silver anniversary.

So please sit back, relax, and enjoy this issue of Sea Letter. But then be sure to check out what’s happening in the park this summer!

Sincerely,

Craig Kenkel Superintendent, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

Comments, suggestions, or story ideas, contact: San Francisco Maritime National Park Association P.O. Box 470310, San Francisco, CA 94147-0310 Phone: 415-561-6662 • Fax: 415-561-6660 E-Mail: info@maritime.org • www.maritime.org Visit the website to order copies of this issue.

The San Francisco Maritime National Park Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to maritime preservation and education. The Association operates the historic World War II submarine USS Pampanito and supports the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Many illustrations in Sea Letter are taken from the collections of San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Reference use of these collections is encouraged, and is available through the Park’s J. Porter Shaw Library and other sources.

The opinions expressed in Sea Letter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association.

On the cover: The master of the four-mast bark Ecuador of London poses in carpet slippers and fedora with his mates, steward, and pet dog.

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

10

18

22

Contents 2

Wilhelm Hester: Frontier Marine Photographer

By Robert A. Weinstein

10

Parallel Lives: George S. Payne and the Niantic Make History

18

Letters from Home

22

The San Francisco Waterfront in 1872: A View Through the Eyes of an Unknown Waterfront Reporter

By Dan Brogden

By Russell Booth

By Michael Jay Mjelde

34

Notes from Nolte: The Kid Who Fell in Love with a Ferry Steamer

36

Why I Picked the Eureka

By Carl Nolte

By Karl Kortum

© 2013 by the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Printed on recycled paper

Robert Weinstein’s account of late nineteenth-century marine photographer Wilhelm Hester’s work appeared in the April 1964 issue of Sea Letter, nearly 50 years ago. Selected from more than 1,300 original glass plate negatives made by Hester between 1893 and 1905, these vivid images evoke aromas of fresh-milled cedar and fir; of oakum, oilskins, and tobacco.The collection was purchased in 1960 by Emerson Spear as a gift to the San Francisco Maritime Museum and is just one of the many “hidden treasures” of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Researchers and visitors alike can explore our rich archival and photographic legacy via the San Francisco Maritime Museum Library, in Building ‘E’ at Fort Mason Center.

WILHELM HESTER:

FRONTIER MARINE PHOTOGRAPHER

BY ROBERT A. WEINSTEIN

ne of the San Francisco Maritime Museum’s most cherished holdings is the Hester Collection of approximately 1,350 glass negatives of maritime subjects made in the Puget Sound area around the turn of the century. The photographer, Wilhelm Hester, Hamburgborn, made his living on the waterfront in Tacoma and Seattle between 1893 and 1915. Under difficult conditions, using heavy and awkward equipment, he produced an unparalleled photographic record of the men and sailing ships of the day. Although documentary in character, the photographs reveal an extraordinary sensitivity to the beauty of ships and the sea. The collection is historically invaluable, artistically significant, and unique in certain specific areas.

A large part of Hester’s work concerned the huge volume of Pacific Northwest lumber cut, milled, and loaded for sea 2

Sea Letter

ALTHOUGH DOCUMENTARY IN CHARACTER, THE “ PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL AN EXTRAORDINARY SENSITIVITY AUT OMMOLUPTATI TO THE BEAUTY THE SEA.DOLEST, “NEM TEOF EA SHIPS CON AND EL EOS MOS ” SOLOR MOLORISQUI ID QUID EAQUI DOLORES” – Eos Solor

Captain Techner stands by the wheel in oilskins probably made by himself or the ship’s sailmaker.

Many masters were proficient in the sailmaker’s craft. (San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, F9.17,401psl SAFR 21374)

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

3

Loading at Port Blakely, winter, 1905.

The vessels are possibly Englehorn, four-mast bark of Liverpool; an unidentified port-painted four-­mast bark; the four-mast Liverpool bark Wanderer; the four-mast schooner Lyman D. Foster, and the five-mast schooner Crescent, both of San Francisco. The bark in the stream is possibly Norwegian. (San Francsico Maritime National Historical Park, F20.17,887psl SAFR 21374)

4

Sea Letter

at the sawmills of Port Blakely, across the bay from Seattle. Working seven days a week and around the clock, the whining saws ripped out millions upon millions of board feet of lumber for the busy, building world beyond the seas. Loaded by night and by day, through bow ports and stern ports, from bobbing catamarans built by the mills to support the heavy loading chutes, vessels of every kind and rig from all parts of the world created a scene of indescribable activity. Here vessels were loaded over their bows and sterns with towering deckloads as many as 12 feet higher than their main decks. Now they were loaded with milled laths and sometimes with unpeeled logs for use as pit props in the mines of Port Pirie, Australia, or South Africa. Vessels were moored abreast of the loading docks as close as safety allowed — to be quickly loaded, and then to set off to sea once more. Winter and summer alike they loaded lumber at the mills of Port Blakely.

Tugging at their moorings under leaden skies, or gently alive with softly slipping shadows under the summer sun, their beauty was recognized and recorded by Wilhelm Hester. Vessels of all nations came to Port Blakely. The young and the old, the famous and the little-known ships; every type of deep-sea rig afloat loaded lumber the year round.

All of this Mr. Hester captured on plate after plate in his 8"x 10" view camera. The vigor and excitement of this noisy, whirling operation must have been a strong dose for an artist.

We can only admire the grace of this careful artist-businessman who let himself be caught up so completely in the wonder and magic of this experience.

IMAGES OF A PLACE, PERIOD, AND CULTURE

The most significantly unique area of Hester’s work is the large number of glass-plate negatives made in the masters’ saloons or cabins.

Commonplace as the subject was, there are no known collections anywhere in the world that include more than a few poorly lit, badly photographed views of it made by amateurs. In the Hester Collection we are now privileged to see, in rich detail, example after example of the cabins of well-known and lesserknown vessels — from the austere saloon of a poorly outfitted Chilean bark used by the master and a select group of his card-playing drinking companions to the richly carpeted and ornately decorated home afloat of the master and Mrs. of the famous London “flyer,” the four-mast bark Lynton. Here are superbly revealed details of construction as well as a record of the prevailing taste in decoration and fashion completely denied us in maritime photographs until now. Photographed either by natural light from an overhead skylight on deck or with the help of the flash-gun of the time, the photographs are models of clarity.

Important as well are the many portraits of masters and mates of identified vessels. They provide a long-awaited opportunity to expand our knowledge about these men and their work. Finally, of great interest are the many plates of paintings of ships. Representative of this type of marine art gathered from painters in all the ports of the world, the paintings are a remarkable cross­ section of the various styles of practitioners of this art. Photographs of these paintings allow us, also, to see certain important details of vessels where no other known pictorial source exists.

As for Hester himself, we know little about his early life as yet. Born in Hamburg, he arrived on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the early 1890s.

His account books show him to be in the photographic business as early as 1893. We can only guess where he learned the skills of the photographer.

What is quite clear is that he learned

them very well. He was blessed with uncommon energy, a strong responsiveness to the beauty of the sea and its ships, and an uncompromising integrity in his work.

For 30-odd years after the Civil War, European immigration to the United States was enormous. The Pacific Northwest, busy building, booming with burgeoning industries, was host to its share of the hopeful new arrivals. Lumbering was the dominant industry; the shipping of lumber by sea ran a close second.

The work was hard, and the life was rough and frugal. More than one young foreign seaman jumped his ship or paid off of her to come ashore and work. To the hard-worked windjammer sailor of the day, Puget Sound was an opportunity for a better life. The secrets of who was who, where one hailed from or how old a man might be were not often asked and seldom recorded. This can account for the lack of information on Wilhelm Hester, who may have found his way to Seattle under such circumstances.

A CHALLENGING PROFESSIONAL CALLING

The Puget Sound area was virtually a frontier, and all business activity was struggling to find its footing.

Photography in a frontier lumber town in the 1890s was a far cry from the well-organized operation we see about us today. It was a hazardous profession, as everything was in short and uncertain supply— customers as well as materials. The portrait photographer needed social and business contacts not too readily achieved by a newcomer. It took most of a photographer’s time, working singlehanded, just to “sell” his customers and then make the necessary plate exposures. The subsequent plate developing and printing most often required that he maintain a supplier relationship with independent technicians.

A NOTE ON THE ACQUISITION OF THE HESTER COLLECTION

A

fter Wilhelm Hester’s death in 1929, his home on Queen Anne’s Hill in Seattle was sold. In 1947 the house and all it contained were resold to Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Sands, who discovered this portion of Hester’s negatives and some prints in one of the rooms. Recognizing their historic value, the Sands tried in vain to interest buyers for a number of years.The collection was brought to my attention by a friend, Gordon Jones of Seattle.

I corresponded with Mr. and Mrs. Sands, and with their help received a specimen group of glass plates. These were printed and shown to Emerson Spear of Los Angeles, the grandson of Captain Alexander Spear, who came around the Horn to San Francisco in Gold Rush days. Spear’s appreciation of the collection and re­cognition of its historic value were both certain and swift. He was interested in purchasing the collection as a gift for the San Francisco Maritime Museum. Mr. Kortum and the Museum’s Board of Trustees were pleased to accept the proposed gift. I then went to Seattle to examine the collection in full for Mr. Spear and, acting as his agent, purchased it. T hrough the assistance of Daniel Bryant of Bekins Van Inc., the collection was carefully packed and shipped to the museum. Since then it has been partially identified and catalogued, safely stored, and a good number of the plates printed.

It is proving to be an enormous mine of information and assistance to researchers of Pacific Coast maritime history.

– R.A.W.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

5

The master and his card-playing cronies gather in the saloon of a Chilean bark.

(San Francsico Maritime National Historical Park, U60.12,497psl SAFR 21374)

THE MOST “ SIGNIFICANTLY UNIQUE AREA OF HESTER’S WORK IS THE LARGE NUMBER OF GLASS-PLATE NEGATIVES MADE IN THE MASTERS’ SALOONS OR CABINS.

”

6

Sea Letter

The ever-present geographical and travel difficulties could thus make a profitable operation almost impossible. The choice of a “specialty” to support the frontier photographer was always a critical one. Perhaps our Mr. Hester just fell into his choice … we do not know.

But it seems more likely that it was a definite choice, for his love of the sea and sailing ships marked his whole working life. The hundreds of seamen and ships that touched the Puget Sound area became his successful specialty.

The seamen of the sail still enjoyed, at the turn of century, an attachment and a deep sense of affection for their beautiful tall ships.

Masters and mates felt the pride of command and the importance of the faithful discharge of their responsibility keenly. Photographs of their ship, her crew, and officers were the most acceptable popular symbols of their feelings. Nothing else so well sustained the romantic excitement conjured up by these “white-winged beauties of the rolling sea.” The making of such photographs became Hester’s work, his livelihood, as well as his legacy.

Many of the world’s great seaports at this time supported other such photographers. Wilton of San Francisco, Stebbins of Boston, Gould of London, and Sam Hood of Sydney are a few of the other memorable examples. Certain masters photographed successfully on the deep sea — Captain H. H. Morrison of Port Townsend, Captain George Plummer of Puget Sound, Captain Walter Mallet of the Guy C. Goss, and Captain Richard Woodgett of the immortal Cutty Sark. Our photographic record of the great ships of the 19th century depends in part upon the efforts of these men.

How did our Mr. Hester pursue his calling? Let us follow him as he worked his way through a normal day’s activity. His working grounds were the docks and wharves of Seattle and Tacoma, the waters of Elliott Bay and Commencement Bay. But perhaps most important was the bay at Port Blakely, directly across from Seattle.

Located in that area were the great seven-day-a-week sawmills as well as the Hall Brothers shipyard close by.

There were built the graceful wooden sailing lumber carriers from the lumber freshly sawn at the Blakely mills.

Armed with the published lists of newly arrived vessels, and anticipating the possibility of meeting old friends again, Hester boarded as many of these ships and schooners as he could each day to take orders for photographs. We can almost see him carrying an 8"x 10" view camera firmly fastened to a heavy, ruggedly built tripod, a leather case holding glass plates, wooden plate holders, flash powder, and the contemporary version of the “flash-gun” also a part of his equipment. Carrying his wideangle lenses in a separate wooden box, order pad in his pocket, a morning newspaper for the master in his hand, he arrived on the main deck ready for business.

Arrangements were made for shooting the required sittings immediately. If the weather allowed, the views on deck would be taken first. Forbidding weather afforded the opportunity to take the lovely views photographed below in the master’s cabin or saloon. Once below, the formal shooting finished, negotiations might be carried on to photograph the framed painting of the master’s last command or of his present vessel that was hung on the saloon bulkhead and much prized by its owner. Such a photograph would be a splendid “earnest” for expected orders.

On deck again, in quick order, the master was photographed alone on his own quarter deck. Next a photograph was taken of the master with his chief mate and likely as not another one of the master together with all of his officers. The master might then be joined with his apprentices, if the ship carried them, for a final group photograph. Out of their grubby work clothes, decked out in their stiff collars, brass-bound jackets, hats proudly emblazoned with company badges, spruced up and shining, the apprentices posed with mock seriousness.

Following this, the “Mrs. Master,” were she aboard, joined the captain for a portrait near the companionway

or skylight. Finally, the children carried aboard and the family pet were grouped together to complete the portrait of the afterguard family.

Now the crew assembled on the main deck or atop the midship house of the big four-mast barks. Joined or not by the officers, mustering up their sternest dignity, a picture of them was soon added to the mounting pile of exposed glass-negative holders.

Sometimes a visiting “padre” aboard, such as the well-known Chaplain Stubbs of Tacoma, was invited to slip into the photographs of the crew.

The ship’s personnel completed, at last the ship itself was photographed.

Using his wide-angle lenses with telling skill, Mr. Hester moved as far aft toward the stern as he could and photographed the vessel looking

Captain and Mrs. E. G. James at home in the richly decorated afterquarters of the London four-mast bark Lynton. (San Francsico Maritime National Historical Park, U60.12,435psl SAFR 21374)

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

7

forward. Perhaps recalling his own early days at sea, he encouraged the men and officers to step into these pictures in natural poses. Moving well forward on deck again, he would turn and photograph the vessel looking aft. If work were going on aboard the vessel, he often took an extra shot or two for his own pleasure. Lastly, the classic outboard full view of the vessel must be secured. This could be taken from alongside on the wharf or from a neighboring wharf. A nearby bridge, as in Tacoma, was often the ideal spot. If the vessel were moored in the stream, the deck of a hired launch or other cooperative vessel afloat helped solve the problem. Needless to say, a securely fastened and braced tripod was here of top priority.

DOING THE BUSINESS OF ART The master of the four-mast bark Ecuador of London poses in carpet slippers and fedora with his mates, steward, and pet dog. (San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, F07.12,463psl SAFR 21374)

8

Sea Letter

With the taking of pictures at an end, the taking of orders began. As Mr. Hester’s notes testify, the taking of orders was apparently an impromptu affair. On a variety of slips of paper, envelopes, and used business cards, the orders, the addresses to which the photographs were to be sent, as well as arrangements for payment were jotted down. Sometimes the sailors wrote orders in their own hand, and this was an unavoidable but frequently risky affair. Sailors in port rarely had any cash, and they purchased against wages owed them by the ship, due at voyage’s end. The master was not always able to honor his sailors’ commitments for a variety of reasons.

Numerous letters in Hester’s files testify to the awkward nature of these arrangements.

The sailors also quite casually expected him to serve as their private postal service, and he of course obliged. The orders were often for contact prints from the 8"x 10" plates. These were to be mounted on heavy cardboard. There were also orders for composites, made up of individual portraits of the

men mounted with a photograph of the ship. Portraits were mounted as buttons or enlarged and framed.

Orders completed, arrangements were made for delivery. If the vessel were to remain in port a while, delivery was made to the ship and payment expected upon delivery. If not, the work was mailed by Hester, payment taken in advance against the men’s wages before leaving the ship.

Mr. Hester had his share of losses in such a risky arrangement. In 1895 the ship Ben Dearg purchased a total of $84 worth of photographs and paid in full; in the same year the bark Bertha ran up a bill of $11.25, which was finally paid off in lumber to be resold by Mr. Hester.

Moving in this fashion from wharf to wharf, out into the stream, and back to the farther dock completed Hester’s work day of selling and shooting. The arrangements he made for the processing of his work depended upon his location at day’s end. As processing could only be done by professionals in Seattle and Tacoma, he made use of the Puget Sound steamers in transit between these towns. The well-known steamer Flyer was his favorite choice. Back and forth, morning and evening, a steady procession of Hester’s work moved over Puget Sound. He sent his negatives to the developing lab with written instructions for each one, carefully noting each exposure and indicating the results he expected.

The developed negatives were quickly returned to him for examination and printing instructions. Scrupulous craftsman that he was, it is rare to see a negative jacket on which he had not written precise instructions for the particular exposure and manipulations he wanted in the finished prints, as well as for sizes and the quantity of prints needed. On receipt of the finished work he himself returned to the ship to complete the promised deliveries. Our Mr. Hester was blessed to be as energetic as he obviously needed to be in this sort of operation.

Although his was an allseasons job, it appeared to have its slack moments. His incomplete business records show entries for photographing local picnics, baseball teams, commercial buildings, businessmen, Indians, and other groups of people ashore. In addition, he records sales of wood, coal, old clothes, and furniture. In time, the sailors and steamers of the Sound became his customers, too.

Thus, happily, exquisitely detailed photographs of these handsome vessels are still with us.

We can only be grateful that this young Hamburg German was so moved by the ever-changing beauty of the sail-borne vessels of his day and locale to have photographed so much of it, and through his skill as an artist to have done it so magnificently. Although Wilhelm Hester may not have meant to be remembered as he worked, his place in history is certainly secure. This photographic artist has produced a great body of work lacking in self­ consciousness, deeply straightforward and honest in its vision, and therefore arrestingly true for us. As other great photographers have in their work created enduring monuments of their milieu, so Wilhelm Hester has raised an eloquent memorial to a time and people that produced “such ships and men as Earth shall not see again.”

Looking forward from the stern, Hester photographed the master and officers of the four-mast bark Bermuda. (San Francsico Maritime National Historical Park, F9.12,410psl SAFR 21374)

Robert A. Weinstein was a photographic historian and graphic designer. As a research associate in Western History at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, a research associate in Pacific Coast Maritime History of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum of Honolulu, and Chairman of the History and Research Committee of the Maritime Museum Association of San Diego, he wrote numerous articles on marine history and was the author of several books on photography, including Grays Harbor and Tall Ships on Puget Sound.

Robert Weinstein in the home of Gordon Jones, Seattle, WA, September, 1960. He is examining a glass plate negative from the Hester collection. (Photographed by Gordon Jones. San Francsico Maritime National Historical Park, P.8,704.01p SAFR 21374)

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

9

An oil painting of the three-masted sailing ship Niantic, in port at Ningpo, China. The date of the painting is circa 1836–1839. It is 27 inches wide and 22 inches high, in a plain, brown wood frame. (Photo: NPS, SAFR 22386)

10

Sea Letter

Sea Letter heartily encourages and shares current scholarship about maritime San Francisco. T here is always something new for us to learn and to add to our historical mosaic. The following article by former Park archivist Dan Brogden is one such fresh perspective. In San Francisco, we know the sailing ship Niantic for her occupations after her voyaging career ended: as a mudflat warehouse, then as the understory of a hotel and business block, and finally among the fill upon which San Francisco’s Financial District is built. Mr. Brogden recounts Niantic’s travels well before her crew ran for the diggings in 1849 — through the personal journals of George S. Payne, a young New Englander advancing from apprentice to officer over the course of four voyages in the late 1830s. Y ou can learn more about the Niantic’s story at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Visitor Center, in the Haslett Warehouse, across Jefferson Street from the Hyde Street Pier.

PARALLEL LIVES:

GEORGE S. PAYNE AND THE NIANTIC MAKE HISTORY

BY DAN BROGDEN

our journals written between 1835 and 1840 by the remarkably talented diarist George S. Payne have been made available for study by the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Payne sailed on the first four voyages of the Niantic, one of the most famous of the Gold Rush ships.

Both the Niantic and George Payne came to extremely interesting and important endings in the same eventful year of 1849, but on opposite sides of the continent. Niantic ended her days as one of the Gold Rush ships that were converted into buildings in downtown San Francisco, and Payne ended up the victim of a brutal murder that touched off an even more brutal war in Florida.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

11

Chinese customs pass needed to escape the blockade of Whampoa at the start of the Opium Wars.

12

Sea Letter

In 1835, 14 years before his tragic date with destiny, the then 18-yearold man from Connecticut signed up to sail on the maiden voyage of the Niantic. He also decided to keep a journal “for the entertainment of his land loving friends.”

The Niantic became well-known (after fire consumed much of her hull in 1851) when rediscoveries of the buried wreck in the heart of San Francisco occurred in 1872, 1907, and again in 1978.

The four Niantic journals of George S. Payne narrate each of the journeys he took onboard the ship while it was engaged in the China Trade. At first he describes himself as a novice, suffering from seasickness and describing the rigging as “a vast wilderness of ropes, the uses of which I have yet to learn,” but he quickly grows into a confident sailor gaining knowledge and responsibilities rapidly, until eventually being promoted to second mate in charge of the starboard watch. By his third voyage, he has moved out of the forecastle and is sharing officers’ quarters with the first mate, and dining daily with the captain.

But, how do we know that this diarist is the same man whose death in Florida was such a monumental event? In the journals, the author notes his 22nd birthday as November 3, 1838, which would make his birth date November 3, 1816. He also describes himself as homesick for the cold and frosty Connecticut winters of his youth, and in another case longs for the cool, clear waters of “Cornwall.” The Cornwall, Connecticut vital records list the

birth of a George Silliman Payne to a John and Sarah Payne on November 3, 1816. The gravestone in Florida, located on the grounds of the Payne’s Creek State Historic Park, clearly reads, “To the memory of Capt.

George S. Payne, aged 32 years, a native of Cornwall Conn. also of ... and killed by a party of Seminole Indians on the evening of the 17th day of July 1849.” Furthermore, there is a letter that was published in June of 1992 by the local newspaper of Bowling Green, Florida, entitled the “Last letter of Captain Payne” and in the preface to this letter Payne is described as a native of Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut. In the body of the letter, the author writes that he detests slavery (a clue to his northern roots perhaps?) and that, if not for a touch of rheumatism, he would “put out for California, & go at my old trade again” — presumably sailing.

Moreover, in a two-part newspaper article entitled “The Pease Creek Tragedy” that was originally printed in the Herald­ Advocate of Wauchula, Florida on July 22 and August 19, 1999, the author, Spessard Stone, describes Captain George Payne as a “32-year-old former sailor and native of Cornwall, Connecticut.”

All of this evidence makes a clear case that the George S. Payne who sailed on the first four voyages of Niantic is the same George S. Payne who met his violent end deep in the Florida wilderness in July 1849.

NIANTIC: BUILT FOR CAPACITY

So now that we know more of Mr. Payne, what of the ship Niantic? Mr. Thomas Childs, of Chatham, Connecticut, laid down Niantic for the New York mercantile company N. L. & G. Griswold in the spring of 1835.

Completed in the fall and registered at New York in October of that year, the vessel was rigged with three masts, was 119 feet long, and listed at 90 tons. She was also described as having a square stern, round neck,

two decks, and a simple billet head, and was a typical full-bodied cargo carrier with a 29-foot beam and a 20foot depth of hold with a nearly flat interior bottom. Built for capacity, not for speed, she used that capacity in her short but eventful lifetime in the China Trade as a whaler in the South Pacific, and finally on land as a warehouse and as the foundations of a hotel. Ultimately, her remains ended up lying adjacent to the substructure of the Transamerica Pyramid in the Financial District of San Francisco.

The Niantic was first put to work in October 1835, making four trips to the Chinese ports of Canton, Whampoa, and Hong Kong, and the Philippine port of Manila, and returning to New York after approximately 12 months. Packed with tea, porcelain, silks, and other commodities, she was a major factor in the commercial success of her owners; the four voyages between 1835 and 1840 are estimated to have made the company nearly $400,000 in profit on each trip. One of the most lucrative aspects of this China Trade in the 1830s was the illicit, but highly profitable, trade in opium. In this trade, British and some American ships transported the drug from India to China. It was a controversial source of conflict between China and foreign traders, especially the British Empire, which in response to the Chinese closure of Hong Kong and the destruction of a massive cache of the narcotic in 1840, invaded and occupied the port during the First Opium War. In his journals, Payne records the Chinese preparations to repel this British invasion, including the beheadings of Westerners involved in the trade and the arming of massive dragon boats. Fortunately for Payne and his crew mates, the Niantic made her money through the export of tea and not the importation of opium, and although Payne does describe the rescue of the captain of an opium trading ship and the

transfer of casks of opium to the Niantic’s hold, after only a short delay by Chinese officials, she was allowed to sail home as a relatively unmolested witness to the conflict.

The four journals also describe in great detail the operations of a square-rigged ship in the 19th century, with the crew clambering up the masts in a gale to reef sails and splice lines. They also describe, in a particularly intense episode, the murder of the captain’s steward by the ship’s cook, the actions and dress of the “Heathen Chinese,” as Payne calls them, the threat of Malaysian pirates, and the beauty and terror of an erupting volcano in the Philippines. Payne makes a diary entry about twice a week through the four voyages, noting the weather and the ship’s position by latitude and longitude, enabling the reader to feel the voyages as if onboard.

FROM CHINA TRADE TO WHALING

The Opium Wars between Britain and China intensified in January 1841, just after George Payne and the Niantic returned to New York on their fourth and final voyage together, and the wars effectively shut down the China Trade until the end of 1842. In 1843, the United States Government, although not a combatant, negotiated its own treaty with China to restore trading relations, but Niantic did not return to her former occupation.

Instead, N. L. & G. Griswold sold their controlling interest in the ship to a consortium that converted her into a whaler. Under the command of Captain Shamyois H. Slate, a part owner, Niantic sailed from Sag Harbor, New York on June 4, 1844, once again bound for the South Pacific. This time, however, she sailed west around Cape Horn instead of her by now familiar route around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Indian Ocean.

There is no evidence to suggest that George Payne was offered

IN HIS “ JOURNALS, PAYNE RECORDS THE CHINESE PREPARATIONS TO REPEL THIS BRITISH INVASION, INCLUDING THE BEHEADINGS OF WESTERNERS INVOLVED IN THE TRADE AND THE ARMING OF MASSIVE DRAGON BOATS.

”

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

13

Signature page of the fourth and final volume of the Payne Journals.

The page reads: “Geo. Payne of Ship Niantic, arrived at New York, Dec 10th 1840. 158 days from Macao in China. Length of the voyage 1 year, 34 days, 1839 & 40.”

his old job as second mate on this voyage, but it would not be out of the question. He had proven himself to be a capable, hardworking, decent man, with a real skill at seamanship and dependable leadership abilities. However, it is clear from reading his journals that he probably would have refused the offer. He knew that whaling voyages sometimes lasted years and that whaling ships were worked hard in dirty conditions. He also knew that as a whaler, Niantic was almost guaranteed to lose her shipshape appearance. Payne had a real affection for the Niantic and would not have enjoyed seeing her lose her luster. She was bulky and slow, but to George Payne she was a beauty.

The ship went to the whaling grounds off New Zealand, spending the next three years there, returning to Sag Harbor on February 1, 1847 with 2,400 barrels of whale oil, 120 barrels of sperm oil, and 10,000 pounds of whalebone. In 1848 she shifted homeports to Warren, Rhode Island, and new part owners joined the Griswolds, who had retained their shares in the ship. She may have made a voyage or two in the packet trade to Europe; indeed, accounts suggest that the New Line and Slate’s Liverpool Line may have chartered her.

THE LURE OF GOLD

What we do know is that on September 16, 1848, under the command of Captain Henry Warren Cleaveland, the Niantic left the Atlantic Coast for the last time, bound for the North14

Sea Letter

west Pacific whaling grounds. She rounded Cape Horn for the second and last time, just as news of the discovery of gold in California began to spread around the world. When the ship anchored at the whalers’ provisioning stop at Paita, Peru, on March 7, word reached Captain Cleaveland that there were thousands of eager gold seekers stranded in Panama waiting for ships to carry them to California. Cleaveland made a command decision to postpone the whale hunt and sailed for Panama.

Before leaving Peru, he wrote a letter to the ship’s owners in Rhode Island explaining his decision as a “great prospect ... for all concerned.” He also explained that the ship would only “lose one Northwest season.”

He was half right, it was a great prospect, but Niantic would never make it to the Northwest whaling grounds.

Instead, after taking between 250 and 290 (reports vary) passengers from Panama through the Golden Gate and anchoring at Yerba Buena Cove on July 5, 1849, she never again saw deep water.

Like most of the ships arriving in San Francisco in 1849, the crew and passengers of the Niantic were fired up by the stories of gold just lying around to be picked up by anyone lucky enough to make their way up the Sacramento River, and they abandoned the ship. A few months after her arrival, with no crew and no prospects to hire a new one, Niantic was sold to a group of investors in San Francisco. At high tide, they hauled her close inshore, near what was then the intersection of Clay and Sansome Streets, the shoreline being half a mile west of its location today. Her masts were taken out, her rigging and some of the ballast removed, piles driven on each side to keep her erect, and a doorway cut into her side. She would be used as a storehouse, earning her new owners a substantial profit in rent.

The city grew around Niantic, as the docks were enclosed into square

lots that were then filled in with sand and rocks pulled from the nearby hills by steam excavators. By the spring of 1850, the Niantic and other ships like her gave a puzzling appearance as ships in the middle of the street.

BURNING AND RESURRECTION

In 1851, the ship burned to the ground in a fire that ravaged the entire waterfront. Fortunately for her owners, half the hull was underground, leaving a remnant on which to erect a hotel, also named Niantic. At the time, it was regarded as the finest hotel in the city. Gradually, the Niantic Hotel lost status, and in 1872, when the hotel was torn down to make way for a four-story business block called the Niantic Building, the ship’s hull was uncovered for the first time in 20 years. After the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the Niantic’s remains were exposed for the second time, until a new Niantic Building was erected on the spot. In 1978 the remains of the hull were rediscovered

for a third time by workers excavating in preparation for the building of the Mark Twain Plaza next to the city’s landmark Transamerica Pyramid. Maritime archeologists and historians, including a number from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, worked together with the construction company to excavate as much of the ship and her cargo as possible in the crunch of time available by the construction schedule.

The park’s museum collection includes a number of artifacts from this excavation, including unopened champagne bottles, other cargo, and entire pieces of the hull.

So we know much of the history of the Niantic, but what of George Silliman Payne? Unfortunately, we lose track of Mr. Payne during the decade of the 1840s. Although there is some evidence to suggest that he served in the U. S. Army during the second Seminole War, he doesn’t return to the historical record until the spring of 1849 as a former Army captain in charge of a trading post in southwestern Florida.

Visitors in the Maritime Museum lobby enjoying a close-up view of the diorama depicting the Niantic as a storeship on the San Francisco waterfront of 1849.

CITY GREW AROUND NIANTIC, A S THE DOCKS WERE “ THEENCLOSED INTO SQUARE LOTS THAT WERE THEN FILLED IN WITH SAND AND ROCKS PULLED FROM THE NEARBY HILLS

BY STEAM EXCAVATORS.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

”

What is left of Yerba Buena Cove will soon be filled in.

– U. S. Coast Survey, 1859

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

15

PAYNE AND THE SEMINOLE WARS

Payne describes the grisly death of a shipmate at the hands of a murderer.

The page reads: “Continued but the hand of the grim destroyer was upon him he sunk into a kind of lethargy with now & then a convulsive start. His pulse gradually died away his cheeks fell in & about a quarter past 2 p.m. a man who but a few short minutes before had stood among us in health & strength lay a pale bleeding corpse.

After waiting a reasonable time the men washed the body & after clothing it sewed it in a clean hammock with a bag of gravel lashed to the feet & layed it out on two hen coops.

The starboard side of the quarter deck with a rope around to keep it from falling off, here it remained more than an hour before the eyes of the assassin who was yet fast the larboard sea surrounded by 3 men & the carpenter who was riveting a large shackle around his ankle. What his thoughts or feelings…”

16

Sea Letter

The Seminole Wars were a series of three conflicts between white settlers and an amalgamation of several groups of Native Americans in Florida that began before George Payne was born and many years before the Niantic ever went to sea.

During the War of 1812, the British used their control of the Spanish forts in northern Florida to harass the then southern border of the United States. The Spanish were in nominal control of the area, but were in no position to interfere, ceding control of the forts to the British Empire. One of the tactics of the British was to use the forts as a haven for escaped slaves from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

They also used the forts as depot points to arm and equip their Native American allies. When the Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the War of 1812, these forts were turned over by the British to the Seminole Indians and to the escaped slaves.

Fort Gadsden near Tallahassee was a particular sore spot for southern slave owners, who called it “Negro Fort,” because it was controlled by a group of escaped slaves. General Andrew Jackson used the southern fear of slave rebellion and other incidents to justify his invasion of “Spanish” Florida in the summer of 1816 and burned “Negro Fort” to the ground.

The Spanish government ceded Florida to the United States in 1821, and the United States signed the Treaty of Moultrie Creek with the Seminole tribes in 1823, confining them to a reservation in the swampy center of the territory. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, with the goal of moving all Native Americans to Indian Territory — in what later became the states of Oklahoma and Arkansas. In 1832, the Seminole chiefs were forced to sign the Treaty of Payne’s Landing. (Payne’s Landing was

named for a Native American chief of the 1700s with no connection to George S. Payne of Connecticut — just another strange coincidence of history.) This treaty was in reality an ultimatum that gave the Seminoles three years to move west.

The Second Seminole War was fought between 1835 and 1842, when the deadline of the Treaty of Payne’s Creek passed and the natives continued to resist the efforts of the United States Government to forcibly remove them to Indian Territory.

The Second Seminole War is often cited as the most expensive Indian War ever fought, with congressional appropriations between $30 million and $40 million. The money is hard to follow, though, for some of it was spent in fighting Native Americans in the Illinois and Indiana territories during the same time. Much of the money that was spent in Florida went to bribing individual chiefs to move their people west.

One historically interesting aspect of the war was that the United States Government, for the first and only time prior to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, officially granted freedom to 500 of the escaped slaves that had aligned with the Seminoles. As a condition of their emancipation, however, they were forced to live on reservation land in Oklahoma. One of the most tragic results of the Second Seminole War was that by 1842 the Native American population of Florida was counted as only 300 individuals, more than 3,800 having been sent to Oklahoma over the infamous Trail of Tears.

There are quite a number of men named George Payne who show up in United States Army muster reports in the 1840s, but it is impossible to determine which one of these soldiers is our Niantic journalist. It is also difficult to find Payne’s path to Florida. We do know that in early 1849, Tampa businessman Thomas Kennedy and his partner, John Darling, who had served in the Army

Supply Corps, were given permission by the new Florida State Government in Tallahassee to open a trading post in southwestern Florida on a tributary creek of the Peace River.

They hired a man they knew from their service in the Second Seminole War — Army Captain George S. Payne — to build and operate it, and in just six months Payne built a large, two­-story trading post and a dock at a strategic crossing point of the river, near a small group of Native Americans who were living outside of the official boundaries of the reservation.

Because the group was outside the boundaries, they were deemed to be outlaws by both the white settlers and the official Seminole Tribe. The group contained upwards of 20 warriors under the leadership of a Red Stick Creek Indian named Echo Emathla Chopco, also known as Chipco. On July 17, 1849, five of these outlaws attacked the Kennedy and Darling store, killing two men at the trading post in a blaze of gunfire. Store manager, Army veteran, and ex-Niantic sailor Captain George S. Payne was shot while eating his supper. Another worker and his wife, who lived in the back of the store, were both severely wounded as they escaped with their small child. They hid in the woods for two days before making their way

the 25 miles to the nearest farm and describing the store being looted and burned to the ground.

This “Massacre at Payne’s Creek,” as it became known, ignited a series of attacks and counter­attacks between the Native American tribes still in Florida and the settlers, which resulted in a slow buildup of United States Army troops in South Florida. Five years later, these escalating tensions between white settlers, backed by Army troops and the remaining Native Americans in Florida, erupted into what became known as the Third Seminole War. Lasting eight years, the Seminole Indians held out against the overwhelming force of the United States Army in the hostile alligator and mosquito-infested swamps, but were overwhelmed. By 1858 the Native American population in Florida had dwindled to a paltry total of about 200 individuals with no formal organization or leadership.

The conflict was declared over by the War Department in 1858; however, a formal peace treaty ending the war wasn’t signed until 1936.

Both Payne’s and the Niantic’s burial plots are memorialized.

George Payne’s gravestone is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is on the grounds of the Payne’s Creek State Historic Park.

The Niantic is buried next to San Francisco’s most iconic skyscraper with a plaque memorializing her important role in the city with ships for buildings, and pieces of her hull and cargo are in the museum collection at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The early history of both the man and the ship are illuminated beautifully by these four journals written by George S. Payne as a young sailor onboard a young ship, the Niantic.

The gravestone of Capt. George S. Payne of Connecticut at the Payne Creek State Historical Park near Sebring, Florida.

HISTORICALLY “ ONE INTERESTING ASPECT OF THE WAR WAS THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME PRIOR TO THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION OF 1863, OFFICIALLY GRANTED FREEDOM TO 500 OF THE ESCAPED SLAVES THAT HAD ALIGNED WITH THE SEMINOLES.

”

Dan Brogden is a retired Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy, holds a master’s degree in history from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and has been an archivist with the National Park Service at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park for the past year. He has just taken a new position as an archivist for the Bill Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

17

Owned, curated, and exhibited by the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, the submarine USS Pampanito is a complement to the historic ships preserved at the Hyde Street Pier. Although not strictly an indigenous vessel, Pampanito is a significant and authentic representative of the many diesel-electric “fleet boats” that were vital to the Allied effort during World War II. In the following article from the 1994 Sea Letter, author Russell Booth shared some inspiring correspondence from Muriel Mix, a talented Minnesota girl, to her own submariner, Petty Officer O. D. Hawkins, during the 1940s. T he Pampanito and artifacts like these provide a window through which we can appreciate the personal experience of Americans who have served their country beneath the waves. Berthed on the east side of Pier 45, Pampanito today presents a broad program of interpretation, volunteer opportunities, youth education, and commemorative events.

LETTERS

FROM HOME

BY RUSSELL BOOTH

etters from home have a great meaning, especially for servicemen stationed overseas during USS Pampanito, Richard O’Kane Collection, “Mail Call” wartime. For O. D. Hawkins, a young petty officer aboard USS Pampanito, letters from his sweetheart back home, Muriel Mix, came in remarkable envelopes.

Muriel I. Mix was born and raised in the St. Paul, Minnesota area, where she studied Ona D. Hawkins, commercial art. a native of Missouri, enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an electrician and a submariner.

18

Sea Letter

Muriel I. Mix was born and raised in a rural area of Saint Paul, Minnesota in a house located at a state fish hatchery. Living in such an isolated area meant she had little association with other children her own age, but the hatchery proved to be an interesting place to grow up. The happenings at the hatchery were a part of daily life for her whole family. The grounds had a number of shelters for wild animals that were in need of homes: a badger found under a back porch, a wood duck with a broken wing, deer that had tangled with barbed wire, bear cubs rescued from forest fires, and even an orphaned female moose shared the hatchery grounds with Muriel and

her family. Muriel enjoyed drawing and painting as a child and was encour­aged to pursue this interest further when she attended public school in Saint Paul. Following high school, she attended a small commercial art school and worked for a time in the art department of the National Youth Administration to pay for her tuition.

During the war years, Muriel noted with interest the illustrations on bombers — mostly, pin-up girls — that were popular at the time.

She got the idea that perhaps soldiers or sailors would enjoy something different that came in the mail, so she started to put illustrations on each envelope she mailed. She regularly

The first illustrated envelope Muriel mailed O. D. was postmarked January 25, 1944.

More than three years and 300 envelopes later, Muriel mailed her last illustrated envelope to O. D. on April 7, 1948, shortly before their wedding day.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

19

In 2009, veteran Pampanito crew members were asked to choose their favorite illustrations. These three, and the top two on page 19, were among the envelopes they chose.

20

Sea Letter

wrote to her brother, stationed on the cruiser USS Minneapolis, and her cousin, who was a paratrooper with the Seventeenth Airborne in Europe.

Unfortunately, not many of these envelopes returned home.

Muriel’s future husband, O. D. Hawkins, enlisted in the Navy in June, 1943. Following boot camp, he attended electricians school at the University of Minnesota, where he met Muriel. While he was in submarine school, Muriel began sending letters to him with illustrated envelopes. A regular flow of letters continued all the time he was at sea aboard Pampanito. Muriel continued to write while he attended college following the war. They were married in 1948, and by then, she had sent over 300 illustrated envelopes; O. D. kept them all.

Muriel’s work was also noted by postal workers, since they received requests for her illustrated envelopes.

She obliged them all until raising two children caused drawing and painting to fall by the wayside until they were grown. Once again, she is now at work and says, “Once in a while it is fun to paint or draw a pretty girl.

Not a scantily clad miss, but more likely a Victorian or flapper-period young lady in appropriate dress.”

Muriel and O. D. Hawkins at the 2007 USS Pampanito crew reunion.

Sixty years later Muriel still illustrates the occasional envelope for servicemen she knows.

Russell Booth’s first waterfront job was night watchman on the museum ship Balclutha. He worked his way up to be manager of the submarine Pampanito and was instrumental in its restoration. He held the boat to a very high standard and had an international reputation in the ship preservation community. Booth also served as president of the Historic Naval Ships Association of North America. “Russ knew more about submarines than anyone,’’ said Bob Taylor, a submarine veteran, “He understood them and learned all about them and wanted to pass on what he knew.’’ Russ Booth died in 1997 of a sudden illness at the age of 50.

This two-sided illustration depicts the late night call from O. D. while he and the Pampanito were in San Francisco.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

21

2013 marks 150 years since Governor Leland Stanford signed a bill into law creating a Board of State Harbor Commissioners, thereby instituting the Port of San Francisco. We celebrate the Port’s anniversary with an article that appeared in Sea Letter in 1988.

Michael Jay Mjelde surveyed a series of articles from the front pages of the Daily Alta California that painted a detailed portrait of the San Francisco waterfront between North Point (now about Pier 35) and Mission Bay (roughly Dogpatch). The unattributed 1872 articles described everything — from dredging for new wharves to the uncouth language of resident hoodlums. Much of what Mr. Mjelde’s article portrayed is dramatically reproduced today in the exhibit “A Walk Along the Waterfront” at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Visitor Center.

THE SAN FRANCISCO WATERFRONT IN 1872:

A VIEW THROUGH THE EYES OF AN UNKNOWN WATERFRONT REPORTER

BY MICHAEL JAY MJELDE

an Francisco in 1872 was no longer the “gold rush” city of nearly a quarter century before. These were the days when gas street lights, wooden sidewalks, chamber pots, horse-drawn railroads, outhouses, and coal-oil home-lighting systems were the norm for the 178,000 people who made up the city’s population. Many of the old, ramshackle structures on the waterfront had been replaced with more permanent buildings: wood frame, domestic brick, or stone rubble.

Although much of the city’s lumber came on the decks of square-riggers from Washington Territory, most of the stone was supplied from quarries at San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill.

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 had 22

Sea Letter

CIVILIAN SEAMEN WERE MUCH LIKE SOLDIERS, IN THAT THEY “ SIGNED SHIPPING ARTICLES FOR EACH VOYAGE AND WERE LEGALLY UNDER THE TOTAL DOMINATION OF SHIPMASTER AND OFFICERS WHEN AT SEA.

”

This lithograph, entitled “A Bird’s Eye View of the City and County of San Francisco, 1872,” was one of a series of similar views published by A. L. Bancroft & Co., and updated regularly for a number of years. (Courtesy of the California Historical Society, San Francisco)

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

23

Photo: The sidewheel steamers California (right) and Senator lay at the dock, across from a huge pile of wood for their hungry boilers.

(One of several excellent images of Pacific Mail’s facilities made by noted photographer Carlton E. Watkins.

– A12.8,736n)

24

Sea Letter

moderately reduced the cost of sending many types of commercial goods from the East Coast of the United States due to increased competition and less time spent in transit.

Moreover, to get to San Francisco it was no longer necessary for people to travel on months-long sea voyages via Cape Horn, or via the weekslong steamship-train-steamship combination across the Isthmus of Panama. Freight shipped by rail to the West Coast reached 57,000 tons in 1872,1 slowly making inroads

into the sailing ship “clipper”2 trade from New York and other East Coast ports. In addition, 32,000 passengers came West in 1872 alone, and only 23,000 returned East by way of the Central Pacific-Union Pacific railroad system.3 These facts give some idea of the effect the westward migration continued to have on the city. ’Frisco, as it was still commonly called in the 1870s, continued to be a “melting pot” for humanity from all over the world. Tens of thousands of European immigrants had come to the Bay City to make a new start for themselves, and although San Francisco’s population was essentially Caucasian, many thousands of Chinese immigrants also resided there. Anti-Chinese feelings were very much in evidence at this time, and persons of Asian ancestry, no matter how hard they exerted themselves, continued to be treated as secondclass citizens.

NOTES ON THE SAN FRANCISCO WATERFRONT FROM THE PACIFIC MAIL STEAMSHIP COMPANY (EXCERPTED FROM THE DAILY ALTA C ALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER, 1872)

I

n treating the subject under review, this company presents the first claim to consideration. What this city would now be as a shipping port, were it not for the past operations of this company, it is difficult to determine; but the inference is justified that its growth and importance would be far behind the advanced point they have reached, and that no traveling and carrying advantages of a different nature would have compensated in any satisfactory manner for the absence of the company’s appliances. Of course, while the company has been benefiting the Coast and this city in particular, it has been correspondingly benefiting itself.

Compared with what it is now, its prosperity at the outset of its active existence was very small indeed. But, although it has grown into mammoth proportions, and rendered its owners one of the richest corporations in the country, California is none the less indebted to it for the proud position she at present occupies in the category of states.

To place before our readers a full schedule of the local property and operations of this company is no easy task, but enough can be stated to convey a good idea of the subject. All the company’s wharves, offices, and shops are situated at the east end of Brannan Street, where it owns about ten acres of land, which is bounded on the east by the bay, on the south by Townsend Street, on the west by Japan Street, and on the north

by Brannan. From the last-mentioned street the main offices, and an immense wharf-shed, 40 feet high, is entered. … West of this immense shed, standing considerably back from Brannan Street, the company’s bonded and free warehouses,1 now conducted by Poole & Harris, are located.These warehouses are comprised in a substantial two-story brick building, 231 x 191 [feet], divided into three equal fire-proof sections, two of which are for bonded, and the other for free goods.

Immediately in the rear of this building, and

on the right of that portion of the wharf, which is 75 feet wide, is a slip. … On the west of this slip there are three large grain sheds called the Occidental Warehouse, and farther in the same direction are the blacksmiths, boiler, and machine shops. The coal-yard, which occupies a block 237½ x 213 [feet], faces Brannan Street, and has the shops just mentioned in the rear. …

WORKMEN With the exception of the municipal government, the Pacific [Mail] Steamship Company is, without doubt, the most extensive employer of labor in the city. A classification of the hands employed on the premises will serve to show how greatly the industrial classes are benefited by the operation of the company, and how large must be the number of families depending thereon for support. On the permanent pay list there is an average of one hundred and eight names altogether, which are made up as follows: mechanics, eight; blacksmiths, six; engineers, two; boiler makers and helpers, 29; plumbers, ten; carpenters, 15; joiners, 17; caulkers, five; coopers, two; and laborers, 14. Besides these, there is a daily average of one hundred and fifty stevedores or supernumerary laborers employed, the number being sometimes more and sometimes less, who are paid at the rate of $4 a day, for nine hours, and receive 75 cents per hour overtime. Thus, outside of the official staff, the company has over two hundred and fifty men on its pay-sheets, and when, added to these, the crews of its steamships which are periodically coming into port are taken into account, a faint idea can be formed of the large sum of money it pays away for wages alone, and circulates, through its employees, daily, weekly, and monthly in the city.

THE COMPANY’S STEAMSHIPS Twenty-five steamships,2 owned by the company, are employed in the Pacific trade. …

At the present time the California3 is at the wharf undergoing repairs. All her present passenger accommodation is being renovated, her bottom cleaned, her decks newly caulked, and such repairs made as will make her a thoroughly taut, sea-going vessel. Curious to study is the diving process for cleaning her bottom. When the diver is at work, two men turn the handles of the air apparatus which occupies the center of a punt alongside the steamer, and another man holds over the water the signal rope and valve, which he takes in or pays out as the movements of the diver render necessary.

Frequently, the diver remains under water two or three hours at Cont. on p. 27

WITH THE “ EXCEPTION OF

THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT, THE PACIFIC [MAIL] STEAMSHIP COMPANY IS, WITHOUT DOUBT, THE MOST EXTENSIVE EMPLOYER OF LABOR IN THE CITY.

”

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

25

Top: Looking east from Rincon Hill at the Oriental Warehouse. Just up the street from the piers is the Excelsior Saloon & Restaurant. (Copied from an original Watkins print in the collection of Dr. John Haskell Kemble – A11.20,621nl) Above: The steamers Colorado and Senator are prominent in this view of the Pacific Mail docks, while in the right foreground lay the disassembled pieces of a walking beam engine.

(Photograph by Watkins – A12.18,322gl)

26

Sea Letter

LIFE AS A MERCHANT SAILOR

Deep-water merchant sailors, as a class, also faced their share of prejudice and ill-treatment. Civilian seamen were much like soldiers, in that they signed shipping articles for each voyage (which were like enlistment papers for a specific period), and were legally under the total domination of shipmaster and officers when at sea. Their

escapades for the short, unsupervised periods they spent ashore in the saloons, sailors’ boarding-houses, and dens of prostitution clustered on the notorious “Barbary Coast” (comprising Broadway and Pacific Streets, and their cross streets, from Stockton Street to the waterfront), put merchant seamen in the category of unwanted vagabonds and civic nuisances. Once their money was gone, they often found themselves shanghaied by boarding-house keepers and shipping agents onto sailing ships bound to the Orient or around Cape Horn to the British Isles.

The excesses of shanghaiing prompted the enactment of federal legislation requiring the appointment of local shipping commissioners, technically in charge of overseeing the recruitment of all sailors outbound on American vessels.4 Boardinghouse landlords, however, carried on business as usual. “Jack Tar,” the deepwater merchant sailor, was still likely to find himself coming-to on a strange vessel with only a pounding head, the customary sailor’s kit, and a “donkey’s breakfast” (his strawfilled mattress). Shanghai artisans continued to extort “blood money” from ship captains in exchange for foremast hands.

“But in 1872 there was another, more savory side of the “city front” where the average resident lived and worked.” This was the time of the nickel beer and the “two-bit” lunch. There were hack drivers, freight-wagon drivers, various laborers, longshoremen, clerks, and sail-makers. There were also homemakers, lace-makers, dressmakers, hair-dressers, and the destitute widows who hawked fruits and vegetables along the wharves.

Some of these occupations have become a thing of the past, and, increasingly, the only evidence that they even existed is to be found in museum exhibits, historical collections, and libraries.

Cont. from p. 25

a time, and in some instances he takes with him [yellow metal] plates, nails, hammers, chisels, and other material and implements required for the work to be performed.

Properly attended, there is apparently no danger whatever to life or health in the proceedings, and the diver has seldom been known to complain of anything more than a slight headache, no matter how long he may remain under water. Of course, the deeper he descends, the greater being the pressure he has to bear, the shorter is the time he is able to remain, but as in examining and repairing the bottoms of floating vessels the depth is only a few feet, there is little or no inconvenience experienced besides the chill.

In addition to the California, the [sidewheelers] Pacific, Montana, China, Senator, and Ancon are now at the wharf, and almost invariably one or more steamships are alongside, so that the appearance of the docks has always a busy air.

ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF STEAMSHIPS It is, however, when a steamer arrives or departs that the acme of bustle is reached. Immediately, [once] a steamship is telegraphed, the wharf commences to present a scene of activity that rapidly increases until it culminates — with the wharfing of the boat — into such a state of excitement and confusion as to suggest to the mind in a spectator the description of the Tower of Babel.

Contrary to the rule practiced in such cases in New York, the wharf is open to every person who chooses to enter. Hackmen, boarding-house runners, touters of every denomination, and a heterogeneous mass of seemingly self-interested humanity therefore crowd the gangways as soon as they are fixed, throwing cards, shouting names, hustling passengers, and attacking baggage until chaos would almost seem to have returned again, causing many of the new arrivals to look as helplessly bewildered as if their wits were not in very safe keeping.

The utmost good humor, however, generally prevails, and as one passenger after another is appropriated and disappears, the excitement gradually quiets down, until soon the scene is virtually filled by Custom House

officials and stevedores, when the work of discharging cargo is vigorously commenced, and the snort of donkey engines and the rattle of trucks supersede the vociferous action of the human voice. Amphion, were he a living judge, would doubtless decide, under the influence of such circumstances, that mechanical sounds possess more music than vocal organs.

The departure of a steamer is not usually attended by so much clamor and confusion.

There is likewise less hilarity. Most faces bear a sober expression, as if there were someone to leave and something to lose. Not infrequently groups of people move toward the outgoing boat with a funeral pace, while smiles are forced and voices weak. Eyes that gaze into each other moisten with tears, and trembling lips denote how painfully hearts are beating. Callous hackmen have a gentler manner, and a quieter tone of voice; even the trucks seem to rumble with subdued sympathy, and the atmosphere around sighs the refrain of parting. Oppressed with a brooding sentiment, the soul of the occasion is full of compassion and tenderness, and although hands are smilingly kissed and cheers freely [given], many a tear is furtively dropped and many a heart heavy with sorrow. …

Looking upon her as she sits there, diminutive in size, with deep lines of care on her aged face, every vestige of youth departed, and the winter of time whitening her scanty locks, an active fancy is apt to probe the distant bygone in search of coquetry and conquest in which she was the principal figure.

A woman’s life to the masculine mind is so indissolubly associated with minauderie and sentiment that no matter how venerable and unprepossessing the object may have become, she is never devoid of a certain romantic interest. Trite has the proverb grown that no woman has ever died who has not inspired love at least once in her lifetime, and for this and diverse other reasons, a female far advanced in years, who, like Mrs. Gummidge, is a ‘love-lorn creature,’ is wont to feed imagination with many curious conjectures.

Whatever joys and sorrows, successes and disappointments may have checkered the lengthened existence of the aged and seemingly friendless woman who keeps the fruit stall referred to, she apparently makes the best of circumstances, and presents a cheerful front to the world. Her usual Cont. on p. 29

EXCELSIOR SALOON Opposite the entrance to the wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, at the east end of Brannan Street, there is a large corner saloon4 that goes by the name of the ‘Excelsior,’ before which seamen are in the habit of lounging, giving to the locality the air of laziness and loafing that so frequently distinguishes the existence of barrooms in near proximity to shipping. …

WHARF ET-CETERA Unnoticed by the many, and probably but little commiserated by the few, an aged female presides over a small fruit and candy stand on the left inside of the [Pacific Mail] wharf entrance. She is apparently as much a feature of the scene as any object around, and although her receipts are presumably but small, the fact of her continuing so long to trade her little stock on the spot in question argues that she succeeds in making a livelihood.

“TWENTY-FIVE STEAMSHIPS, OWNED BY THE COMPANY, ARE EMPLOYED IN THE PACIFIC TRADE. …

”

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

27

This 1874 lithograph by Frederick Hess depicts the bustling atmosphere on“steamer day.” (A12.23-12n)

CHRONICLES OF DAILY LIFE ON THE WHARVES In 1872, the Daily Alta California was the chief newspaper of San Francisco. Others, like the Daily Morning Call, Daily Evening Bulletin, and the Chronicle, had maritime features on occasion, but compared to the Alta, their waterfront coverage was minimal.

Only specialized publications, such as the Commercial Herald and Market Review and the two-page Daily [Shipping] Guide, had more complete maritime coverage.

28

Sea Letter

Starting in September 1872, the Alta California began a series of front-page articles, describing in detail the San Francisco waterfront from Mission Bay to North Point.

An anonymous reporter thoroughly researched his subject and recorded his observations over a period of several months—describing the various wooden wharves, the buildings, and the different types of sailing vessels and ocean-going steamships berthed alongside the San Francisco docks or anchored in the harbor. He also was able to express the feelings, frustrations, and aspirations of the people of the waterfront.

Although some of the historical events appearing in the articles are slightly at variance with recorded history of today, they nevertheless present a clear picture for the modern reader of what the mercantile San Francisco of 1872 was really like along the waterfront. In short, how the maritime commerce of a city of 178,000 functioned on a daily basis; how food supplies came to the city from the farming communities on the Bay and up-river; and how communication was maintained between San Francisco and the settlements on the California coastline and the seaports of the world.

The first article was an overview of the entire waterfront. Although it didn’t go into detail, it set the tenor

Cont. from p. 27

attitude is to sit with her wrinkled hands folded in her lap and a blank-look expression on her face; but whenever a customer appears, she is instinct with energy and intelligence. A few apples, pears, grapes, and candies compose her stock in trade, which she guards with sleepless assiduity; and this will doubtless be her mode of living until she departs into the shadows of the unreal.

Nearly opposite this fruit-stand, a fire engine which is kept in constant readiness for use and worked for practice once every fortnight, is stationed. This engine is of considerable power, and [as] extinguishing fire in its incipiency is the first principle of safety, it provides very ample protection in that respect to the company’s premises.

Weighing facilities are furnished by two large, stationary Fairbanks’ scales, and several small movable ones.Trucks of all sizes exist in abundance, and every requisition to facilitate the business of the wharf is provided. In the yard, near the shops, four large spare [paddle] shafts are lying on the ground, each of which weighs about thirty-five tons.

These shafts were made in Bridgewater, Connecticut and were brought overland by railroad, on trucks built expressly for the purpose. It is the custom of the company to have on hand a spare shaft for each steamer, in case of emergency.

John Chinaman deserves a passing mention in concluding this article. So frequently has the wily celestial been detected in smuggling opium from the company’s steamers, that now, as soon as one steps on the wharf, a Customs officer goes up to him, and feels him over. John submits to the indignity with stolid unconcern. No Chinaman is permitted to leave the wharf without first being searched; but it is generally suspected, as an official remarked, that in spite of the precautions used, more or less, smuggling in opium is successfully carried on.

1. This building was more commonly called the “Oriental” Warehouse.

This warehouse survives to this day [at 650 Delancey Street], and remains largely in its original condition.

by the saloon keepers to win patronage is the lunch system they have adopted.

Nowhere but in San Francisco is there such temptation for everybody to drink.

When a hungry man can procure a drink of anything he likes, and a lunch, which for variety and style of serving is superior to that set at his own home, or at the first­class hotels and restaurants, for the small sum of ‘two bits,’… he will not hesitate to enter a saloon and satisfy his hunger. Hot lunches are served free, at all the first-class saloons every day between the hours of 11 a. m. and 2 p. m. One price is charged for every kind of drink … he who lays down his ‘two bits’ can have his choice and besides, eat his fill of a steaming savory lunch. … A man need not go hungry so long as he has a ten-cent piece about him. Even in the ‘five-cent’ saloons, where beer is the standard beverage, and where the Germans mostly congregate for a smoke, chat, and drink, and a few chips of bologna, there is always a plate of cheese, some dried beef, crackers, pickles (sic), mustard, and sausage and here, everything is five cents.”

2. [Nineteen] of the Pacific Mail fleet were steam-powered side­wheelers of wooden construction which ranged in size from the largest vessel, the Japan of 4,352 gross tons, to the Ancon of 654 gross tons. Japan was engaged in the transPacific trade, whereas Ancon, formerly a ferry at Panama, was being enlarged for service on the Pacific Coast of the United States. Four side­wheelers were regularly engaged in the Panama trade and four were in the Inland China Sea trade. Four of the five remaining vessels in the Pacific Mail fleet were of iron construction, and ranged in size from the screw steamship Honduras of 1,423 gross tons to the screw steamship Winchester of 730 tons.

3. The steamship California was the pioneer ship of the Pacific Mail fleet. She was built

by William H. Webb in 1848. She had a gross tonnage (new rule) of 874.16 tons and registered dimensions of 199.2 x 33.5 x 20 feet. She had a round stern and a straight stem and an overall length of 225 feet. Califomia was powered by a 500 N. H. P. side-lever steam engine, and her hull was constructed of live oak. By 1872 her deck cabins had undergone a number of remodelings, and she had become brigantine-rigged. In 1874, to commemorate 25 years of operation (and 25 years since the beginnings of the California gold rush), a flag and bunting-bedecked California made a memorable cruise on San Francisco Bay carrying some of the same “49ers” who arrived at the gold rush town of San Francisco in 1849 on California’s first trip around the tip of South America from the East Coast of the United States.

4. The saloons of San Francisco outside of the “Barbary Coast” area were not what is typically seen in the twentieth-century western movie or television show. An insight into the saloon system of the 1870s is well described in the “hot lunch” section of the book Lights and Shades in San Francisco (pages 182–183) as follows: “One of the chief inducements held out

CONTRARY “ TO THE RULE PRACTICED IN SUCH CASES IN NEW YORK, THE WHARF IS OPEN TO EVERY PERSON WHO CHOOSES TO ENTER.

”

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

29

Divers with hand-cranked air pump. (Bethlehem Shipbuilding Collection – P83-142a.4666)

30

Sea Letter

of those to come. Entitled “The City Front” and dated Monday, September 2, 1872, it read as follows: “Until recently, the streets fronting on the Bay were considered the most dilapidated in the city. They abounded in filth, in manholes, and an accumulation of unsightly rubbish, which repelled even the idea of a stroll along the waterfront on Sunday.

Small groceries and low eating-houses were plentiful, and the victims of those who kept them were numerous.

The city front had a reputation which caused it to be looked upon as the lowest part of the city; and this idea helped to hand it over exclusively to the hoodlum element.

“The completion of the bulkhead,5 however, changed the state of society there, and led to many improvements in the surrounding property. But while a good deal has been done, there can be no doubt that much is undone. East Street, from Merchant to Clay, presents many of the old objectionable features. It has the appearance of neglect and decay. The street itself is used as a receptacle for filth, while Merchant Street is blocked

up by old boats and other rubbish which could be conveniently stowed away in vacant lots in the vicinity. The Superintendent of Streets has been very zealous in the work of removing street obstructions, in many instances where they were not obstructions, but conveniences, although not so in the strict interpretation of the law. Why not make the law [as] general in its operation as it is in its meaning? On these streets the Superintendent will find what are not alone obstructions, but absolute nuisances. From Clay to Market, East Street is in good condition, and the houses look clean and well kept.

“A marked improvement in the wharves is noticeable everywhere.

The wharf accommodation is simply excellent, since work on the bulkhead ceased. Along the whole line of waterfront, from Pacific Street to Folsom, the wharves are in the best possible condition. From Market to Folsom is almost exclusively devoted to the lumber trade, which appears to be brisk about this time. It is loaded with piles of lumber the entire distance. The wharves and the streets fronting on them are clean and in good repair, except that portion of East Street to which reference is made as being neglected, so that a walk along the city front, instead of being disagreeable, is pleasant, healthy, and invigorating.

“Occasionally a man is seen lying drunk, surrounded by a horde of juvenile hoodlum tormentors, who delight in amusing themselves at his expense. It is painful to see so many boys and young girls prowling around the wharves without restraint, and using language not only indecent but positively outrageous. The highest ambition of these boys is to swear loud and often — to swear or use obscene expressions when a stranger (whether lady or gentleman) is passing. As the use of vulgar and profane language is an offense against law, it is surprising that those budding hoodlums are not arrested and

punished. But this class is not confined to the wharves, and on that hand the city front is not more objectionable than Kearny or Montgomery Street; or in fact any street.

“But it is from Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s wharf to Fourth Street that the substantial improvements on the waterfront are going on and projected. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company [has] largely increased their facilities at the foot of First Street and added many substantial improvements to their buildings. Adjoining, or convenient to their wharf and warehouses, are the ferry landing and sheds of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, which have also been improved and extended recently. The opening of Townsend Street has been followed by extensive grading at either side and by the erection of commodious buildings.

King Street is more like a railroad track than a public street. It forms the connecting line between the railroad company’s ferry landing and the depots on Fourth Street. There is not much travel on the street, and the inconvenience is not felt. An extensive wharf is constructed south of Berry Street, which can be approached by vessels of the deepest draft; and also an extensive warehouse.6 When brought into use, freight can be taken direct from the ship and placed in the cars. There are many other improvements here which we have already noticed and which are now far advanced toward completion. In fact, the whole appearance of this part of the waterfront has been changed and improved at an enormous cost.7 The value of property in the vicinity has increased, rents have raised there twenty percent and more, and the hum of industry is incessant.

“A large building is in course of erection on Fourth Street, near Townsend, for the Central Pacific Railroad Company’s office. The foundation is already laid, and the work will be pushed forward with all the despatch possible. Thousands

of men find employment on the company’s works, and thousands are benefited indirectly. The vote for the ‘Compromise’ between the city and the Central Pacific in that section, at least, will be unanimous. The people are well pleased with the action of the ‘Committee of One Hundred8; and it is only those who are blind to the interest of the city, or carried away by prejudice or personal interest, who, in view of the great improvements now going on and to be inaugurated and carried out, can hold any other opinion. A visit to the foot of Fourth Street must convince any prejudiced citizen of the importance of making San Francisco the terminus of the Central Pacific.”

CHRONICLES OF INDUSTRY ON THE WHARVES

Following his introduction to the harbor scene, the unknown reporter described various sections of the waterfront in vivid detail. Because of its central role in West Coast maritime development, and the excellent photographic documentation of the area that survives, the articles concerning the facilities, fleet, and neighbors of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company

Coaling hoppers and the paddlewheel steamer Japan at the Pacific Mail wharf in 1868. On her second voyage, Japan was lost to fire off Yokohama, with heavy loss of life.

(This image is also believed to have been taken by Carleton Watkins – A12.18,316nl)

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

31

Selling apples “somewhere on East Street.” (A12 .14,069n)

32

Sea Letter

are quoted at length. They originally appeared in the October 14 and 21, 1872 issues of the Alta: “That the metropolis of the Pacific Coast should, with its magnificent harbor and vast shipping trade, possess extensive dock accommodations, follows as a natural consequence, but there are nevertheless many circumstances and particulars in the connection calculated to form a subject of interesting inquiry. Late years have seen our whole eastern waterfrontage provided with substantial and commodious wharves, having sufficient depth of water to receive the largest vessels afloat; and, although as yet San Francisco can boast of no solid stone bulkheads and docks after the manner of Liverpool and other leading shipping ports, it is pretty safe to predict that notwithstanding the natural obstacles of our bay to works of that character, they will at no very distant date be constructed to furnish whatever extra facilities and security the shipping requirements of our harbor may demand.

“At present, in point of size and arrangements, our wharves will compare favorably with those of any port in the United States, and when the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the

Pacific Mail Steamship Company shall have completed their new piers and additions, the wharfage accommodation of San Francisco will be greatly in advance of that which exists in some of the leading Atlantic ports.”

The most remarkable place on the West Coast, the 1872 San Francisco waterfront was full of life and activity (see sidebar for description from the Pacific Mail Steamship Company). It was more than the variety of ships, buildings, and extensive wharves.

There were men and women of all walks of life: working people of many trades; the rich and the destitute; the honest and the crooked. It was those colorful people that added the true flavor to the waterfront. By including their story in his waterfront series, an unknown reporter was able to provide us with a word picture that has transcended more than a century of time.

Copyright 1988 by Michael Jay Mjelde Michael Jay Mjelde was the recipient of the Karl Kortum Award in maritime history in 2007 and is the author of the books Glory of the Seas and Clipper Ship Captain, both of which were published by the Friends of the San Francisco Maritime Museum Library.

NOTES 1. John S. Hittell, A History of the City of San Francisco (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1878), 491.

2. The term “clipper” continued to be used in the 1870s in the New York – San Francisco trade as a carryover from the California gold rush days. Although very few vessels of that earlier era, other than David Crockett and Young America, were still regularly hauling general cargoes from New York, ships of relatively full model were advertised in the shipping columns on both coasts as being “clippers.” Such papers as the Daily Alta California had a weekly feature entitled “Commercial Letter” from New York, which was subtitled “Clipper Freights.” This provided news regarding sailing ships bound from New York to San Francisco.

3. Hittell, A History, 491.

4. The Shipping Commissioners Act, first passed in 1872, was amended in 1874 to make it unnecessary to sign men at the Shipping Commissioner’s office if they were to be employed in coastwise or Great Lakes vessels.

(James C. Healey; Fo’c’sle and Glory Hole (New York, Oxford University Press, 1936), 151.

5. The “bulkhead” referred to herein was a rock seawall built between the years of 1867 and 1869 along Front and East Streets. The 1871 San Francisco Directory provides some background as follows: “The construction of the bulkhead, or sea wall, has not progressed to a very great extent during the past year (1870).

The Act providing for its construction was approved April 24, 1863, but it was not until 1867 that any of the bulkhead was built. The first section along Front Street from the North line of Union Street to the south line of Vallejo Street was completed in March 1868, and has since been continued from Pacific Street along East Street to within 52 ½ feet of the North line of Howard Street. The delay in construction awaits the accumulation of funds received from harbor dues to carry on the work. Originally, it was designed

that this structure should consist of a foundation of rock dumped into a channel dredged for the purpose, on which was to be laid a wall of cut stone, or concrete masonry. The embankment of rubble, however, seeming to answer all purposes, the ornamental facing has been abandoned as a useless expense.” Much of the rock utilized in the initial sections of the bulkhead came from the quarry at the foot of Telegraph Hill.

6. The writer of the Alta California article was not referring to the South Point Warehouse fronting on Berry Street, and south of Third. This building predated 1867 and appears in a U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chart for San Francisco dated 1869. The writer was therefore writing about the new railroad wharf and (the under-construction) wood frame warehouse on the south side of Channel Street.

7. Roger R. and Nancy L. Olmstead, and Allen Pastron, The San Francisco Waterfront (San Francisco: San Francisco Wastewater Management Program, 1977), 202, states that “1,800,000 dollars” were spent by the Central Pacific Railroad in 1872 alone to “bring the tracks of the former San Francisco and San Jose Railroad from Market and Valencia to this location,” that is, the north side of Mission Bay.

How would you like to explore the salty old waterfront of the town sailors used to call “Frisco”? You can! San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park has just created a new visitor experience that invites you to walk through time as you see, hear, and touch San Francisco's historic working waterfront. (The Visitor Center is at 499 Jefferson Street in SF, cross street Hyde, and open seven days a week from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., 415-447-5000)

8. The Committee of Vigilance dated back to San Francisco of 1851, when a group of vigilantes took the law into their own hands and rooted out criminal elements which had in effect taken over the gold rush city of 25,000 population. It henceforth became known as the “Committee of Vigilance” or “Committee of 100.”

Although it never again resorted to hanging criminals, as it did in 1851 and 1856, the committee still carefully observed the actions or inactions of San Francisco’s public officials in the 1870s. This is indicated in feature stories appearing in the Alta, Call, and Chronicle. The Committee of 100 was instrumental in promoting the expansion of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads in the Mission District in the early 1870s.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

33

THE KID WHO

FELL IN LOVE WITH A FERRY STEAMER

BY CARL NOLTE

Eureka mooring at Hyde Street Pier, Sept. 30, 1963. (Photo by Bob Warren – P82-019a.4435n)

hen I was a smaller boy than I am now, my family made regular trips from San Francisco, where we lived, to Marin County, where we had a small summer cabin. The Golden Gate Bridge meant nothing to us; we were too poor to own a car. So we travelled by Northwestern Pacific ferry to Sausalito and by connecting electric train to Mill Valley, not far from the cabin.

It was on these journeys that I made the acquaintance of the ferry steamer Eureka, which, through the eyes of a boy, was the biggest, grandest, and most impressive method of transportation ever conceived.

The Eureka was one of three boats running to Marin when I rode, just before World War II. The others were the Tamalpais, a handsome steamer I particularly liked, and the Cazadero, a boat I never gave a second thought.

The Eureka was the biggest of them all, my father said. Why, if the entire population of Sausalito suddenly decided to go to San Francisco at the same time, he said, all they had to do was step aboard. The Eureka could take them all in a single trip.

The Eureka was named for a city on the North Coast that my father said was so far away you had to ride 34

Sea Letter

a train all night to get there. Not only that, he’d been there once or twice. Well, my brother and I were impressed. We kept an eye out for the Eureka on our trips.

I think they must have moved Marin County closer to San Francisco in recent years, because when I was a little kid, it seemed much farther away, and very different, like another country.

The journey to Marin always began with a ride on the San Francisco streetcar, then a walk across the Embarcadero into the wonderful and very important Ferry Building, where one bought a ticket and then waited in a room very much like an airline departure lounge for the ferryboat.

All at once a man opened a big sliding door and pointed in the direction we should go for the Sausalito ferry.

The passengers walked down a dingy

corridor smelling of salt water and creosote to the big white ferryboat.

In the pilothouse, gazing down impassively at the people coming aboard, would be a man in an officer’s hat with gold braid.

“You see that man?” my father might say, “He is the captain. He has responsibility for everyone’s life on this ferry.”

In later years, I learned to look with different eyes at airline pilots and chiefs of police and presidents of nations, but when I was small, that great man in the pilothouse looking down seemed the next thing to God Almighty.

But that was before I discovered the engine room. Now every vessel can have a captain, but only a sidewheel steamer with a walking beam engine can look and sound the way the Eureka did. The engine room was on the lower deck, open to view, and small boys and connoisseurs of such matters could peer in and watch the machinery.

It was a place of huge steel machinery and polished brass, and since it was a steam engine, the machinery not only moved and made sounds, it seemed to breathe as if it were alive.

This article appeared in Sea Letter in 1990, a companion piece to Karl Kortum’s essay about the acquisition of the wooden steam ferry Eureka. Author Carl Nolte has reported for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1961; his “Native Son” essays are a favorite staple of Chronicle readers. In this piece, Mr. Nolte captures what drew him at an early age into a fascination with ships, machinery, and navigation and with the people who were drawn in before him. W e certainly share his fascination, and are honored to present what we hope will be our first installment of “Notes from Nolte.”

The engine was tended by a man in a black officer’s hat and overalls who, before the boat left the dock, sat in a wooden chair, reading a newspaper and apparently doing nothing at all.

Another man looked at dials and oiled things. Just before the boat was ready to leave, the man in the officer’s hat would get up, carefully fold his newspaper, and stand by the engine room telegraph, just over his head, waiting. An order would be given by the Godlike man in the wheelhouse, and the brass engine room telegraph would ring; the handle would move.

“Full ahead,” it said. In the engine room, the man would move his part of the handle to “Full ahead” and then move a huge steel lever, taller than himself, all the way forward.

The engine would give a deep breathing sound, as steam moved from one place to another, and then it would visibly move. The man would listen, and at some exact point, unknown to us watching from the door, would move the steel lever the other way, down to the floorplates. Again the engine would breathe and the machinery would move. He would do this two or three times, then, again at some exact moment that the man seemed to know by sound or feel, he would pull something and the engine would run by itself. He would look at it for a minute to satisfy himself, then sit down in the chair, pick up the newspaper, and begin to read where he had left off.

What the engineer was doing, of course, was operating the valves of this huge, one-cylinder steam engine by hand, causing the big crank to move up and down and tum the paddle wheels. The crank was as long as a three-story building, or so it seemed, and the paddle wheels were taller than a house.

Looking in, passengers could see the valve lifters and eccentrics at work, and hear the distinct whoosh of a slow-moving marine steam engine.

Forward of the engine room several feet, one could look in and see the connecting rod to the walking beam and the crank shaft turning, and feel the vessel tremble with the power of this huge piece of machinery.

We thought it modern and powerful, but once I rode to the East Bay on the old ferry Oakland, which I later learned had been the river steamer Chrysopolis. The engine that powered the Oakland was the same as the Eureka’s basically, and it was new when Lincoln was president.

It was a wonderful thing to see the engine at work when the ferry sailed, but it was more wonderful to see the boat make a landing. Since a vessel, as we know, has no brakes, the big paddle wheels must be stopped, then backed, kicking up an enormous froth, then set forward again to put the steamer in the exact position desired in the slip, at least most of the time.

All this was controlled by the engineer operating that huge engine with his big lever, all by hand.

There was potentially a big problem with all this. Getting the onecylinder engine stuck on dead center meant it could not be moved forward or backward and the ferry would essentially be out of control. Of course, we kids didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the sidewheel ferries all carried a big wooden bar in full sight next to the paddle boxes. The purpose of this was well known: in case the engine got stuck, the sailors were expected to pry the paddle wheel over, at great risk. It was a sort of super emergency brake.

Well, there were many other things to be seen: the skyline of San Francisco receding in the frothy wake; Alcatraz, where they kept the worst men in the whole world locked up — a place so dangerous that, so we

were told, the ferry would be fired on if it approached too closely. We would always pass the ferry going the opposite way, the paddle wheels kicking up the water of the Bay, the walking beam moving up and down near the smokestack, like a see-saw.

And to the west, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, a wonder of the world that seemed pretty small potatoes compared to the mighty steamer Eureka.

Or so I thought. One day we were told that the Marin ferries and the connecting electric trains were all going out of business. My father took me on a last trip to Sausalito and back. It was a Sunday, I think, and the boat was the Eureka. Of course, I was crushed.

Then, five or so years later, we took the ferry to Oakland on some errand or other, and there was the Eureka again, now working for the Southern Pacific.

After that, I rode the Oakland ferry every chance I could get, just to ride, because I knew by then nothing lasts forever, and neither would the Eureka. There were other boats — the huge and beautiful Sacramento, the Berkeley with her wheezy whistle, and later the San Leandro, but the Eureka was always the favorite, an old friend.

Now there will be a celebration for the Eureka, and about time. The boat we thought so modern and so powerful is 100 years old. Some of us like to think that late at night, the ghosts of that steam engine and the men who ran it come back and turn it over again, and you can hear the steam working and see the little kids standing at the engine room window, watching.

Carl Nolte is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and served as a trustee of the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association and as chairman of the board of the National Liberty Ship Memorial, which owns and operates the SS Jeremiah O’Brien.

He also holds a merchant mariners credential from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Spring / Summer 2013 | Number 69

35

There could be no retrospective of Sea Letter without homage to Karl Kortum (1917 – 1996), who assembled the principal historic ships open to the public at Hyde Street Pier and who envisioned the Aquatic Park Bath House as a showcase of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. In the 1990 Sea Letter, Mr. Kortum recalled his efforts to obtain the wooden-hulled, paddle-wheel ferry Eureka as a permanent exhibit. 1958 saw the retirement of the last steam ferry on the Bay; in the same year Mr. Kortum’s work and negotiation resulted in California’s State Maritime Historical Park taking ownership of the venerated vessel. Eureka, the Hyde Street Pier, and the collections of the Park are all testament to Karl Kortum’s vision, his spirit, and his commitment to preserving San Francisco’s maritime heritage.

WHY I PICKED THE EUREKA

BY KARL KORTUM

S

everal months after she broke her crank pin in 1957, the Eureka was offered by Southern Pacific to the Maritime Museum — or we could have the Berkeley. Both ferryboats were now surplus to the railroad. S. P. planned to bring San Francisco-bound passengers embarking from trains in Oakland across the Bay Bridge on buses (a far less majestic arrival, it might be pointed out, but cheaper).

The Berkeley, built by the Union Iron Works in 1898 at their Potrero yard, was an even more elegant craft than Eureka.

She retained her stained glass from the Gay Nineties. Moreover, she had a steel hull, easy to maintain in any modern shipyard in the age of welding. In contrast, the Eureka’s hull (originally the Ukiah’s, built at Tiburon in 1890), was wood. I realized that sometime in the future, if shipwrights who worked in wood

started to become extinct, Eureka could become a very costly vessel to keep alive.

Museum President R. Stanley Dollar, Jr. and I went over to the Oakland Mole where the boats were lying. Claude Peterson, the vice-president for passenger traffic of Southern Pacific, had originally approached Stanley and asked him whether the Maritime Museum would like a ferryboat. Stanley, a wonderfully go-ahead museum president, was keen about the idea.

To the left of the main slip at the Mole were three slips that had formerly accommodated the Southern Pacific Golden Gate ferries, and this is where the Eureka and Berkeley were tied up. The main slip, which handled one boat at a time in the old days, was the point where you formerly got off the ferry and boarded S. P. ’s overland trains.

This slip was out of use since the Eureka had her accident.

Stanley told me to make a choice between the Berkeley and the Eureka. I chose the Eureka.

She may have lacked a steel hull and a richly ornate passenger deck, but she had something the Berkeley lacked: a one-cylinder walking-beam engine four stories high. I had been a fan of this piece of Americana for some time and had suggested its preservation in the Haslett Warehouse or the wonderful brick Fontana Building, then still standing where the condominiums are now. At one point I had an artist prepare a sketch of it in such a museum location. Another difference between the two vessels: the San Francisco Maritime Museum Secretary Berkeley was not propelled by paddle wheels Jean Edmond aboard the Eureka on on either side of the hull; paddles plunking December 31, 1951 on her wedding trip away she has a more prosaic propeller at to marry Museum Director Karl Kortum. either end. And she had a conventional triple The Berkeley can be seen passing in the expansion steam engine. background. (Photo: Karl Kortum)

36

Sea Letter

It was not an easy project for the San Francisco Maritime Museum to take on the Eureka. Our only source of funds at that time was the admission charge made to Balclutha.

Our staff was small. From the first, the idea was to turn the boat over to the State of California to join the vessels we had already persuaded them to purchase for the new State Maritime Park at Hyde Street Pier.

These were the C. A.Thayer and the Wapama.

There was a ferryboat slip at the Pier which would make a logical home for Eureka.

But we owned the big ferryboat Eureka for more than a year before the State could be induced to take title (this depended in large part on a personal friendship between old Joseph R. Knowland, chairman of the State Park Commission, and young Stanley Dollar). Southern Pacific soon asked that Eureka be removed from Oakland Mole, and Harry Dring and Johnny Grueland, crew of the Balclutha, had to shift the boat up the Bay to the empty ferry slip at the abandoned Richmond – San Rafael terminal. Watchman service aboard had to be arranged and moorings tended; it was a location that was awkward for our small crew, already hard pressed.

But arrangements were finally completed with the State Park Commission, and Eureka came to Hyde Street, a pier that she had operated from in years gone by.

Berkeley, after a spell as a floating boutique at Sausalito, was towed to San Diego and is paired with the Star of India as a featured exhibit of the San Diego Maritime Museum.

Karl Kortum founded the San Francisco Maritime Museum as its director, then became the intellectual lead and chief curator of the successor institution, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID San Francisco CA Permit No. 925

San Francisco Maritime National Park Association P.O. Box 470310 San Francisco, CA 94147-0310

In the Next Issue SAYING GOODBYE TO STEAM SCHOONER WAPAMA

Photo by Tim Campbell

San Francisco Maritime National Park Association

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park