Humbug Steamship Companies

DESCRIPTION: "The greatest imposition that the public ever saw Are the California steamships that run to Panama"; the "Golden Gate" and "Yankee Blade" promise to take people to San Francisco in comfort, but the trips is terrible
AUTHOR: Words: John A. Stone ("Old Put") / Tune: "Uncle Sam's Farm" by the Hutchinson Family
EARLIEST DATE: 1855 (Put's Golden Songster, according to Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest), but see NOTES
KEYWORDS: travel derivative humorous gold ship | goldrush
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1854 - Wreck of the "Yankee Blade"
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 30-31, "Humbug Steamship Companies" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #V32673
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Uncle Sam's Farm" (tune)
NOTES [3747 words]: During the Gold Rush, there were three ways to get to California: Overland by various routes (long and dangerous), by sea via Cape Horn (long and uncomfortable) -- or by sea to Central America, where one might cross at Panama or Nicaragua and then take another ship on the west coast. This song is about the third method, in which the traveler might take a ship from the eastern U.S., cross Panama, and take the Golden Gate or the Yankee Blade the rest of the way. It didn't work all too well, as the song testifies -- and it gave the travelers two chances for their ship to sink; according to Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, p. 22, both ships were lost in fairly short order, with 253 people dying in the process (although the numbers I have add up to "only" 190, and are approximate anyway).
The problems with the California steamers probably shouldn't be surprising. Belyk, p. 3, tells us, "While American East Coast steamships were below the quality of European products, the vessels serving on the West Coast were often the castoffs of the American Atlantic fleet. The gold rushes in California and Alaska had contributed to a demand for marine transportation that outstripped supply. The result was that the Pacific Coast became the dumping ground for the rusting and rotting hulks that would otherwise have been consigned to the scrap heap." Plus the companies pushed hard to make the passages as quickly as possible, so captains cut corners. There had already been several wrecks among the California steamers (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 18-23, list some of them).
Documentation about the Golden Gate seems to be thin (though she was apparently expensive to run; according to Knight/Wheeler, p 41, a round trip, San Francisco to Panama to San Francisco, cost about $137,000; the Yankee Blade could do the trip for about $34,000 less). There is a book about the Yankee Blade, the book cited here as Knight/Wheeler. It is a thin little book, only about 130 pages, not very well typeset and rather ugly, but copies are rare and expensive, presumably because it is the best book available.
The east-coast-to-Panama-to-California route slightly predated California statehood. It began with a plan for mail steamers to deliver coast-to-coast mail by this method. After a lot of complex bargaining, the contract went to one William Henry Aspinwell, a clipper ship builder (Knight/Wheeler, p. 9).
The route they came up with was close to but not identical to the current Panama Canal route. The isthmus of Panama runs roughly east/west rather than north/south at that point, so the terminal on the east coast (Caribbean) side of the isthmus is almost due north of the west coast side (there is a map on p. 16 of Knight/Wheeler). They built a town called Aspinwell as a base on the Caribbean side; it's now Colon, Panama. The path to Panama City on the far side was some 52 miles long. A rail line was started from Aspinwall in 1851 (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 9-10), but it never ran more than part way; the rest of the route was by mule train or small boat (Knight/Wheeler, p. 7).
It was agreed that several mail steamers would be built to service this route; the Yankee Blade was originally ordered as one of these (Knight/Wheeler, p.10). Although the ships were contracted as mail steamers, they were designed to carry many passengers as well.
The Yankee Blade was a large paddlewheel steamer -- 275 feet long, with a 37.5 foot beam, draught of 21.6 feet, and 1767 tons burden (Knight/Wheeler, before p. 1). She could steam at 13 knots (Belyk, p. 8), which was a pretty good speed for the early 1850s. She was said to have cost about $335,700 (Knight/Wheeler, p. 33). There is a sketch of her on p. 32 of Knight/Wheeler and another p. 9 of Belyk, showing her to have three masts (with the foremast the most heavily rigged; the mainmast is very far back and the small mizzen almost at the stern; she can't have been very fast under sail although she was intended to use both steam and sail while underway). She had one sidewheel on each side. I don't know if it is significant that the company that built her had a major management shakeup during the process (Knight/Wheeler, p. 27), but it did, She also had a cannon for defensive purposes, although this was not in the initial design (Knight/Wheeler, p. 34).
Edward Mills, the manager of the Independent Line, considered himself a Yankee and a blade (in the sense of being a ladies' man), and in effect named the Yankee Blade after himself (Knight/Wheeler, p. 28).
If I read this right, Panama-to-California passenger service began in early 1849, and there was initially so much demand that the steamers could not carry all the passengers who wanted a spot despite high prices ($250 for first class, $200 for second, $100 for steerage; Knight/Wheeler, p. 15). This shortage presumably inspired this song's promise that the new ships were big enough for everyone. In these early years, the ships carried tens of thousands of people per year.
The Yankee Blade when it came to California belonged to the "Independent Line," which was controlled by Cornelius Vanderbilt (Belyk, p. 7. According to Knight/Wheeler, pp. 17-18, Vanderbilt had originally favored the Nicaragua crossing over the Panama route. Note that the song refers to the "Independent Line"). Another major company was, get this, the "Independent Opposition Line," controlled by Edward Mills (Knight/Wheeler, p. 17) There were a whole bunch of machinations in ownership of these steamers; Vanderbilt was at one time forced out and threatened revenge, and made his way back (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 24-26. I won't try to explain just what happened...).
Vanderbilt's plan for revenge on those who had thwarted them was to offer heavy discounts -- $175 for first class, $150 for second, $75 for steerage, or about 25% off the going rate (Knight/Wheeler, p.39). Based on the few trips she managed to finish, it appears her trip time, San Francisco to Panama City, was just about exactly fourteen days. She typically had about $40,000 in ticket revenue per trip (Knight/Wheeler, p. 41), which, since a trip cost about $52,000 to make, meant she needed to carry enough freight to earn about $12,000 per trip to beak even. She carried enough freight that she could usually do so, though Knight/Wheeler, p. 41, reports that she paid her officers less than other lines.
The Yankee Blade was new to the California coast, having left New York on February 2, 1854 for her first trip to Panama (Knight/Wheeler, p. 34). She was then to go around Cape Horn and to join the Pacific fleet. She arrived at San Francisco on May 4 (Knight/Wheeler, p. 36 -- which adds that there was a murder aboard the ship on this first voyage!). On June 1, 1854, she began her duties as a San Francisco-to-Panama shuttle (Belyk, p. 9).
The advertising for the ships really does sound a bit like this song -- e.g. Knight/Wheeler, p. 29, prints an ad from the August 20, 1853 New York Daily Times. It is headlined "FOR CALIFORNIA" and includes this bit of promotion: "The steamships forming this line are first-class in every respect, stand A No. 1 with the Insurance Companies, have superior accommodations, and are unsurpassed for speed and ventilation."
The captain of the Yankee Blade was Henry Randall. On paper, he seemed like an excellent choice. He had substantial experience on the California coast; he had worked for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company until 1852 when he shifted to the Independent Line (Belyk, p. 8). But he seems to have been a reckless type; in August, he set out from San Francisco for Panama -- and tried so hard to make a record passage that he ran out of coal along the way and had to pull into a bay and chop wood to get him to his destination (Belyk, p. 10; Knight/Wheeler, pp. 42-43). So urgent were the steamers' orders to make quick passages that the Sonora saw the Yankee Blade's distress signals -- and kept on going, though she did pass on the information when she reached port (Knight/Wheeler, 43)). Interestingly, the Golden Gate was preparing to go look for the Yankee Blade while this was going on, but the Yankee Blade made port just in time.
On her trip back to San Francisco, there was a cholera outbreak on board; six people died (Knight/Wheeler, p. 43). Sounds to me like jinxed ship....
There was, not surprisingly, some friendly competition between ships on the San Francisco-to-Panama route -- a competition the song alludes to when it says the Golden Gate will beat the Yankee Blade (although those two did not actually race). On September 29, a paper carried a wager that the Yankee Blade could beat the Sonora to Panama. Knight/Wheeler, p. 45, has a (very poor) reprint of the ad, which begins "$5,000 Wager -- WANTED TO BET $5,000. That the Passengers by the YANKEE BLADE will arrive at Panama in Advance of those per the Sonora." Belyk, p. 10, thinks Captain Randall was involved in the wager. Knight/Wheeler, p. 34, says that Captain Randall was offered bonuses for record runs. He chose to sail very close to the coast to try to improve his time, while the Sonora sailed a more conservative course father from the shore (Belyk, p. 11; White, p. 42, calls the ship the Sonoma). The Sonora in fact had been ordered not to race -- and had been allowed to load only a limited amount of coal so that it couldn't violate the order! (Knight/Wheeler, p. 46). Which did not stop Captain Randall.
The Yankee Blade left San Francisco on September 30, 1854. She carried many hundreds of passengers (Wikipedia says at least 819; Belyk, p. 11, also mentions this number but says there might have been as many as 1200; White, p. 41, gives the round number 800. Knight/Wheeler, p. 49, say 819. All agree that there was no passenger manifest, so we don't know who was officially on board, plus there were several fugitives and towaways; Belyk, p. 20. It should be noted that passenger manifests were not really possible at the time; steerage passengers were allowed to come aboard and pay cash up to the moment the ship sailed; Knight/Wheeler, p. 49). She had about 122 crew, and at least $150,000 in gold (Lockwood/Adamson, p. 20; White, p. 42, thinks the gold was worth $213,000 or more, Knight/Wheeler says that there were two consignments, of $153,000 and $60,000, for a total of $213,000).
Four ships departed San Francisco in a line at 4:00 on Saturday, September 30, 1854: The Yankee Blade, Sonora, Goliah, and Cortes. (Knight/Wheeler, p. 51). At the Golden Gate, the Yankee Blade stopped until the Sonorah could come alongside, then lowered its flag as a challenge. Despite orders, the Sonora dipped its flag to accept the challenge. The race to Panama was on.
They picked a very bad time for racing -- too much fog. If I understand Knight/Wheeler, p. 52, correctly, Captain Randall never once managed a fully accurate navigational fix; he relied on one or two partial fixes, and dead reckoning, to tell him where he was. And he got it wrong, in a very dangerous area.
Lockwood/Adamson says the Yankee Blade was lost at a place they call "Honda," or "The Devil's Jaw," by the Santa Barbara Channel near Point Arguello. A very dangerous stretch of rocks, it had claimed its first California steamer, the Edith, in 1848 (Lockwood/Adamson, p. 20), and as late as 1923, no fewer than seven American navy destroyers would go aground there. No matter; Belyk, p. 13, says that Captain Randall did not decrease speed when she hit the fog bank. Knight/Wheeler, p. 106, thinks he slowed down a little -- but not enough for the ship to have been safe. He seems not even to have cared; he was having a drink with a passenger when the ship went aground (Knight/Wheeler, p. 53),
At about 3:30 p.m. on October 1, she went aground at Honda (Lockwood/Adamson, p. 21) or Point Pedernales (Knight/Wheeler, p. 55. This is not a disagreement; there were several names for the area).
Her bow had driven some sixty feet up the rock. Captain Randall tried to back her off, but she was stuck (Knight/Wheeler, p. 55), Just as well; there was at least a twelve foot gash astern below the waterline (Belyk, p. 13; White, p. 42 and Knight/Wheeler, p. 57, say it was a 30 foot gash). It let in far too much water for the pumps to handle. She was trapped, with the bow out of water and the stern sinking. Since the pounding of the waves was destroying the stern, there was no choice but to abandon her.
This produced a mad scramble. The purser, Samuel Vought, was able to save much of what had been entrusted to him (and he and a few loyal crewmen would guard it during the coming night; Knight/Wheeler,, p. 59), but the vault with the gold was already under water (Belyk, p. 14).
Had Captain Randall figured out where he was yet? It doesn't sound like it. There is no record of him taking sightings or of checking charts. He made yet another dubious choice at this time, going out on one of the ship's boats to explore. There weren't enough lifeboats for everyone aboard -- not even close. Life preservers were also hard to find; a steward went so far as to sell them to passengers willing to pay (Belyk, p. 20; Knight/Wheeler, p, 64). Randall had to find someplace where he could ferry people -- but why did he have to lead the search parties? Possibly he didn't trust his crewmen -- but his passengers weren't to be trusted either. He took charge of one boat, put first officer C. W. Hewitt in charge of a second, and put the second officer in charge of a third. That left no experienced officers on the ship; Randall put his teenage son Henry Jr. in charge of the ship (Belyk, p. 14).
Hewitt's boat was swamped by the waves, and though it stayed afloat, many were tossed out of it and lost (Belyk, p. 15, thinks that 26 were lost that way. It is likely that some of those who were lost took so much gold with them that they could not stay above water. Knight/Wheeler, p. 60, says that Hewitt himself was temporarily paralyzed). Randall later declares he returned to the ship, but others claimed he never did. Meanwhile, a gang head named Jim Turner, and a bunch of his thugs (most of whom were stowaways), were terrorizing those left on the ship and stealing their valuables (Knight/Wheeler, p. 61).
Even if Captain Randall eventually came back, there was a time when no senior officer was on board the wreck. Fortunately, the third mate remained on the Yankee Blade and calmed the passengers (Knight/Wheeler, p 66), but such a junior officer should not have been placed in such a difficult position -- and Randall should, in any case, have put him in charge rather than Randall Jr. At least one passenger praised the third mate highly while calling Randall and the first mate "cowards" (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 67-69); another passenger -- the one who was drinking with Randall when the boat went aground -- also praised the third mate and observed caustically that Randall "left... to find land and found it convenient to stay on it."
A few boatloads made it to the inhospitable shore, but only three of the six boats remained usable after their first trips (Knight/Wheeler, p. 61); most passengers were still stuck at sea (Belyk, p. 16).
Fortunately, the S. S. Goliah (incorrectly called the Goliath by Lockwood/Adamson), a small ship that shuttled between the towns from San Francisco to San Diego (Belyk, p. 12), had been concerned by Randall's antics and was watching for the Yankee Blade (Belyk, p. 17). She arrived some time between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. the next morning (Knight/Wheeler, p. 77). She took off the remaining passengers, keeping some aboard and taking others to safety on shore (Lockwood/Adamson, p. 24). Or, at least, relatively safely, since there was still a lot of gold to fight over, and little in the way of supplies for the people on the shore (though the Goliah left what it could. But it was a small boat carrying about 100 people; it didn't have a lot to spare). The Goliah did manage to catch and lock up several of the Turner Gang (Belyk, p. 18), with some help from the other Yankee Blade passengers (Knight/Wheeler, p. 86)).
Three men who had lost heavily in the wreck committed suicide by jumping overboard from the Goliah (Knight/Wheeler, p. 80).
The Goliah left five people at Santa Barbara, used his boats to drop off a few more at San Pedro, and most of the rest at San Diego, though a few elected to stay with the ship and return to San Francisco (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 80-82).
Just minutes after the last passengers were taken off, the stern of the Yankee Blade broke off and capsized (Belyk, p. 18).
The area where the passengers landed was unsettled, so many might have died, but eventually the Goliah came back and rescued the rest. Not a few others were pretty well fleeced; some tried to walk to Santa Barbara (the nearest substantial town), while a man with his eye on the main chance had brought a string of horses to the site and offered rides to anyone who would pay $25 (Belyk, p. 19). But most were taken back to San Francisco by the Goliah or the Brother Jonathan. The Goliah arrived with 361 survivors aboard on October 9 (Knight/Wheeler, p. 87).
Berman, p. 229, says that fifteen lives were lost. The shipping company said that fewer than thirty people were killed (Knight/Wheeler, facing p. 1, say 16-30), but it is widely believed that there were more than that (Belyk, p. 20).
The Independent Line tried to wriggle out of responsibility, on the argument that it had sold the Yankee Blade to the Nicaragua Steamship Company on October 1. True, technically, but the Independent Line had sold many of the tickets and hadn't done much to tell the passengers of the sale (Knight/Wheeler, p. 88). The Nicaragua Steamship Company had, if anything, tried harder to do the right thing, sending the Brother Jonathan to help with the rescue (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 88-89).
On October 19, the passengers assembled at the ticketing agent, Fretz & Ralston. Fretz & Ralston offered them a take-it-or-leave-it 25% refund. Apparently people weren't as litigious back then, because, despite many grumbles, most of them took it (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 94-95. To be fair, Fretz & Ralston had had a lot of their money on board the ship and had lost at least $25,000, according to Knight/Wheeler, p. 109, so they didn't have a lot of money to offer. But there is no hint they would have paid more had they been made whole). Between the loss of 75% their fare and 100% of whatever they had been carrying on board, many who had been on the ship were left destitute (Belyk, p. 22). It's sort of the reverse of the song's line "You have to pay their prices or go back into the hills." In this case, you had to take their miserable "refund" or go back to grubbing in the mines. To be sure, the ship's owners, like Fretz & Ralston, had been hit hard; apparently the ship, which had cost over $300,000, was insured only to the tune of $100,000 (Knight/Wheeler, p. 97).
Many of the passengers who had hoped to take the Yankee Blade to Panama instead took the Golden Gate a few days later (Knight/Wheeler, p. 94). Thus the link between the two in the song continued even after the former ship was wrecked.
Captain Randall's conduct was so controversial that White calls his section on this ship "The Yankee Blade: Craven Coward of Gallant Hero?" (White, p. 41). The newspapers had a field day. Captain Randall wrote a long letter justifying his conduct (reprinted on pp. 90-93); while it offers some justification for his behavior after the wreck, it entirely ignores the fact that he had taken extraordinary risks to try to win a bet.
The insurance policy written by Lloyd's required that a salvage attempt be made, so a tug, the Caroline, was fitted out for the task and sent out on October 20, though it didn't recover much (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 98-99). In November, a second expedition was sent out aboard the Dancing Feather and the Sierra Nevada. That recovered some gold, but more would be recovered by later expeditions (Knight/Wheeler, pp. 100-104). Captain Randall was apparently part of four expeditions to get it back -- and was charged with taking away some undisclosed gold dust, though he was eventually acquitted (Belyk, pp. 21-22). In the end, all the consigned gold seems to have been found, but little of the loose gold from fares and such.
There was a court case in 1855 over who had rights to the salvage (Knight/Wheeler, p. 101).
As Belyk says on p. 22, "Randall had grown rich on the salvage of the ship he had taken to destruction." (There were rumors that he had wrecked the ship in order to salvage it, but this would have been very hard to pull off!) According to Knight/Wheeler, p. 101, he "received the majority of the 60% award given to the salvers," so at least 30% of the recovered gold, which would be many tens of thousands of dollars (a newspaper said $80,000; Knight/Wheeler, p. 103). To his credit, he does seem to have worked, after that, to try to make ships safer -- according to Knight/Wheeler, p. 120, he was an advocate for compartmentalized ships that were harder to sink.
Unlike the Yankee Blade, the Sonora made her voyage safely -- indeed, she seems to have had a long and safe career.
The Golden Gate doesn't seem to have attracted nearly as much attention, possibly because there were many ships by that name. She lasted a bit longer. Berman, p, 210, says she was a ship of 2057 tons, built in 1851, which burned on July 17, 1862, "North of Manzanillo, Mexico. 175 lives lost. Much has been written about this wreck, and it is not 'positive' that any treasure in gold was carried."
Incidentally, it appears that the Golden Gate at times in her career did the full voyage around Cape Horn. But, of course, that wouldn't stop passengers from instead trying the route across Mexico, Nicaragua, or Panama, which involved changing ships but was faster.
Since the Yankee Blade was built in 1853 and wrecked the following year, and the wreck was very well known, the song presumably was written in either late 1853 or early 1854.
At this distance I can't really speak to the accuracy of this song, at least as far as how the passengers were treated on the California steamers. It probably depends on the particular boat. But the song accurately refers to two boats of the period, and to the Independent Line that was a major carrier on the route, and to the mountains of Panama that travelers had to cross.- RBW
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