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Show m The Pacific Mail Steamship Co. BRADSTREET'S confirms the sale of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's ships. H That announcement awakens many reflections H and many old memories. H That company was organized before the dis- H covery of gold in California was confirmed. M Its first fleet consisted of three little side-wheel H steamers, the Panama, the California and Ore- H gon. They were of about 1,200 tons burden each, B with the old-fashioned low pressure boilers and H side lever engines and when crowded could make M from 8 to 10 knots per hour. They often car- M rled 1,500 passengers each in the rush to Cali- H fornia, $400 fare for first-class, $300 for second- class and $200 for steerage passengers. They had other uses. A man suffered so much H in one voyage that ever after he was ready to H meet any fate that befell him with calmness. By H 1S52 a new steamer, the Golden Gate, was added. M It was called a 3,000-ton ship in the advertise- B ments and the astounding fact was further adver- M Used that it cost $400,000. Its register, hung in M the companion way, said it was 2,067 tons bur- H den. It was a fine ship at that time. It sailed H into San Diego harbor to exchange mails. A H terrible storm struck the coast and played smash M even in the harbor. The captain thought it im- B perative to reach a safer refuge in the harbor, and to do this undertook to turn the ship around, and tried the doubtful experiment of running the ship's prow into the mud, believing the wind would swing the ship around. The result was that the ship went aground, its whole length and was pounded by the seas until the storm subsided. She was raised, repaired and a great upper deck, like that of a river steamer was put on, and she ran on the route until we believe 1858, when she was burned on the Mexican coast. Then other ships were put on, the Golden Age, the Sonora, the Golden City, the John L. Stephens, and in 1857 the San Francisco was built for that trade, but in a storm off Hatteras, an air pump broke, the machinery was disabled, in the night the ship was boarded by a wave that swept overboard eighty passengers; a Norwegean bark took the remaining passengers and crew off at daylight next morning and the abandoned ship was left to its fate. All old timers will recall the commanders of those ships: Patterson, Pearson, Watkins, Babey, Randall and the rest. In the eighteen years after 1849 the ships made all the principal stockholders rich. Then the placers of California began to fall off and so did the profits of the steamship company. With the close of our civil war the company built a fleet for the China trade. But the new ships were like the old, only much larger, and were obsolete from the first, for the day of steel ships, the compound marine engine and screw propeller had been ushered in. By the time the overland railroad was completed in 18G9 the steamship company was on its last legs, for it had ceased to pay. Then Mr. C. P. Huntington was induced to take hold of its affairs. He called a young naval officer to help him, new modern ships were ordered for the trans-Pacific trade and prosperity was restored. But when silver was finally demonetized, had the company been wise it would have heeded what Tom Reed said, to-wit, "That the white man with yellow money cannot compete with the yellow yel-low man with white money," and would have sold its ships then or transferred them to some other route. The company gives out that "the shipping bill" has made it impossible to run their ships any longer. The truth is the company has not paid a dividend in sixteen years. |