California Gold Rush Steamer
For a while the Hunt ran on the New York to Haverstam route. Shortly after her completion word of the California Gold Rush reached New York and the Hunt was sent round the Horn to San Francisco. The vessel nearly sank on the way.
| “ | She joined the rush of ships and men to the Pacific Coast in the great gold rush, and December of 1849 saw the Coney Island excursion steamer wallowing off Cape Horn, her big paddle wheels alternately flooded with icy, deep-sea rollers or racing through unsubstantial foam. | ” |
Hunt finally arrived in San Francisco early in 1850 The journey took 322 days. The trip simply to Bermuda was difficult, with the Hunt arriving at that colony on March 11, 1850, in deplorable condition, having just barely survived a gale on March 9.
On arrival in San Francisco Hunt was immediately placed in the Sacramento River trade, and proceeded to make a fortune for her owners, the California Steam Navigation Company, clearing in a single year over $1,000,000. Her first owners were Richard Chenery and R.M. Jessup. Competition was fierce on the California rivers, and while "racing" as such was forbidden, steamboat captains were expected to "do their best" which in practice amounted to the same thing. A boiler explosion occurred on board the sidewheeler New World just above Benicia, California during a race with the Wilson G. Hunt. The resultant lawsult generated a clear picture what such a contest was like during the gold rush times in California:
| “ | was then about a quarter of a mile astern of the New World, and that the boat first arriving at Benicia got from twenty-five to fifty passengers. The pilot of the Hunt says he hardly knows whether the boats were racing, but both were doing their best, and this is confirmed by the assistant pilot, who says the boats were always supposed to come down as fast as possible; the first boat at Benicia gets from twenty-five to fifty passengers. And he adds that at a particular place called 'the slough' the Hunt attempted to pass the New World. Fay, a passenger on board the New World, swears, that on two occasions, before reaching 'the slough' the Hunt attempted to pass the New World, and failed; that to his knowledge these boats had been in the habit of contending for the mastery, and on this occasion both were doing their best. ... Haskell, another passenger, says, 'about ten minutes before the explosion I was standing looking at the engine, we saw the engineer was evidently excited, by his running to a little window to look out at the boat behind. He repeated this ten or fifteen times in a very short time.' | ” |
Later Hunt's owners combined with Charles Minturn, Capt. David Van Pelt, and others to form the California Steam Navigation Company, with the objective of forming a monopoly on river transport on the Sacramento river system.
Read more about this topic: Wilson G. Hunt (sidewheeler)
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