From Baltimore to San Francisco in 1849
by Laurie Thompson
Robert A. Wilson — a meticulous researcher of local history- recently compiled an enlightening new resource for the Anne T. Kent California consisting of a binder of primary and secondary source materials on The Baltimore and Frederick Trading and Mining Company who travelled from Baltimore to San Francisco in 1849 and who established a saw mill in today’s Baltimore Canyon area of Larkspur at the end of that same year.
Several of the original 30 members of the Baltimore Company became prominent Marin County pioneers. In the Larkspur Heritage Preservation Board’s Larkspur Past and Present, they remark:
Several of the Maryland men also remained, and became leading citizens of Marin County. A. Jerome Barney launched publication of the Marin Journal…, Val Doub served as Marin’s sheriff for three terms, David Clingan also served as sheriff, as well as in the state assembly, John Davis was county auditor and treasurer, Henry Baechtel served as a Marin County supervisor, and Daniel Taylor was county clerk.
As I read through the resources in Wilson’s compilation, I was particularly struck by the accounts of some of the argonauts who arrived in San Francisco in 1849. Capt. R. C. Woodward, on board the ship Andalusia (which carried the equipment -but not the men- of the Baltimore Company), arrived in San Francisco on Sept. 21st. In a letter home, he records his first impression of that city:
The climate is wretchedly cold from 4 in the afternoon until 9 in the morning, after which this is the most dusty and dirty place in the world. There is about 400 per cent between buying and selling; for instance, Kent was asked $14 per oz. for quinine, and could not get an offer of over $2 for his lot. I fear my veracity may be doubted if I state the truth, but here it is: The Parker House, a two story frame cost $130,000., rents for $147,000. per year. A one story frame, 14 by 16, sold for $6200, with only 14 months of lease of ground…. Very poor wood $60 per cord. Water 12–1/2 cents per pail. Potatoes 45 cents lb….. There are 250 ships in port, most of which will never get away, seamen asking $150 per month -the ordinary wage is $14 per month…..
G. W. Klinefelter, who also arrived to San Francisco on board the ship Andalusia writes:
At length, after a voyage of 156 days from Baltimore, our noble ship Andalusia cast anchor on…[September] 21st in the Harbor of San Francisco…. San Francisco, which two years ago was a little straggling village with two or three hundred inhabitants, is now a city containing fifteen thousand…. We have just concluded our first survey of the town and can give only such ideas as strike one at first sight. There are at least two hundred ships, all of them of sufficient tonnage to double Cape Horn, lying abandoned, or as good as abandoned, their crews having left them to rot at leisure, unable to get away. They present the appearance of a forest of masts.
All doubt of the abundance of gold has vanished. We have not yet been to the mines to see for ourselves, but a visit to the town will satisfy the most skeptical. There in the commission houses — the gambling houses- in the restaurants — it is nothing but jingle, jungle. Every person is full of money. You see the miners with their little bags of gold dust — you see business men with their hundreds of gold coins- you see the bankers at the gambling tables with their heaps and piles of money beside them, and scores standing round them eagerly betting, and all as reckless of money as if it were dirt… Life and property are as secure here as they are in the quietest nook of York. If a man steals or murders, they hang him up….. So honest are the men here, that property is left in piles on the street; goods and trunks of valuables are stored in the streets and left there night and day undisturbed.
We invite you to stop by to look through this interesting new resource!
For additional information on The Baltimore and Frederick Trading and Mining Company’s history in Larkspur we refer you to Larkspur Past and Present, pages 99–101.
The illustrations here are taken from the Annals of San Francisco, 1855, which the Internet Archive has digitized and posted online.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
