Pacific Mail Steamship Company

This article is about the shipping company chartered in New York state. For the shipping company in Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska, see Pacific Steamship Company.
The house flag of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.
SS California, Pacific Mail's first ship

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848, as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants, William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland. These merchants had acquired the right to transport mail under contract from the United States Government from the Isthmus of Panama to California awarded in 1847 to one Arnold Harris.

History

California Gold Rush

The first three steamships constructed for Pacific Mail were the SS California, the SS Oregon, and the SS Panama. The company initially believed it would be transporting agricultural goods from the West Coast, but just as operations began, gold was found in the Sierra Nevada, and business boomed almost from the start. During the California Gold Rush in 1849, the company was a key mover of goods and people and played a key role in the growth of San Francisco, California.

In addition to their maritime activities Pacific Mail also ran some of the earliest steamboats on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, between San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton. Domingo Marcucci came from Philadelphia in the Pacific Mail steamship SS Oregon with a knocked-down steamboat in its hold. He started a shipyard in San Francisco on September 18, 1849, on the beach at Happy Valley, at the foot of Folsom Street, east of Beale Street. Marcucci's company assembled the Captain Sutter in six weeks. Built for the Aspinwall Steam Transportation Line, owned by George W. Aspinwall, brother of William Henry Aspinwall, it was one of the first steamboats that ran between San Francisco and Stockton, in 1849.[1]:13 [2] Also for the Pacific Mail, Marcucci next converted the 153 ton side-wheel steamboat El Dorado that had been rigged as a 3 masted schooner for the trip around Cape Horn, to be used for the Sacramento run. Subsequently in March 1850, for the same company, he assembled the Georgiana, a small 30 ton side-wheel steamboat made in Philadelphia, knocked down and sent by sea also for the Sacramento run. That April Georgiana pioneered the shortcut route between Sacramento and Stockton through a slough in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta that was between the Sacramento River and Mokelumne River, which afterward became known as Georgiana Slough.[1]:14

1850 - 1869

In 1850, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company established a steamship line competing with the U.S. Mail Steamship Company between New York and Chagres. George Law placed an opposition line of steamers (SS Antelope, SS Columbus, SS Isthumus, SS Republic) in the Pacific, running from Panama to San Francisco. In April 1851, the rivalry was ended when the U.S. Mail Steamship Company purchased Pacific Mail steamers on the Atlantic side, and George Law sold his new company and its ships to the Pacific Mail. One of the company's steamships, the SS Winfield Scott, acquired when the New York and California Steamship Company went out of business, ran aground on Anacapa Island in 1853.

1906 Advertisement from The World Today magazine
1915 Advertisement showing new ships in Trans Pacific service.

During the American Civil War the ships of the Pacific Mail, that carried the gold and silver of the western mines to the eastern states were under threat from the Confederate Navy in the form of commerce raiders, and several plots to seize one of their steamships for its precious cargo or to convert it into a raider to capture one of its other ships with such cargo. After one of these plots, that of the Salvador Pirates came to light, to prevent any further attempts to seize Pacific coast shipping, General McDowell ordered each passenger on board American merchant steamers to surrender all weapons when boading the ship and every passenger and his baggage was searched. All officers were armed for the protection of their ships. Detachments of Union soldiers sailed with Pacific Mail steamers.[3][4]

In 1867, the company launched the first regularly scheduled trans-Pacific steamship service with a route between San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Yokohama, and extended service to Shanghai. This route led to an influx of Japanese and Chinese immigrants, bringing additional cultural diversity to California.

As the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met in Utah in 1869, the profitability of the Pacific Mail on the run from Panama to San Francisco ended. Many of its ships were sold or put on other routes.

1870-1949

While docked at San José de Guatemala, the Pacific Mail steamship SS Acapulco was involved in the Barrundia Affair of 1890. General Juan Martín Barrundia, a Guatemalan rebel general wanted by the Guatemalan government, was killed aboard ship after an attempted arrest by Guatemalan police, who hauled down the American flag and raised the Guatemalan flag in its place. The affair led to the recall of the U.S. Minister to Central America, Lansing Bond Mizner, by President Benjamin Harrison.[5]

The company was a charter member of the Dow Jones Transportation Average.

In 1925, the company was purchased by Robert Dollar, of the Dollar Steamship Company. With the government bail-out of the Dollar Line in 1938, ownership passed to American President Lines, but by this time, PMSS essentially existed only on paper. It was formally closed down in 1949, after just over a century of existence.[6]

Ships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company

SS Alaska, after being blown ashore during the 1874 Hong Kong Typhoon. Photo by Lai Afong.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Scott, Erving M. and Others, Evolution of Shipping and Ship-Building in California, Part I, Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 25, January 1895, pp.5-16; from quod.lib.umich.edu accessed March 10, 2015
  2. Nancy J. Olmsted, Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay", Mission Creek Conservancy, 1986, Chapter 7, Steamboat Point, 1851-1864 from foundsf.org accessed February 19, 2015
  3. Aurora Hunt, The Army of the Pacific; Its operations in California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, plains region, Mexico, etc. 1860-1866, The Pacific Squadron of 1861-1866, pp.314-315.
  4. "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion." 31 volumes. United States Government Printing Office, 1914; reprinted, 1987, by the National Historical Society, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; citation includes series 1, volume 3, pp. 302-303, 352-368.
  5. The Chicago Tribune (3 March 1891). "Mme. Barrundia's claim; it is based on President Harrison's repudiation of Mizner's acts". The Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL).
  6. "Pacific Mail SS Co.". The Ships List. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  7. Puget Sound Steamboats, Golden Days of Fraser River Navigation
  8. 1 2 Bradlee, Francis B. C. (1913). "The Burning of the Sarah Sands". International Marine Engineering (New York: Aldrich Publishing Company) 18 (February 1913). Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  9. CERES, State Historical Landmarks. "CERES State Historical Landmarks". CERES.
  10. Vincent, Francis (1860). Semi-Annual United States Register. Philadelphia: Francis Vincent. p. 672.
  11. GenDisasters. "Cape Medocino, CA Steamship Northerner Wreck, Jan 1860". CERES.
  12. "The Loss of the Steamship Northerner.; STATEMENT OF CAPT. DALL--NAMES OF THE LOST AND SAVED.". The New York Times. January 20, 1860.
  13. Sinking of the SS Golden Gate, by Andrew Czernek
  14. Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978
  15. https://books.google.com/books?id=20gQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA513&lpg=PA513&dq=burning+of+SS+Japan+1874&source=bl&ots=2KsE5QgbtF&sig=B37CfTg3D-x_r6iokYXnvWOwWUA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CqG-VL7NEIWYNrDvgaAE&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=SS%20Japan%201874&f=false
  16. Transpacific Steam: The Story of Steam Navigation from the Pacific Coast of North America to the Far East and the Antipodes, 1867–1941 by E. Mowbray Tate

External links

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