January 2011 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 23. Maritime History


paid $30 to $50 a day. The price of food and other essentials increased in proportion. The California Gold Fever was raging in Calais and Saint Stephen the next week. Ever since the beginning of the California excitement, editor Jackson had been afraid the contagious gold fever would carry off the restless intelligent young men who would be much need in the town, and create a mass exodus of worthy tax-paying citizens. Many of the older men had also become infected by the fever; the women, however, seemed free of the disease.


Samuel Pike offered to provide a vessel and take out to California a number of persons for $400 each; his offer has a cooling effect on many, and the Calais paper commented that it would now be safe for the country people to come into town, since the fever no longer seemed contagious. However gold fever continued to spread elsewhere, particularly when the quality of gold delivered to the U. S. Treasury was declared of excellent value. New York papers reported 45 vessels sailing for Chagres and California direct, 10-12 vessels from Boston and Philadelphia, all apparently filled with passengers.


A more severe attack of gold fever began Downeast after Christmas of 1848, as editor Jackson reported: “men of ordinary good sense are now under a delirium of the fever, raving like maniacs, and those who haven’t yet been infected, show a peculiar glistening in their eyes. Fever is in their veins.” Men became convinced that they must hurry, hurry, to California before the gold was gone; once the fever possessed them, they could think of nothing else. Men were beginning to disappear from their Downeast work places. JW Smith & Company of Calais closed their business an placed an advertisement in the newspaper titled “Ho for Californaia”, asking that all accounts be settled before the New Year and their departure for California.


Captains of arriving vessels were being pestered by men begging to take passage in any direction that could take them to California. These men had become possessed by a gold fever so powerful that nothing else mattered; neither cold nor hunger seemed to affect them.


Some men left home without notice, and were never seen again; their bones perhaps lying in unmarked graves on the Isthmus or in the gold fields. Their reasons for leaving were as different as the men themselves. Some were not really leaving; they were escaping – from a load of debt, the drudgery of endless work, heavy constant responsibilities, perhaps a nagging, fault- finding wife.


Other men had dreams: dreams of finding great wealth, dreams of becoming important, and dreams of the pleasures that great wealth could bring; for themselves or loved ones at home.


There was for others, the lure of the unknown, a curiosity, and a desire for adventure; the gold desired by other men was not of primary importance to these men. Perhaps somewhere along the way, in exploring and in searching for gold, they might find happiness.


Ash pans were frequently used in the process of washing and sifting gold, so the humble ordinary wash or dishpan became an essential item for would-be miners. In Downeast Maine, the disappearance of these pans from kitchens and pantries may have been the first warning some women had of their men folk’s intentions.


What to wear enroute and in the gold fields was a topic of great interest to the gentlemen. “Oak Hall” of Boston advertised widely their stock of appropriate wearing apparel and equipment:


“For all kinds of goods suited to those who are providing Outfits for California, from Clothing to a 6-barreled Revolving Pistol, Oak Hall, Boston, seems to keep the lead, as to the cheapest and greatest place in the Union.”


Men who had lived quiet conservative lives, devoted husbands and fathers, who had never wandered further than fifty miles from home alone, were suddenly planning an ocean trip down the Atlantic Ocean around South America to the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco.


Cautious and forehanded men began to figure the safest and most efficient way to travel. Vessels, sailing for distant or foreign ports, often sailed “in company” with others for safety and protection. Groups of men going to California began to form companies in order to share expenses.


At a meeting in Milltown, it was estimated that fifty members and individuals shares of $300, would enable a company to buy a sound, well-maintained vessel of 200 tons, fit it out for the voyage, and buy enough supplies for a year.


Experienced and capable men of business were chosen from among the company to select a sound vessel and an experienced captain and crew, and to buy the supplies.


Smaller groups of men, perhaps more affluent, privately made their own arrangements. Charles W. Smith, Albert Reed, and Shubael Todd left Calais late in January of 1849 but their travel route was not given.


The men who left Washington County for the gold fields of California were of all types and occupations; some reached San Francisco safely, others died in shipwrecks or of disease enroute. All their names can never now be known, nor the names of the vessels, which sailed from Downeast during 1848 and 1849.


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