Last Bonanza Kings: The Bourns of San Francisco

3. Bound for California

3 Boundfor CalIfornia B y the time Captain Chase's letter reached William Bourn at his waterfront office in New York, a shorter, faster route to California had been developed across the Isthmus of Panama. Such enterprising men as William Henry Aspinwall and his cousin, William Edgar Howland, were involved in a steamship business that carried passengers and freight between New York and other ports, such as New Orleans, to Chagres, Panama. Beyond Chagres, businesses like the Pacific Mail Steamship Company made agreements with officials in Panama to have mail, freight, and passengers cross the sixty-mile Isthmus by way ofthe Chagres River. Then, from the river's mountain headwaters at Gorgona, travelers went by muleback to Panama City on whatever remained of the old road constructed by the Spanish during their heydays ofplundering the mineral wealth of the New World.! Bourn talked over his reasons for making this journey to California with his wife, and Sarah Chase Bourn agreed that he should go alone so he could learn the nature of the journey and what living conditions were like in San Francisco. However, the understanding between them was that once Will located a proper dwelling, Sarah would take whatever route he suggested and join him in San Francisco. Information about opportunities in San Francisco and in the goldfields, as they learned through her father's correspondence and through newspapers, told them that California was the future , the land in which to make one's fortune. The fare from New York to Chagres fluctuated during the latter part of 1850, varying between $275 for cabin accommodations to as low as Boundfor California $60 for steerage tickets.2 The voyage to the Isthmus sometimes included stops in Cuba, where the steamers loaded additional coal. Other steamers came down the coast from New York to New Orleans and then cut over to Chagres. The voyage to this port was short when compared with the time it took to sail around the Horn or to take one of the overland trails to California. To William Bourn, the voyage to Chagres was an easy one aboard a steamship. He enjoyed being at sea, and he took in every view with a feeling of adventure. He disembarked off the coast at Chagres and was taken into port by ,one of the smaller boats that had to unload steamers in the stream because ofshallow water. Bourn must have been as disappointed as all other passengers who first saw the old city. After passing the crumbling fortress of San Lorenzo (which had never been repaired since the pirate Henry Morgan tried his best to destroy it), all passengers were unloaded at Chagres, which was not much more than a collection of hovels at the edge ofa muggy, hot tropical jungle.3 The unhealthy climate of Chagres was an encouragement to make arrangements as quickly as possible for passage up the Chagres River. Native canoes hollowed out ofsingle logs carried two to four passengers, who were protected from the hot sun by canopies. These bongos, as the natives called them, provided passage to the headwaters of the Chagres River. Would-be passengers had to bargain with the boatmen, and during Bourn's Panama passage, the going rate for space aboard a dugout canoe was about $10. The native boatmen were a mixture of Indians, blacks, and mixedbloods who were usually part Spanish and part Indian.4 The trip upriver was slow, usually about a mile per hour, but to the Gold Rush passengers who had never been in a tropical rain forest, the journey must have been filled with both curiosity and some fear. The jungle had tree branches overhanging the water, and there was the constant sound and sight of monkeys and brilliant-plumed birds that filled the air with their squawks and whistles as they lit on branches beside brightly colored tropical flowers.5 This upriver trip ofthirty-nine and a halfmiles to the village ofGorgona depended upon skilled boatmen who knew how to avoid eddies and rushing currents and were adept at keeping their boats close to the bank. In shallower water they made good use of their poles. Overnight stops were made at primitive native villages along the river. Here, many passengers made do with whatever food was available and tried to sleep on cots or hammocks 17 LAST BONANZA KINGS during a night filled with jungle noises that ranged from the...