Before
they took up their stations on the run between Panama City and San
Francisco, the steamships of the Pacific Mail Company had made the trip
around the Horn. The Senator sailed from New York on March 10, 1849; she is shown above in an oil painting by James and John Bard. Below is a lithograph of the Tennessee. She left New York on December 6, 1849, and broke up after running ashore in Bolinas Bay on March 6, 1853.
These first trips out were rather risky. The captain of the Oregon had
to clap irons on most of his crew to keep them from jumping ship at San
Francisco. As ever, there was much complaint about steamship food: "The
pork is rusty, the beef rotten, the duff half-cooked and the beans
contain two bugs to a bean," reported one dissatisfied passenger.
