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158 Gold Rush Album
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.