Civilian, schooner (Cochituate Mining and Trading Company), from Boston, November 6, 1849, to San Francisco, April 5, 1850 (143 days).
Dodge, Thomas, master.
Note: On November 4, 2001, Angie Peters at acppp@aol.com, e-mailed the following information, which was taken from an old board found in a building about to be demolished:
FOR CALIFORNIA!
The Good Schooner
CIVILIAN
170 tons, newly coppered, and four years old, Commanded by
Capt. Thomas Dodge, of Chatham, will sail for California Oct. 20th. She is owned by the "COCHITUATE COMPANY for California," now nearly full. She is fitted up with Superior Accommodations,
is a fast sailing vessel, and offers advantages equal to if not
superior to any vessel that has yet been put up.
Please call for information at No. 69 Commercial Street.E. W. JACKSON Agent.
Boston, Sept. 27th, 1849.
San Francisco Call, November 18, 1899
ANNIVERSARY DINNER BY PIONEER CALIFORNIAN
Captain Dodge, Now of Roxbury, Celebrates the Day of His Departure for this State.
BOSTON. No 17. Just fifty years ago last Sunday the little topsail schooner Civilian of only 165 tons burden and commanded by Captain Thomas Dodge of Chatham, sailed away from Fiskes Wharf for California. Her decks were crowded with men. Among them was Thomas Hayward, who now resides in Roxbury and who is one of the six of sixty passengers now known to be living. Today he celebrated the event by a dinner at his home in Rockville Park.
The voyage around the Horn to the Golden Gate occupied 143 days, including a stop for provisions and water. Mr. Hayward says that men were in such demand in San Francisco tha tthose who could merely saw off a board or drive a nail received $15 a day, and good mechanics received much larger wages. At that time the sandlots were covered with shanties and tents.
Mr. Hayward has been the treasurer for many years of the Society of California Pioneers of New England, and is always present at the monthly meetings, when the former gold-hunters of 1849 recall the dangers and the pleasures, the joys and the griefs, of long ago.