The Maritime Heritage Project.
Ships in San Francisco during the 1800s.


Dedicated to preserving San Francisco's Shipping History in the 1800s
° SEARCH
° GUESTS
° LOG/LISTS
° CAPTAINS
° VIPS
° SHIPS
° PORTS
° BOOKS
° NEWS
° HISTORY
° RESOURCES
° DONATIONS
° THANK YOU
° BIBLIOGRAPHY
° HOME




The Sears Name in HistoryThe Sears Name in History


Recommended Reading.
Books are available at Amazon.com . . . just click an image.

Hen Frigates by Joan Druett
Hen Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea
Joan Druett
This award-winning New Zealand author/historian has gathered a collection of true stories of women at sea with marvelous detail of their voyages, high sea romance, skirmishes with pirates, and first-person accounts of surviving hurricanes, typhoons, collisions and fire while under sail.
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999.


The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld
Herbert Asbury
Asbury's history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849..."
By October 4, 1855 Captain Elisha Sears, age 22, had married Bethia Sears of Cape Cod, age 19, four weeks earlier and set sail on the clipper Wild Ranger.

She kept a journal during her years at sea, some of which is quoted in Joan Dreutt's book Hen Frigates. Like most wives of the day who went to sea, she learned to navigate, she was happy and contented to be on the clipper with her husband. They arrived in San Francisco, "a very hard looking country, on February 15, 1856.

There was some excitement in San Francisco as Elisha was detained on shore and the pilot took the clipper out into the stream without the captain on board. "Judge of my situation," wrote Bethia; she was alone on board, "with only the mate and a parcel of drunken sailors . . . she ws "fightened to death," but then, still worse, the "Pilot appeared, wild and rattle-headed, and sat in the forward cabin all the evening drinking and telling stories."

Meantime, his ship's affairs attended to, Elisha was penning a letter "to dear sister Eunice. I have not see Wife for 5 long hours," he related. "I hard a few moments ago from her, she was anxious for me to come off, as she ws lonesome. We have not been away from each other so long since I left Boston.

The time ashore had been an enjyable one. They had "been to one Ball, twice to the theater, and to one or two late dinners. She can carry her part well anywhere," he delcared. "She says she is going to sea with me as long as I go . . . What do you think of that? She is without any exception the best female sailor I ever saw, could not do better."

They sailed again on February 27th for Calcutta.

Unfortunately, his wife became ill and died after Calcutta. Elisha write "My poor Wifey is dead and gone." The mates of the Wild Ranger took turns sitting with Elisa as he sat mourning. Elisha wrote "No work on board ship today. The Ship Wild Ranger and her Ship's Company are in Mourning.

(Note: After some type of drama at sea, some wives elected to stay ashore; however, others accompanied thier husbands around the world for many years.)

To Top of Page


Page: http://www.maritimeheritage.org/news/
Date Entered: Between 1998 and 2008
Source: Hen Frigates, Joan Druett
Daily Alta California, Family Papers, Historical Records, Submissions from Researchers


Research and WebDesign: D.A. Levy
Contact: D.A. Levy
www.MaritimeHeritage.org
Post Office Box 2878
Sausalito, California 94966
U.S.A.