The Maritime Heritage Project

Site Statistics Testimonials Contact

Project Support

The Maritime Heritage Project, created in 1997, is a free research tool for those seeking history of passengers, ships, captains, merchants and merchandise sailing into California during the mid-to-late 1800s.

The project receives no support other than purchases through affiliates throughout the site and donations from visitors who value the information on the site.

All research, site development (including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, graphics optimization, writing) is by Dianne A. Blethen Levy, great-great-grandaughter of Captain James H. Blethen. This is now one of the largest maritime history Websites in the world and it may be the only one that has free passenger lists of people sailing into San Francisco.

The site has benefitted from the thousands of journalists who spent their lives working for California's early newspapers: publishers, writers, editors, illustrators, photographers, pressmen, secretaries, typesetters, newspaper boys and delivery people, etc.

The site illustrates the importance of a global awareness; the health and wealth of nations was formed by individuals who migrated seeking refuge and opportunity. It also illustrates the importance of maintaining all facets of our planet be it flora or fauna for the sake of our children and our children's children.

Our World Belongs to Everyone

The Maritime Heritage Project was started in 1997 as an historical research paper by Lauren Hewett. The subject, Captain James H. Blethen, her great-great-great Grandfather, was a sea captain based in San Francisco during the mid-1800s. His life had not been recorded; her idea brought him to life, along with thousands of other captains, ships, merchants, merchandise and world migrations.

Beginning in 1852, Captain Blethen sailed into San Francisco with thousands of immigrants seeking new lives and gold in Northern California. During the 1870s, Captain Blethen also opened the Pacific Mail Line routes between Hawaii and Australia/New Zealand. When the Captain retired from life at sea, he was elected Chief Wharfinger in San Francisco.

The Maritime Heritage Project led to a growing respect for ships and their captains for their enduring commitment in safely moving merchandise, livestock, and people around the world under unpredictable and often dangerous conditions.

Commitment to Shipping History: Captains, Ships, Ports, Passengers

More than 45 years of travel, research and 30,000 hours have gone into the project to preserve San Francisco's shipping history and present an overview of world migration during the 1800s. The project continues as new sections are added or expanded. (Refer to Bibliography.)

Comments include: "There is no other site like it in the world," "For the first time during years of research, I found information about family members," and hundreds of notes from educators who acknowledge the importance of the site to their students.

Testimonials

A personal favorite is from maritim archaeologist James P. Delgado, author of To California by Sea: A Maritime History of the California Gold Rush, Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archaeology of San Francisco's Waterfront, Across the Top of the World, etc. Mr. Delgado wrote that this is the only site of its kind in that it lists all ships and passengers arriving at the port of San Francisco.

A small selection from letters and eMail:

• Thank you for the article on Captain E H Hitchcock. Your efforts to transcribe Daily Alta California list of Ship Arrivals lead to location of Fred's Wife's ancestor. All we had was Betty Hitchcock's "Gone to California as ship's captain" info. . . We really appreciate this. ~~ G. Cramer
• Thank you very much for your help. You told me in a previous message that you are working on this project by yourself. I'm impressed with your work and recognize pain of research. ~~ Regards, L. Mims
• Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. Very handy site you have; it has been of great value to my research from here. You must visit New Zealand again. ~~ Regards ~~ D. Armitrage
• I have enjoyed your site, located the arrival of my 2nd great grandfather in August of 1849 on the Humboldt. Lots of information on the site. Thank you and all the others for all the work it took to place the information on the net for all to discover. ~~ Barb
• I've enjoyed your web site while looking for photos and marine drawings/plans of side wheel steamers built by William H. Brown during the 1850s . . .. We are trying to build a scale model (of the S.S. Pacific) for display. ~~ Thank you, M. Boyd
• Guess you've heard it before, but you've got a fantastic website. Great job and thanks for the enjoyment. ~~ D. Hunt

Who Views The Maritime Heritage Project?

The Maritime Heritage project is listed on major maritime search engines around the world, including maritime museum sites, shipping lines such as American President Lines, and merchant marine sites. The Maritime Heritage site is also used as a training/reference site by the San Francisco Maritime Museum and J. Porter Shaw Maritime Library in San Francisco. It is recommended to researchers by The San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch.

422 sites linking in include Wikipedia (from multiple pages); Yahoo Answers; Ancestry.com; California State Library; Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; The Boston Herald; Refertus (history site); SFHistoryEncyclopedia.com, SF Geneaology, American Merchant Marine, Central Pacific Railroad, various Maritime Museums, University of Victoria (B.C.) Humanities Media Centre, various school districts, Ask.com, World News Network (wn.com), PBS (Public Broadcasting System), libraries and virtual libraries, LearnOutLoud (audio books), expertgenealogy.com, Cyndi s List of Genealogy Sites, Museums on line, ItaliaMaritime, SailBlogs, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Antique Maps, California Wreck Divers, OldSaltBlog.com, Sailor's Choice (history), Explore North (whalers), Boating SF, Spain's Fundaction Nao Victoria, all search engines, etc.

Site Statistics

(As of April 2013: Various sources including Google Analytics, Urchin, Alexa.com. Please keep in mind that this is a one person project; these statistics were achieved through 15 years of focus.)

Maritime Heritage Project Global Ranking: 2,133,061

United States Traffic Rank: 672,994

422 sites linking in.

Alexa Global Ranking of The Maritime Heritage Project: 2,133,061 out of a possible:

• 366,848,493 websites on the WWW, according to one December 2011 survey;
• 466,848,493: December 2011, Netcraft (Internet services company in Bath, England)
• 1 trillion web sites: In 2008-2009, Bing stated more than 1 trillion sites.

The market is international: Given the aging of America, family historians/genealogists are blossoming. San Francisco Bay Area has 6,605,428 residents, many with ancestors who arrived by ship. Internationally, 72 cruise ship lines carry more than 1 million passengers annually and that industry is growing (it is expected to exceed oil revenues). Thousands of families have an "historian" (one genealogical library received 30 million viewers, although a time frame was not given nor numbers substantiated).

As of April 2013, individuals from more than 100 countries visited the site, 75% of visitors were from the United States; the remaining were from the U.S. Government, educational institutions and other non-profit corporations, and Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Thailand, India, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, the Faroe Islands, the Russian Federation, etc.

Visitors view as many as five pages and a significant number stay between 5 and 30 minutes.

DALevy @ MaritimeHeritage.org

164 Robles Way, Suite 237, Vallejo, CA 94591