San Francisco News and Stories: 1800s
Passage on the Pacific
New York Daily-Times, October 20, 1851
Important to California Travelers
Passage on the Pacific
Correspondence of The New-York Daily Times.
PANAMA, Wednesday, Oct 1, 1851
There are over six hundred passengers here from the Ohio, and, it is said, four hundred from the Falcon.
More than nine-tenths are laborers, and at least five hundred and fifty of the Ohio's passengers footed it over the Cruces road.
Many of them have come here with the idea that they can get up the coast in Opposition Lines of steamers for from $50 to $75; but in doing so, they have committed a great error.
There is no Opposition boat here now, and the Pacific Company's boats charge in the Tennessee $250 for cabin and $125 for steerage, and in their other boat, $200 for cabin and $100 in steerage, which prices, in fact, are as cheap as the Company can carry for and make money.
A man, even if he is going in the steerage from here to California, should always have at least $175, and then he will not have any too much left when he arrives in San Francisco, after getting on shore, to live for a day or two.
A serviceable word of advice to emigrants may be gathered from this statement.