Daily Alta California, Monday, April 26, 1858
CITY ITEMS
Spar Making in San Francisco.--The clipper ship Mary robinson, lately arrived from New York, now lying at Pacific wharf, has just had completed three yards, which she requested, to wit: a for and main yard, each 76 feet long by 20 inches in diameter, and a fore topsail yard, 60 feet in length by 16 inches in diameter. They are a beautiful job, and show that in point of economy and elegance, the workmanship of our city is not surpassed in the United States. They were made of Oregon timber (spruce pine), by D.C.M. Goodsell, Beale street, and are remarkable not only for their symmetry but for the extraordinary size. A number of seafaring persons were gathered about these spars as they were place on the wharf, and the question arose as to the relative expenses of repairing a ship in San Francisco and in Honolulu. It was finally decided that although the prices of labor were a little higher here, the cost of the lumber was much less, and so much was saved in San Francisco in expedition, that the expense would be considerably greater in the islands than an this port. There is also a certainty here that such jobs can be done with dispatch, and competition necessarily reduces the prices of the work. It has been the custom for whalers desiring to refit, to have their new spars made at the islands, the lumber for which is shipped there from Puget Sound. This is unnatural, involves unnecessary expenses and should as soon as the true facts are made known, be totally discontinued. Ships may receive every species of repairs here at much cheaper rates than in the islands.
Daily Alta California, Monday April 26, 1858
