The Alleghanians: The Maritime Heritage Project with News of Captains, Ships and Passengers in 1800s San Francisco

This site started with my daughter's family tree homework project ten years ago. It has taken us around the world in search of family (and to just have fun). Our generational tree is now 5'x4' and goes back to the 1700s in Maine (before that Ireland, Wales and Germany). A family tree is a marvelous way to keep your family connected.

Recommended Reading.
Books are available at Amazon.com . . . just click on a cover.

San Francisco: Port of Gold
William Martin Camp
An image of the cover of Port of Gold is not available. However, I have this book and it is a well-written history of San Francisco penned by a Berkeley author in 1947. It opens with a list of the Officers of the Society of California Pioneers. Some illustrations are included in the book.

The Annals of San Francisco by Frank Soule, John H. Gihon, James Nisbet
Originally published 1855. Many illustrations.

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..."

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Manager Jesse Hutchinson led the Alleghanians on a successful California tour in 1852, the peak year of that state's Gold Rush. During his Pacific Coast trip, Jesse wrote news correspondence for his friend Horace Greeley's newspaper, the New York Daily Tribune.

They left New York in the steamship Daniel Webster and were to sail to Nicaragua, cross the Isthmus overland, then sail up the coast to San Francisco on the North America. However the North America had run aground on a sunken reef and was a total loss. All passengers were saved and brought to San Francisco on other vessels, including the Alleghanians. The Daniel Webster folk crossed the Isthmus in ten days or more, some traveling faster than others.

"A steam propeller, the Monumental City," said Jesse, "has been chartered to take as many as possible of the North America's passengers, and we are momentarily expecting her here, she having gone down the coast some three days ago for coal."

On April 22, the Monumental City arrived. Once on board, Jesse estimated that there were about 600 passengers and crew members crowded on the ship; and he reported that nearly 100 of them were sick, including twenty women and children. "Our afflictions," he said, "have indeed been very great, and up to the present time, eleven of our companions have died. Most of these were steerage passengers, and contracted their diseases on the Isthmus, being obliged to leave their stranded boat in the river, and work their way on foot through the woods for more than three miles, carrying their own baggage along with them."

The Alleghanians came to California "to sing the songs of Home and Hope and Promise - of the 'Good Time coming.'" The group planned on visiting all the principal mines and great points of interest. . . .

On May 24, the Alleghanians gave their first concert in San Francisco at the Adelphi. According to one newspaper, the "highly respectable" audience included many of "our most lovely and intelligent ladies."

During their time in the Golden State, they performed in cities such as Stockton, Sacramento, Marysville, Nevada City and Yreka. Miriam Goodenow was the Alleghanians' chief attraction and the key to their success. "

The Alleghanians worked the northern mines, planning to tour through the southern ones starting about the middle of September. But now the future of their California enterprise was put into question by the success of competing entertainments. "Booth and the Bakers," said Jesse, "and Starks, and Mrs. Woodward and hosts of theatricals, are all doing well here and in Sacramento. There is no unoccupied room fit for a concert in this city. A Hall or Theater will soon be built, and the Alleghanians will then return." But Miriam Goodenow became ill at Columbia.

Very late in his stay in San Francisco, Jesse's writings took on an uncharacteristically dark tone. He was still mourning the loss of his family and it seems that the the Alleghanians quartet was starting to unravel - no doubt because of the engagement and then marriage of star vocalist Miriam Goodenow to T.P. Robb and her subsequent retirement from concert tours. Along with James Duhig, Hutchinson briefly became the proprietor of the Graham Flour Depot, a whole-grain market at 154 Sansome Street.

On September 13, 1852 the Alleghanians gave one of their most successful concerts at Armory Hall in San Francisco. But Miriam Goodenow took sick again; and it was then that the others positively decided to leave for the East - as an all-male trio - as soon as they could. "I am now en route," wrote Jesse, "to the Northern mines for the last time. While the Alleghanians will go on their way rejoicing into the Southern mines, and probably closing their concerts in California within a very few weeks."

Jesse's letter of September 15 is the last commonly known correspondence from this trip. After this details of events and circumstances come from scattered sources. The Alleghanians continued giving concerts through November.
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