Passenger Lists: San Francisco 1800s

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Queen of the Seas

Arrive San Francisco

March 11, 1853
Clipper Queen of the Seas
Captain Elias D. Knight
From Boston

Passage

127 days from Boston via Valparaiso, 45 days. 76 passengers.

During 1852, 95 clipper ships along with ten clipper barques sailed from northeastern ports around the Horn for San Francisco and 17 of them made the passage in less than 110 days. This remarkable contest has been described by the historian Carl C. Cutler in Greyhounds of the Sea, as representing "the very crest of the clipper wave."

The voyage of the Queen of the Seas was part of a "Deep Sea Derby," in the fall of 1852 representing a sampling of some of the finest clippers of the day racing around the Horn at the most favorable season of the year. Much of the time they were in sight of one another, often going tack for tack slicing on through the seas, each looking for the first opportunity to haul up more sail and fly on past to take the lead again, day after day, through fair winds and foul.

This was the crest of the era of the clipper ships that reached its apex with the rounding of the Horn of those 15 ships. The economic boom that had brought these magnificent ships into existence and around the Horn in the first place was about to go through some changes and eventually go bust. With glutted markets, falling freight rates, played out mines, and too many clippers rising on the stocks in eastern shipyards.

Boston Daily Atlas, 1852, Boston, Massachusetts

The Queen of the Seas was built at East Boston by Mr. Paul Curtis, and is owned by Messrs. Glidden & Williams, and others, and will be commanded by Capt. Knight, a gentleman of long-tried experience, and every way qualified to make her do her best.

She will load in Messrs. Glidden & Williams's line of San Francisco clippers, and will sail about the last of this month. We would particularly call the attention of passengers to her unrivalled accommodations, and also to the fact that she will be most liberally found in all that can render them comfortable, and will most surely sail on the day she is advertised.

Her cabin accommodations are splendid. The after cabin is 35 feet long by 12 wide, and contains 10 spacious staterooms, and other apartments. It is wainscotted with satin, rose, mahogany and other fancy woods, set off into gothic-arched panels, with rosewood pilasters and cornices, edged and flowered with gold. The cornices are enclosed between gilded mouldings, and the ceiling is pure white. The perforated ventilators between the beams are flowered with delicately carved worked and look beautifully. A splendid sofa spans the stern, and a large mahogany table, with settees on each side extends through is centre. The forward partition has set into it a beautiful mirror which gives a reflected view of the whole cabin. The staterooms have each a patent plate glass air-port, and are all furnished as beautifully as a lady's boudoir. 

Compare a comfortable passage in such a noble ship, with the delay, sickness and death incident to the route across the Istmus, and no reasonable person, who prefers health and comfort to the chances of disease, will, for the sake of a week or two's despatch, hesitate which is the best. Families particularly, will find this ship's accommodations all that they can desire. She is spoken of in the highest terms of admiration by all who have seen her. In a few days she will be at her berth at Lewis wharf, and commence loading for San Francisco, having most of her cargo already engaged.

Cargo

Delivered to Flint, Peabody & Co.

Passengers

Allen, Mrs. 
Barker, J. 
Barker, Miss 
Barker, Mrs. 
Barnard, Mrs. S. 
Barnard, W.L. 
Bunker, G. 
Bunker, G.F. 
Bunker, G.F. (Two listed, one immediately following the other) 
Bunker, J. 
Clark, W. 
Coffin, Mrs. R.M. 
Coffin, R.M. 
Cook, J. 
Davis, Capt. G. 
Davis, W.H. 
Dodge, D.W. 
Eastman, Mrs. 
Fisher, Mrs. C. 
Fisher, P. 
Frothingham, N. 
Gifford, G.G. 
Green, W.H. 
Gummage, Mrs. S. 
Heate, S.B. 
Jackson, Charles 
Jackson, Miss 
Jackson, Mrs. J.G. 
Macy, C.M. 
Macy, Miss Ellen 
Macy, Mrs. 
Macy, Mrs. C.W. 
Macy, S. 
Mellen, Miss 
Merreson, Mrs. 
Parker, Mrs. 
Parlow, B. 
Parlow, Miss 
Parlow, Mrs. 
Pinkham, Mrs. 
Piper, Misses 
Piper, Mrs. 
Reed, Miss Maria P. 
Roberts, Miss Ellen 
Roberts, Miss Evelyn 
Roberts, Mrs. O. 
Roberts, S. 
Stetson, F.K. 
Stetson, Mrs. S.M. 
Stetson. S. 
Taggard, A. 
Taggard, E.W. 
Taggard, Miss Ellen 
Taggard, Miss O. 
Taggard, Mrs. O.L. 
Talland, J. 
Talland, N.W. 
Warren, A.A. 
Warren, Miss Adeline 
Warren, Miss Georgina 
Warren, Miss Mary 
Wentworth, Dr. J.W. 
Wentworth, J.H. 
Wentworth, Mrs. O.M. (Might be Mrs. C.M. Wentworth)