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Rh seaport along the Atlantic coast, sent one or more vessels, and they all carried passengers. The schooner Eureka sailed from Cleveland, Ohio, for San Francisco via the River St. Lawrence, September 28, 1849, and carried fifty-three passengers, among whom were two families from Cleveland. Many of these vessels never reached California; some of them put into ports of refuge disabled and in distress; while others were never heard from. Most of the ships that did arrive at San Francisco made long, weary voyages, their passengers and crews suffering sore hardships and privations.

In the year 1849, 91,405 passengers landed at San Francisco from various ports of the world, of almost every nationality under the sun and representing some of the best and some of the worst types of men and women. The officers and crews, with hardly an exception, hurried to the mines, leaving their ships to take care of themselves; in some instances the crews did not even wait long enough to stow the sails and be paid off, so keen were they to join the wild race for gold. Many of these vessels never left the harbor; over one hundred were turned into store ships, while others were converted into hotels, hospitals, and prisons, or gradually perished by decay.

The first vessel, and one of the few of the California fleet of 1849, which escaped from San Francisco, was the ship South Carolina. This vessel sailed from New York, January 24, 1849, and returned via Valparaiso with a cargo of copper to Boston, where she arrived February 20, 1850, after a voyage out and home of some thirteen months.