A History of the City of San Francisco by John S. Hittell

Author:John S. Hittell [Hittell, John S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

The sinking of the " Central America," in September, off the coast of Florida, on her way to New York, with passengers and treasure from California, was one of the notable events of the year. The steamer having sprung a leak in a fearful hurricane, the water rose slowly for thirty-three hours, until she sank. At three o'clock in the afternoon of the second day, when it had become evident that she must go down before the next morning, a brig, which had suffered in the storm, came near and offered to receive the passengers; but as she was not very manageable, or near, the sea was rough, and the only conveyances were three small boats, the transfer went slowly. When night came on all the twenty-six women and twenty-seven children, besides four adult male passengers, had reached the brig, leaving more than five hundred men behind to what appeared almost inevitable death. Though many were armed and nearly all were rough in appearance, they were content that the women and children should be saved first; and if here and there a grumble was heard, it received little encouragement. Never did so many men face death near at hand more quietly or decorously. About eight o'clock in the evening the ill-fated steamer gave a final plunge and disappeared forever, carrying down with her into the vortex of the sea many of her passengers, and leaving others afloat, supported by life-preservers or pieces of wood from the wreck. Of these, more than one hundred were picked up the next day, out of five hundred and eighty-two persons on board, four hundred and nineteen were drowned. A commercial panic caused or greatly intensified in the Atlantic states by the loss of one million five hundred thousand dollars in gold dust with the steamer, was a startling proof of the dependence of the business of the nation on the mines of California.

Sec. 129. Crabb. Walker was not the last Californian to undertake a quixotic conquest in Spanish-America. Henry A. Crabb, a resident of Stockton, a prominent man in the whig party of California, a lawyer and public speaker of decided ability, an official of experience and good repute, and an ardent advocate of slavery, was the husband of a lady who had been born in the state of Sonora, and had relatives still living there. It was through the relatives of his wife that he received an invitation from a defeated chieftain in that state to bring an armed force for the purpose of overthrowing Governor Gandara, who had long been master there. He accepted the invitation, collected a force of one hundred men, on the twenty-first of January sailed from San Francisco to San Pedro and thence marched to Sonora, where he was met near the line, attacked, defeated, and compelled to surrender at discretion, after twenty-five of his men had been killed in battle. He and fifty-eight companions were promptly executed. Nearly a hundred men who were on their way to aid him heard of the catastrophe before reaching Sonora.

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