Carleton Watkins Steamship Crescent City
passengers. . .[however] the sea asserts its mighty powers also, and no one ends an ocean voyage in the same frame of mind with which he began it."[17]
The chief drawback to steamships of the Crescent City class was the continuous side-to-side rolling motion that induced seasickness in many passengers, including the boys from Otsego County, all of whom except George Murray were so afflicted. Murray recorded many details of the journey from New York to Chagres in a diary-like letter to Solon Huntington, who was the chief financier of the California adventure. On this voyage Watkins developed a lasting friendship with Murray, who a year or so later became his roommate in Sacramento and after that in San Francisco. In late 1851 the two would travel together from California to New York and return, a journey that took them almost one year.
On the Crescent City Murray was astonished at the swift pace the ship traveled. One day out from New York he wrote, "222 miles traveled since the 15th," while a few days later he reported "average distance run through the night is 11 miles per hour. . .distance run in one day is 226 miles," and a few days later "distance run 251 miles" in one day.[18]
He dutifully recorded on Wednesday, March 21 how the Crescent City in a single day passed the island of San Salvador[19] (before breakfast) and then cruised by Cuba (at dinner time). The following Saturday morning, March 24, Murray wrote to Solon Huntington, ". . .at dawn of day [we] came in sight of the shores of New Granada [present-day Republic of Panama] which looks even more beautiful being covered entirely with exotic vegetations" [Fig. 6a] At this instant the destinies of the six adventurers from Otsego County, New York, were like molten lava awaiting its ultimate shape. Jessie Benton Frémont's thoughts were equally applicable to the boys from Oneonta, " the sea asserts its mighty powers also, and no one ends an ocean voyage in the same frame of mind with which he began it." Oblivious to her own destiny, twenty-three-year-old Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont [Fig. 6b] had no idea that two of her shipmates—Collis Huntington and Carleton Watkins—would in the future reenter her life separately in unexpected, but influential ways.
The landing in Chagres, New Granada, after ten relaxed days at sea caused reality to bite. Three hundred and fifty naive passengers of the Crescent City, including the six from Otsego County, New York, had been dumped in a strange land where they did not speak the language. They had