Buying Passage on an American Ship in c. 1850

I haven't read through any of these, but here are some titles that might be useful. Click on "See Other Formats" at the top left of the page if you want to download in other formats or read the original scanned version online.


CLIPPER SHIPS OF AMERICA AND GREAT BRITAIN - 1833-1869

BOSTON: COMMERCIAL METROPOLIS IN 1850.

Trans-Atlantic passenger ships, past and present




Here is the Google search I used.

Yeah, im pretty sure you booked passage at the office of the "steamer" line, although buying a ticket at the dock was also an option. You would also need a passport because youd be leaving the US (a notary public or shipping agent could handle that). Perusing some 1850 NY newspapers it seems the Crescent City Line did a lot of California trips. Not sure what their fares were though.

The trip itself was pretty tough. Youd go from NY to the Chagres river in Panama, then you had to go up the river by canoe to Cruces, travel by mule to Panama city, and catch another steamer to California (buying these tickets in advance was also recommend). It wasnt unusual for people to get sick and even die on the trip. And the canoes, mules, and lodgings (usually in huts) along the way all required additional funds. I think other lines mightve made stops in Havana, Cuba too. All in all there was a LOT of changing ships, so youd have to take this into account in terms of luggage (remember there's mule and canoe travel involved). Sounds like a major hassel, but also a fun adventure.

One other problem when you arrived in Panama was that there were only three mail boats and every space had been sold several times. If you were someone like Jessie Benton Fremont, going to join her husband in California, you had no problems. But many Americans were stranded for months. Unless you died of cholera.

And those were the ones who hadn't died in Chagres. Conditions on the Atlantic side were so bad that they used to sell special life insurance for it.

I wish I could remember which book(s) I read this in, but it was at my local library, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

It turned out that the safest way was to go around the horn, but that was also the most time-consuming.

Hope this helps.

snafu1056 said:

Yeah, im pretty sure you booked passage at the office of the "steamer" line, although buying a ticket at the dock was also an option. You would also need a passport because youd be leaving the US (a notary public or shipping agent could handle that). Perusing some 1850 NY newspapers it seems the Crescent City Line did a lot of California trips. Not sure what their fares were though.
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You didn't actually need a passport during the 1850s. Passports have been around since not long after the Revolution, but there were only a couple of periods where they had any authority, or were actually needed. Very, very few non-dignitaries, non-politicians bothered with passports during those non-mandatory years.

During those years, passports were issued from all sorts of places, and foreign countries didn't know which to honor, and which to refuse.

I think it was 1941 before the Constitution actually required passports from American citizens, except during time of war.