The Ghost Ship of Seattle Wharf
Once a celebrated Pacific passenger steamer, the California met a final, unglamorous fate as a stripped-down bark moored on the Seattle waterfront.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Moored on the Seattle wharf, quietly rotting at the site of the old sawmill, the remains of the steamer California were found only by chance. A passerby remarked, 'That’s an old steamer, isn’t it?' A worker replied, 'That she is.' The California was the pride of the Pacific Mail Company, famously arriving in San Francisco in 1849. She carried the first news of the gold discovery to the coast. After a long career serving various owners, she was stripped of her machinery and paddle-boxes at the Seattle wharf and reduced to a humble, seaworthy bark under the supervision of Captain William M. Williston. Despite her age and the indignity of her final years as a freight hulk, those who worked on her in her glory days—like Captain Forbes—recalled her as the fastest craft of her time, capable of ten miles an hour with the right breeze. She remains today a ghost of the gold rush era, fading into the history of the Puget Sound.
“That’s an old steamer, isn’t it? That she is.”
The story of the California reflects the transient nature of Seattle's maritime economy. Much like today’s rapid shift in industrial waterfront use, the California was repurposed until she was no longer viable, marking the end of an era when steamships were the vital lifelines of the Pacific Coast.
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