Steamship Newbern 1871

 On October 14, 2021, we decided to see what was happening 150 years ago in the Prescott newspaper, "The Weekly Arizona Miner." The are many interesting things in that old newspaper.  We focused on a small Page 2 "Notice" regarding  steamship passage from San Francisco to the Mouth of The Colorado River.  That was a distance of 2,100 miles which cost a First Class passenger about $2,000 in today's inflated dollars.  Narratives and some links are under each screen clip.  Our primary source is cited at the end of this post.

The main keywords in this tiny little Notice are "Steamship Newbern."  It took quite a bit of digging but we eventually found quite a bit of information about the ship and its role in the early commerce of Arizona.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87077069/ss-newbern-1817/

This is "probably" an illustration of the Steamship Montana judging from the location of the smoke stack.  In those days, ocean going, coal-fired steamships were propeller-driven.  Here is one narrative excerpt from "Steamships of The Colorado River":  "The greatest growth of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company came in 1871 when they purchased an ocean-going steamer, the Newbern, and opened a direct steamer route from San Francisco to connect with the riverboats at Port Isabel. The Newbem, built in Brooklyn in 1852, was a 943-ton, 375-horsepower, propeller-driven vessel, 198 feet long with a 29-foot beam. Under Captain A. N. McDonough she began regular monthly trips to the river on 2 July 1871. She made the 2,100-mile voyage in just twelve days, nearly cutting in half the usual sailing time and greatly expediting passenger and freight service. Passenger fare from San Francisco to Yuma was $90 for first cabin and $40 for steerage. In the boom years of the 1870s the Colorado steamers were carrying more than a hundred passengers a month, and the accommodations were good enough so that a few adventuresome souls even took the trip purely for pleasure."

(Source cited at end of post.)

Note the size and location of the smoke stack on the Newbern compared to the previous illustration.  This photo came from an article about wreck diving and some details differ from the above narrative:

"The Newbern was constructed by the firm C & R Poillon in Brooklyn. N.Y. in 1862. The government bought her during the Civil War and christened her the United States, but later changed her name to the Newberne. She was 198 feet long, had a 29 foot beam, measured 943 tons gross and was coal powered by a 250 horsepower steam engine. After her service during the Civil War, she sailed to the West Coast via Cape Horn in 1867 and was sold to Hartehan & Wilson. The new owners changed her name by dropping last "E" and gave command of the ship to Capt. Eugene Freeman. In 1869, Capt. Metzger sailed the Newbern from San Francisco to Mexican ports in the Sea of Cortez. In 1871, the Newbern was sold to Capt. George A. Johnson of the Colorado Steam Navigation Co. who continued to turn high profits from the trade with Arizona and Nevada, now accessible via Port Isabel at the foot of the Colorado River."

Source: http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Newbern.htm

This is an illustration of the man whose name is listed in the 1871 Notice, J. Polhamus, Jr.  He is arguably the most famous individual associated the steamboat commerce on The Colorado River. (Source cited at end of post.)

We found two additional ads for passage on The Newbern.  The ad below lists the fares.

Inflation calculators differ slightly in computing the 1871 value of $90 with 2021 dollars.  A rough consensus of such onlline calcuators pegs the value at about $2000, plus or minus.

Here's a good map of all the various landing sites on The Colorado River.

Getting freight and passengers from the Newbern onto The Colorado River was quite the logistical feat in those days.  Ocean going vessels could not steam into the Delta.  They disembarked freight and passengers onto sloops in deeper water.  The sloops then sailed far enough into the delta to offload goods and people to paddle-wheeled steamboats.

The railroad put the Newburg out of business in 1877.  There was no longer a need to sail freight and people around the tip of the Baja Peninsula and then up the full length of the Gulf of California.  The Newbern was sold and had a checkered subsequent life afterwards.  Here is is shown capsized in San Francisco in 1880.  You can get a good idea of the Newbern's scale and layout from this photo.  To read about the Newbern's ultimate demise see:  

https://www.maritimeheritage.org/passengers/SS-Newbern-October-1893.html

Our primary source material for this post was drawn from Richard E. Lingenfelter's excellent 195 page 1978 book "Steamboats on the Colorado River." Used copies of this book range in price from $35 to well over $200.  However, it can be downloaded free via the link below.  Unfortunately, the link is very long but it DOES work.  The files is housed at a rather unlikely location--the Arizona Navigable Stream Adjudication Commission.  The book is a genuine "must read" for anyone interested in the Steamboat Era of the Gulf of California and The Colorado River.  Most of the information used in this post came from Pages 53-62.

http://www.ansac.az.gov/UserFiles/PDF/08182014/X028_FMIBurtellLingenfelterSteamboats/FMI%20Lingenfelter%20Steamboats/Steamboats%20on%20the%20Colorado%20River%201852-1916.pdf

Thanks for reading, John Parsons, Rimrock, AZ