From 1848 to 1855, thousands of people from many disparate places traveled through Missouri to and from California. Gold fever seized the state, and many Missourians trekked west, mainly from counties close to the Missouri River.1 My grandfather and his sisters shared stories about their grandfather (Tom Hancock) traveling by ship to California for the Gold Rush, circumnavigating Cape Horn. Tom was one of several Hancock cousins who traveled from Missouri to California during the Gold Rush.2 Some Hancocks remained and made the San Joaquin Valley their new home. Tom, along with some other Hancocks, returned to Missouri, where he eventually settled into farming and family life.
Sea navigation by way of “the Horn,” as my grandfather put it, was a popular route during the first years of the California Gold Rush. The route, which was familiar to people on the Eastern seaboard due to already-established whaling and commerce routes, had the advantage year-round passage whereas travel on overland routes stopped during winter months. Tom had also already experienced the hardships and dangers of overland travel during his Army service in the Mexican American War. The Cape Horn route was considered safer than trekking overland by wagon or traversing the Panama Isthmus where the deadly yellow fever was endemic. However, the latter route was also the quickest but most expensive, and cost may also have been a consideration for Tom. Given Tom’s Missouri locale, he likely traveled by steam-powered paddleboat down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and then boarded another ship and sailed out to sea from the Port of New Orleans.
Sailing card for the clipper ship California, circa 1850.3
Tom became sick while en route and many shipmates died because there was not enough “sour stuff” (citrus-containing vitamin C). Traveling to and from the Eastern seaboard and California by sea around Cape Horn was a 13,000-plus mile trip that took five to eight months, and ships were often crowded and undersupplied. During the Gold Rush, many men arrived in California sick from scurvy (caused by vitamin C deficiency), while others became sick in the mining camps. The scurvy “epidemic” associated with the Gold Rush occurred 1848–1849, with only sporadic cases reported after that.4 An estimated 10,000 men are thought to have died from the disease.4 Tom lived to tell the story, though I don’t know how much, if any, money he made.
Adapted from The Richest Soil Grows the Deepest Roots, by Helene Ruth Poss and Elizabeth Terese Marr, available as paperback and ebook, May 2021.
1 History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri: Written and Compiled from the Most Authentic Official and Private Sources, Including a History of Their Townships, Towns, and Villages, Together with a Condensed History of Missouri; a Reliable and Detailed History of Clay and Platte Counties—their Pioneer Record, Resources, Biographical Sketches of Prominent Citizens; General and Local Statistics of Great Value; Incidents and Reminiscences. 1895. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis National Historical Company.
2 Hancock Family Organization. “The Hancock Connection 1710–1850: Virginia, Kentucky, Tenessee, Missouri, California.” 1991. Accessed November 12, 2018.
3 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_Clipper_500.jpg
4 Lorenz Anthony J. Scurvy in the Gold Rush. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. Vol. 12, No. 10 (October); 1957: 473–510.