Journal of the voyage from Boston to San-Francisco

This journal details Benjamin S. Buckley's voyage aboard the Boston ship Capitol from Boston to San Francisco in 1849.  Buckley was in his late 20's when he and around 200 other forty-niners sailed for California and the Gold Rush. He describes daily life aboard a ship full of young men setting out to seek their fortunes just a few weeks after the finds of gold were verified at Sutter's Mill, CA.
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This journal details Benjamin S. Buckley's voyage aboard the Boston ship Capitol from Boston to San Francisco in 1849.  Buckley was in his late 20's when he and around 200 other forty-niners sailed for California and the Gold Rush. He describes daily life aboard a ship full of young men setting out to seek their fortunes just a few weeks after the finds of gold were verified at Sutter's Mill, CA. His detailed account of games, songs, debating society, fights, thefts, patriotic celebrations of Washington's birthday and the 4th of July, as well as rather graphic description of the layover in Valparaiso, Chile provide a first hand account of the arduous six-month trip to California in the mid-19th century. Unlike most forty-niners, Buckley made a fortune mining, and he sent several thousand dollars back to his family in New England.

Transcription courtesy of the Smithsonian Transcription Center https://transcription.si.edu/project/6699 and digital volunteers.

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