The Maritime Heritage Project

The news stories were selected to give an overview of San Francisco during its formative years.

Along San Francisco's Waterfront

• Baltimore Clippers

1835

• Seamen of the United States, 1835

• San Francisco Real Estate
• October 1, 1847: Mormons in San Francisco

• Inauguration of the Pacific Mail Line
• December 22, 1848: Update From the Flag Ship Ohio

• January 1: California Gold Mines
• January 2: The Journey to California
• January 3: Letter from the Gold Region
• January 4: Gold in the streets
• January 4: Anti Tobacco
• January 10: Whiskey, Gold Dust and Dissipation
• January 20: Publisher predicts English as most spoken language!
• January: First gold miners from Sydney, Australia
• January 1849: 100,000 People in California by 1849
  
• February 1: Chagres, Panama
• February 2: Pennyslvania vs. California
• February 8: Emigration and Appalling Murders
• February 15: Tall Tales
• San Francisco's First Crimp Joint
• March 8: The President's Message
  
• March 11: The Gold Diggings, Lloyd's Weekly
• March 15: California Gold Song
  
• April 12: Money Buys Anything: Wholesale Prices
• April 1849: The Gold Excitement: 200 Vessels to Port,
• June 28: Burning of the Ship Philadelphia
  
• July 12: Tall Tale from the Boston Herald
• July 19: Lament of the Irish Gold Hunter
  
• August 4: Life at sea on the brig Osceola
• August 30: Real Estate - South San Francisco
• August 30: New York of the Pacific
  
• September 13: The First Chamber of Commerce
• San Francisco's First Entertainer: Stephen Massett
• The Rush for California
  
• October 1849: California Immigrants
• October 10, 1849: Arrival of the First Steamship
• At Sea with a Cruel Captain
• 100,000 Pioneers
  
• November 8: Turmoil Causes Immigration
• November 13: The Rush for California's Gold Fields
  
• December: The Diggin’ Has Commenced
  
• December 25: Murder at the Bella Union
• Gold Discovered in Australia
• December 24: Lawyers in California

• January: A Passenger's Description of Mazatlan
• The Steamship Alabama
• The Age of Steam!
• The City's Crowded Harbor
• A Pioneer's Letter from the brig Colorado
• August 2, 1850: Navigation
• August: Ship Building in New York
• The New Steamship San Francisco
• Bulls and Bears
• Meeting of Shipmasters
• September: A Disgruntled Letter Home
• October Emigration
• October 18: California is a State!: SS Oregon
• The Sailor and His True Love
• Right Sort of Woman
• A Ship Canal Across the Isthmus

• January 9, 1851: Three Steamers Arrive at the Port of San Francisco in One Day!
• February 1851: Gold Discovered in Australia
• The SS Chesapeake and The Gold Bluffs
• A System for Immigrants
• Massacre of a Captain
• Dogs, Rats and Cats
• May 23, 1851: Circular to Bankers
• The Pacific Street Wharf Company
• Steamers on the Pacific
• July 1851: Steamer Day
• July 1851: Highway Robbery
• July 1851: California Indian Affairs
• Disasters on the China Sea
• Advertisements for Passage From the East to California
• Missionaries in Hawaii
• Kosher Meat in San Francisco
• August 8: Boxing becomes an "Aquatic Sport"
• October 20, 1851: Isthmus Crossing
• A Report of California's First Foot Race
• Cost of Passage 1851-1852

• January: The Perils of Travel
• May: The Chinese Emigration
• May 15 : Review of the Market
• May 22: Extension of Davis Street
• October: An amazing array of Cigars!
• October: Insurance in San Francisco
• Limantour Land Grant Claims
• Upriver Rates of Passage
• Exports from Valparaiso to San Francisco: November 28th-December 12, 1852
• Pearl Fisheries of the Pacific

• The Deep Sea Derby of 1853: Clippers Racing Around the Horn from the East Coast
• New Books in San Francisco
• Sailor Thieves
• Lamplighters
• The High Cost of Passage
• Notes of a Rambler
• February: LOSS OF THE STEAMER INDEPENDENCE!
• The Greatest Pride of Nature . . .
• The Miner's Ten Commandments
• March 6, 1853: THE TENNESSEE'S LAST VOYAGE!
• News of the City of San Francisco.
• Pencilings in the Streets of San Francisco
• March 1853: The Coffee Trade of the United States
• July 2, 1853: A Day in Court
• Grumbling About the Waterfront
• Murder on the High Seas
• Letter From New York
• July 1853: Imports and Exports
• Trade with South America
• September: Larcenous Lawyers and Their Books
• September: The French in San Francisco
• October, The Opium Trade
• Mediums, Clairvoyants, Spiritualists
• Loss of the Steamer San Francisco, Christmas Day

• 300 Lives Lost on the SS Independence
• The Loss of the Clipper San Francisco
• Society of California Pioneers
• Market Review
• November, Sinking of the Arctic

• Gold Discovered at Valparaiso
• Deaths at Sea: Cholera!

• Report on Imports from The California Historical Society Quarterly
• Murder in Card's Alley
• The State of California from the California Historical Society Quarterly
• The Battle of the "Bulkhead"
• Captain Edgar Wakeman's "Water Police."
• December 6, Buddhist Temples in San Francisco

1858

• Spar Making in San Francisco

1860

• Printers in San Francisco
• March 28, 1860: The Marsh Troupe arrives in San Francisco, SS Golden Age

• The Anti-Coolie Tax of 1862
• The Sinking of The Golden Gate

• The California Nautical Magazine
• Board of Nautical Education
• Commercial and Financial
• Shipment of Treasure
• Shipbuilder Donald McKay on Ironclads
• A Passenger's Life at Sea
• Confusing State of the Waterfront
• The City's Dogs: Bummer and Lazarus
• Emperor Norton Dines with Bummer and Lazarus
• Count Haraszthy develops vineyards in California and, in 1863, writes his Book on Wine Growing
  

• California Home Insurance Company

• Madame Laurustinus: Great Prophetess and Doctress

• Shipment of Treasure
• British Ship Moneta arrives in the Port of San Francisco

• January 17: Irish Political Prisoners Arrive in San Francisco

• The San Francisco-Australia Mail Line
• In the Poorhouse
• The Elite at the Seaside

• Airbags on the High Seas
• February 28, 1873: San Francisco as viewed by the Alton Telegraph

• January 19, 1875: Letters of Isabella L. Bird, Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands
• November 9, 1875: Sinking of SS Pacific

• A Cold Welcome
• Contention on Board

1877

• The Irish Americans

• January 20: British Ship Milton Burned!
• January 26: Captain Punished for Abusing Crew
  

• Chinese Interpreters
• Countries from Which Immigrants Arrived

1885

• January 18, 1885: Pioneer Captains
• June 16, 1885: Too Much Opium

1886

• Corinthian Yacht Club
• U.S. Marshal's Sale of Seized Opium

• Yankee Whalebacks, Daily Californian, August 27, 1891

1892

• Corinthian Yacht Club

1895

• Cotton!
• April 16, 1895: The Emanuel Baptist Church Murders
• August 27: Ship May Flint in San Francisco

1897

• June 30: The new SS Moana arrives from New South Wales
  

1898

• March 26: 14-year-old Girl Arrested for Burglary
  

• World's Fleet

• Highbinder Wars in San Francisco
• Hong Kong Maru Arrives, March 23, 1900
• The Mail Race, SS Sonoma
• December 30, 1900: Mail Steamer Lost