The weather worsened, and on September 11 the crew discovered that the ship had sprung a leak. A deadly domino effect was soon in operation: when the water came in, it wet the coal, which made it useless for firing the boilers. tube boi lers and massive engineworks accounted for an estimated 750 tons of the ship 's weight. The large boi ler size was required to perm it operation at low pressures, reduc ing the like lihood of an explosion. The twin bo ilers burned about 60 tons of coal each day; thus the 20-day round-trip jo urney between New York and Panama required some l ,200 tons of coal. With a sharp bow and onl y 40 feet in breadth, she was long and sleek-all in all , a handsome ship. The paddle boxes were bl ack with a gold semic irc le in the center and the paddlewheels were bright red. Her single funnel was bl ack with a red band at the tip. Her jet-blac k hull contrasted with the varnished wood decks and weather cabins. The captain of the Central America was 44-year-old Cdr. Willi am Lew is Herndon , USN, of Virginia . During the terrible hours before the sinking of the Central America, he demonstrated a nobility and courage which made him a nat iona l hero. He was comm ended throughout the country fo r hi s orderly resc ue of the women and children and his maintenance of di scipline on board the ship-as well as for hi s personal courage in rema in ing with hi s ship to the end. In the best tradition of the US Navy , he went down with hi s ship and was lost. One remarkable thing about the disaster was the ex tensive coverage it rece ived in the newspapers of the day. Entire issues of newspapers from around the country were devoted to it. Reporters
were eager to record the survivors' ordeals, and these accounts-some sixty in all-were often printed in their entirety. It was these newspaper articles that provided the clues that enabled the Columbus-America Di scovery Group to locate the shipwreck. In reading and rereading the survivor accounts, the researchers began to feel that they knew the Central America's passe ngers and crew like old friends. The survivors spoke to us across the decades, and as they did , their personalities came to life viv idl y. What a wonderfu l group of people they were: men, women, and children; black and white; rich and not so rich. A lmost every group in the country was represented, providing a true cross-section of America at the time. Among them were gold miners and judges, popu lar entertainers and attorneys, gamblers and servants, sailors and cooks, respectabl e housew ives and women of less conventi onal occupations. Among the first cabin passengers were hon ey m ooners An se l a nd Adeline Easton . Ansel was a San Francisco businessman , and Addie was the sister of Darius Ogden Mill s, one of the richest men in the state who would later become a fo under of the Bank of Ca li fornia. In a memoir publi shed in 1911 , Addie reco unts the tragedy of the sinking. She emerges as a li vely, optimi stic yo ung woman and Ansel seems determ ined to be manl y and serious. They were obviously very much in love .
Another honeymooning coup le, from a different walk of life, were Bill y and Virginia Birch. Bill y was a famous comedian and entertainer of the day, a member of the San Francisco Minstrels. Hi s beautiful and vivacious bride, who had her pet canary with her on the Central America, was reportedl y known in San Francisco as " the notorious Jenn y French." Among the other first cabin passengers were peopl e like Judge A lonzo Castle Monson, who "sported to the limit," having once lost hi s house and all hi s money in a legendary Sacramento poker game, and attorney Rufus All en Lockwood , who was known as an eccentri c with a tendency to di sappear period ically. Down in steerage was Oli ver Perry Manlove, a young romantic who had written a book of poems about hi s five yea rs in the gold fields. There were also young couples like Sam and Mary Swan, going home to Penn sy lvania with the ir baby daughter. The li st goes on and on-so many personalities, so many faces , so many lives. Five hundred and seventy-eight people crowded the dec ks of the Central America when she left Panama for New York: 476 passe ngers and 102 crew. Only 153 wou ld surv ive. The story of the Cenrral America's fin al voyage began on the morning of August 20, 1857, when the passengers departed San Francisco on the Pac ific Mail Steamship Sonora . They reached
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Shown right is " Wreck of th e steamship Central Ame ri ca," a hand-colored li thograph by J . Chi lds, Philadelphia. Courtesy ofthe Peabody Mu seum of Salem. Opposite page shows the steamshipGeorge Law(later renamed Central America) by an unknown artist . Courtesy of the Marin ers' Museum , Newport News , Virginia .
SEA HISTORY 64, WINTER 1992-93
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