The events leading up to the wrecking of the Winfield Scott and subsequent rescue ofher passengers and crew were well-documented. There was no loss of life, and several of the passengers, including Asa Cyrus Call (left) and Charles Holden (right), wrote accounts of their experiences. Holden p ublished his in a Chicago newspaper thirty years later. Most ofthe passengers were well enough to wait for another Pacific Mail steamship to pick them up and continue on towards their original destination: Panama.
crush us. All around was the loud booming of angry breakers surging about invisible rocks." "From remarks I overheard afterwards, I believe the Captain thought he was ashore on Santa C ruz Island," Crane said later. "By daylight everybody was safe on shore, or what appeared to be the shore but which in reality was a rock lying close to the main island." 1he ship struck the lower edge of a slanting rock ledge. One account claimed that the captain ordered the engineer to force the ship onto the rocks to avoid sinking in deeper water, but another version has the ship backing off the rocks and then striking them again, this time with the rudder being torn away. In his account Bosqui continued, "The captain knew that some unknown current had taken the steamer out of its course; but where he was then he could not tell for yo u could not see half the ship's length so dense was the fog. The boiler fires were do used and passengers put on life preservers." According to historian James Delgado, "Captain Blunt gave the order to abandon ship. Life preservers were handed out and a boat was lowered to search for a safe landing place. A group of men rushed the boat but were held off at gunpoint by the Captain and his officers." Passengers were taken off in boats and put onto the rocks. "When daylight came the passengers found themselves huddled together on a mere ledge, surrounded by water, whi le a short distance away was the main island of wh ich this spur was a part," Bosquiwrote. Only a few hundred feet from Anacapa, the crew transferred the passengers ro the island.
Food was salvaged from the ship, but, nonetheless, supplies were meager until Santa Barbara mountain man and sea otter hunter George Nidever showed up in his boat and gave the shipwrecked survivors fish hooks and line. Bosqui put together a fishing party that worked each day, and Asa Call shot a seal with his pistol. "The first day a boat with four men was dispatched to the mainland with instructions to make their way overland to the nearest point from which word could be wired to San Francisco," Crane reported. All the baggage above water was brought on shore, plus the go ld bullion and mail, and a guard was posted. "An Irishman and a Negro were caught in the act of cutting open carpet bags in the cabin. They were ironed and carried as hore for a trial. We immediately formed a vigilance committee and appointed a police patrol of the camp with Captain Brown as chief. The two thieves were tried and an example made of them for the benefit of the rowdy element who showed a decided disposition to run things their own way. The two men were stripped, spread-eagled on the sand and whipped by Captain Brown in person." Captain Brown appears to have been traveling as a passenger on Winfield Scott, but Captain Blunt called upon him to help manage the passengers. On 4 December, SS California, another
Pacific Mail steamship en route to San Francisco, was passing by when it caught sight of the smoke from the surv ivors' fire on the beach. Already fully loaded with passengers and unable to take aboard nearly 600 more, the California took just the women and children-and the gold-on board. They headed for San Francisco, where they would send for help. The tug Goliah was sent fro m nearby Santa Barbara, arriving at Anacapa on 5 December. Goliah's crew landed some provisions but took no passengers off the island. She departed the same afternoon. The fo llowing day, George Nidever transported six or seven passengers to the mainland at Santa Barbara. Local Santa Barbara attorney C harles Enoch Huse wrote in his journal that the people marooned on Anacapa Island were offered rescue and shelter in Santa Barbara but had declined, holding out for a southbound ship to Panama, their original destination. A few days later, food and water were running out, but by daybreak, the California returned again. Despite the heavy swell , all of the passengers and what baggage that could be recovered were taken on board without incident, and the California departed for Panama by nightfall. Captain Blunt and crew remained on the island, hoping to salvage the ship, along with the remaining baggage
(right) Aerial view of the beach on Anacapa Island where the Winfield Scott's passengers sought refage and awaited rescue.
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SEA HISTORY 130, SPRING 2010