Steamer name unknown, sailed from New York for the Isthmus in 1849, with A. O. Whitmore, Samuel O. Whitmore, Cyrus Bartlett, Freeman Bartlett and Lewis Bartlett. By a route unknown, Frank Sherman sailed.
Of the above named persons, one hundred and seventy-seven in all, the following thirty-five were from other towns. Abington, James A. Young; South Abington, John L. Nash; Boston, Abram C. Small, Frederick Salter, Alfred N. Primes, Joseph Nichols, Charles W. Smith and John Leighton; Bridgewater, Benjamin F. Winslow; East Bridgewater, Josiah Byram, Frederick Bush, David Gurney, John T. Pratt, James Carey, James M. Thomas, Daniel Beckford, George E. Lugender, Adam E. Stetson, George E. Burns and Tolman French; Brooklyn, N. Y., John Ward; Duxbury, Daniel Bradford, Rufus Holmes, Samuel Joyce, Lucien Winsor, Henry Lee and Samuel Alden; Kingston, Thomas B. Bradford, Sylvanus Everson and George A. Bradford; Plympton, Charles E. Bryant; Pulaski, N. Y., Ambrose Harmon; Rochester, Mass., Seth Blankenship, John Clark and Thomas Brown. Thus the number going from Plymouth was one hundred and forty-two, which number would doubtless be increased by those of whom I have no record. How many of those in the list of Plymouth men are now living I have no means of ascertaining, but of those who sailed in the Yeoman only two, George Collingwood and Wm. J. Dunham now survive. The last of the Yeoman’s passengers to die was Alfred R. Doten, a brother of our townsmen, the late Major Samuel H. and Captain Charles C. Doten, who married in Nevada, and never returned to his native town.
Of Dr. Samuel Merritt, whose name is in the list of passengers on board the brig Reindeer, I have something to say. An account of the chief incidents in his career I had from his own lips. He was a native of Maine, and came to Plymouth in 1845, and established himself in the practice of medicine. He was a man six feet in height and large in proportion, frank and honest in speech, hearty, but rough in manner, possessing great will and energy, and calculated in every way to win the confidence of the people. He was a bachelor, and at first had an office on Main street, in the Bartlett building, where Loring’s watchmaker’s shop now is. After Union building was built on the corner of Middle street, he occupied two rooms on the lower floor at the corner, one for an office, and the other for a sleeping room.
When the California fever struck Plymouth it seized the Doctor with great virulence. Aside from the temptations of gold and sudden wealth, the idea of an expedition to the Pacific shores appealed to his adventurous spirit, and he at once determined to follow the wave of migration. Without a family to consult, he began his preparations. Collecting his professional bills, he invested his capital in the purchase of a snug and handy hermaphrodite brig of about one hundred and sixty tons, owned, I think, by Joseph Holmes of Kingston, which was then lying in New York. Having nearly finished loading her with such merchandise as according to the latest advices was bringing high prices, he found that he had about five hundred dollars unexpended. This amount, or a considerable portion of it, he determined to expend in tacks, so one afternoon he started to go to Duxbury and make the purchase at the tack factory carried on by Samuel Loring in that town. Before he reached Kingston, he was overtaken by a messenger on horse back, summoning him to return at once, and attend a man, who, while engaged in painting the house of Capt. Nathaniel Russell at the corner of Court Square, had fallen from a ladder, and was thought to be seriously injured. As he had no time to spare to go to Duxbury after that day, he lost the opportunity of making a fortune in tacks, which he found on his arrival in San Francisco were selling at five dollars a paper.
With such a number of passengers as he could easily accommodate in the cabin, he sailed from New York in the summer of 1849, and reached his destination in the autumn. On the way up the Pacific coast a stop was made at Valparaiso, and while there it occurred to the Doctor that it would be a good plan to buy a lot of potatoes to fill up the hole which the passengers and crew had eaten in the cargo. Starting one day for the shore to make the purchase, a favorable wind sprung up, and the Captain signalled to him to return. Thus another good speculation was lost, for on his arrival at San Francisco there was not a potato in the market. To his dismay the bottom had tumbled out of the prices of nearly every other article in his vessel, following for instance the price of lumber, which had fallen from three hundred dollars a thousand to a price lower than it could be bought for in Bangor. After disposing of his vessel and cargo, and finding himself without capital, he opened an office and began a practice, which he hoped to have permanently abandoned. Doctors were fortunately as rare as tacks and potatoes, and within a year his medical and surgical receipts amounted to forty thousand dollars, a sum equivalent, perhaps, to five thousand dollars in the East.
One day a Maine Captain called at his office, who was acquainted with his family at home, and in the course of conversation, told him that he had a power of attorney to sell the brig which he commanded, and wished the Doctor would buy it. “No, I thank you,” replied the Doctor, “I have had all the brigs I have any use for, and I think I will keep out of navigation.” The captain called in occasionally afterwards, and the Doctor in the meantime thought, as the people of San Francisco suffered during the previous summer from the want of ice, that it might be a good speculation to go into the ice business in anticipation of the wants of the next summer. The next time the Captain called he asked him if he had sold his brig, and finding that he had not, he told him that he would buy her if he would go in her to Puget Sound and get a load of ice. The Captain agreed, and with a gang of men well supplied with axes and saws, the vessel sailed. In due time the Captain reported himself to the Doctor, who said, “Well, Cap., have you got a good load of ice?” “Ice, no” said the Captain, “not a pound; water don’t freeze in Puget Sound; but I wasn’t coming home with an empty hold, so I put my gang ashore and cut a load of piles.” It so happened that piles were much needed on the harbor front, and the cargo sold at once at a big price, and the brig started off for a second load. By the time the second load arrived, which proved as profitable as the first, other vessel owners had got wind of the business, and the Doctor said, “now, Captain, we have had the cream of this business, I guess we will let these other fellows have the skim milk. You go up and get another load and carry it over to Australia and buy a load of coal.” In due time again the Captain returned, but without a pound of coal, saying, that finding he would have to wait a long time for his turn to load, he thought it better to take his money for the piles and go down to the Society Islands for a load of oranges, six hundred thousand of which fruit he had on board. The orange market at that time was completely bare, and the profits of the voyage were heavy.
“Now, Captain, go up and get one more load, and carry it down to Callao, and sell out everything, brig and all, and we will close up our business, and you can go home.” Thus by good luck, aided largely by the shrewdness of his captain, Dr. Merritt laid the foundations of a multi-millionaire’s fortune. It is needless to say that he closed his office and sought favorable investments for his money. He bought land in Oakland across the bay, laid out streets, built houses, and in time became mayor of the city, whose foundation he had laid.
I saw the Doctor on his last visit East about six years ago, and he then boasted of nothing so much as of his yacht, which he said was the finest on the Pacific. I have recently read a journal of Mrs. Stevenson, the mother of Robert Louis Stevenson, of a six months’ excursion in the Pacific for the benefit of her son’s health in the yacht Casco, belonging to Dr. Merritt. Her account of an interview with the Doctor illustrates his personalty and deportment which had more of the fortiter in re than the suaviter in modo. She says, “Dr. M. has just been here to settle the final business arrangements. He had heard that Louis had a mother, and was not at all sure of allowing an old woman to sail on his beloved yacht, so he insisted on seeing me before he left. When I came in I found a very stout man with a strong and humorous face, who sat still in his chair and took a good look at me. Then he held out his hand with the remark, ‘You are a healthy looking woman.’ He built the yacht, he told me, for his health, as he was getting so stout that some means of reduction were necessary, and going to sea had pulled him down sixty pounds. ‘The yacht is the apple of my eye—you may think (to Fanny) your husband loves you, but I can assure you that I love my yacht a great deal better.’”
Dr. Merritt died three or four years ago, and the last I heard of his affairs was that his will was in litigation.