Vessels of 1825 in Alta California
California
“The Sachem and Spy came from Boston for Bryant, Sturgis & Co., presumably under Gale’s superintendence. McCulloch, Hartnell & Co.'s vessels were probably the Pizarro and Junius, and perhaps others, for the records are far from clear.”— Hubert Howe Bancroft
In the year 1825, along the wild and windswept coast of California—a land still tethered to the young Mexican Republic—forty-seven vessels left their mark upon the waters. Some arrived with the clarity of purpose, others as fleeting apparitions in the fog of history. Seventeen were whalers, those hardy souls who hunted leviathans in the icy Pacific swells. Three were men-of-war, their decks bristling with cannon. One was a national transport, a workhorse of the state. Eleven or twelve survive in the records as mere names—Apollo, Arab, Bengal, Carlos Huat, Courier, Don, Eagle, Inca, Juan Battey, Santa Magdalena, Tiemechmach—their missions lost to time, their presence noted with a shrug or an error. Yet for fourteen others, their commercial aims shine through the haze, etched in ledgers and logs with the precision of a merchant’s quill.
It was a flotilla of nations, a maritime pageant that spoke to California’s dawning role in the world. Twenty ships bore the Stars and Stripes of the United States, eight the Union Jack of Britain. Three flew Spain’s banner, two Russia’s, two Mexico’s own. One was Californian, a native son of the coast, and one French—a solitary Gallic adventurer. Eight more sailed under flags unknown, their origins swallowed by the sea.
Among them was Captain Cooper, master of the stout Rover, who weighed anchor in February, bound for the distant markets of China, not to return until the following year. From Boston came the Sachem and Spy, dispatched by Bryant, Sturgis & Company under the watchful eye of Captain Gale. McCulloch, Hartnell & Company sent their own—the Pizarro and Junius, perhaps others too—though the records, like so many from that rough-hewn time, blur at the edges.
But if any ships quickened the heartbeat of California that year, it was a trio of Spanish men-of-war—the Asia, the Constante, and the Aquiles—whose arrival in April and May stirred both dread and wonder. On April 27th, as the sun dipped low, a great line-of-battle ship loomed off Monterey, her seventy-four guns and six hundred men a formidable sight. She flew the American flag, an oddity that sent a shiver through the town. The year 1818 lingered in memory—“el año de los insurgentes”—when invaders had stormed ashore. The people panicked. Families gathered their belongings, ready to flee inland. Governor José Argüello, a man of resolve, rallied his meager garrison behind the presidio’s walls.
Late that afternoon, the stranger dropped anchor just beyond the reach of Monterey’s battery. A salute boomed from her guns, a gesture of peace—or so it seemed. An officer rowed ashore, shouting “¡Viva la libertad!” and demanding to see the governor. Then came the commander himself, stepping onto the beach with the familiarity of an old friend. It was José Martínez, known to the Argüellos from years past. Fear melted into relief as he unfolded a tale worthy of a novel.
The ship was the Asia, once San Gerónimo, pride of Spain’s royal fleet, now a mutineer’s prize. Three days later, her consort, the brigantine Constante, with sixty men, joined her in the harbor. These vessels had sailed from South America after Callao’s fall in January 1824, bound for Manila under Roque Guruceta. In January 1824, the port of Callao, Peru’s vital lifeline to the sea and a stubborn bastion of Spanish royalist power, fell to the revolutionary forces of Simón Bolívar after a grueling siege, marking a decisive blow to Spain’s crumbling empire in South America and setting the stage for the Asia and Constante to flee westward in disarray.
However, the crews revolted in March 1825 at Guahan in the Marianas. Officers and loyalists were marooned, the transport Garinton set ablaze. Martínez, once of the Constante, took command of the Asia. The Aquiles had peeled off alone, her fate a mystery. The rest turned east, seeking a republic to claim their surrender and replenish their stores.
On May 1st, Martínez signed an agreement with Argüello, yielding the Asia and Constante to Mexico under terms ensuring the men’s safety and wages—a debt later tallied at over $90,000, and whether Mexico ever paid it is anyone’s guess. On June 15, 1825, the Gaceta de México Extra—a special edition of the fledgling republic’s official gazette—rolled off the presses in Mexico City, its pages brimming with the complete account of the Asia and Constante surrender, preserving for posterity the dramatic capitulation that unfolded on California’s distant shores.
The crews—six hundred strong from the Asia, sixty from the Constante—came ashore, swearing allegiance to Mexican independence and the federal constitution under the stern gaze of Lieutenant José Ramírez. Ramírez, newly wed to a beauty with an $8,000 dowry, had urged Argüello to retreat when the ships first appeared, desperate to preserve his own life. But Argüello stood firm, and now Ramírez oversaw a triumph. Tents sprouted along the beach, and for twenty days, Monterey buzzed with life. The ladies stitched two Mexican flags—blue substituted for scarce green—and presented them with pride. Sailors tried horseback riding, tumbling in the dust to the delight of onlookers. Their blasphemies shocked the pious, yet their coins, sugar, and laughter flowed freely. Green corn was in season, and Indian maidens reaped a harvest of handkerchiefs and beads.
A solemn duty came first. The men believed the Holy Virgin had saved them at sea, strengthening a frail sail against a gale. Barefoot, they carried that sail to church in a grand procession, offering prayers with fervor, as chronicled by Antonio Osio and José Torre. But not all was harmony. A gachupín, Arnoldo Pierola, killed Juan B. López in a spat over a girl and fled to the Asia. Young Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Lieutenant Valle pursued him, but the crew shielded their own. Diplomacy averted further bloodshed.
On May 23rd, refitted and refreshed, the ships sailed for Acapulco under Captain Juan Malarin, bearing Argüello’s dispatches. Mexico approved the surrender, renaming the Asia to El Congreso and sending both to Veracruz. A few sailors stayed—Manuel Fogó and Francisco Gutierrez among them—some becoming solid citizens, though none rose to fame.
The Aquiles, meanwhile, charted her own course. In early May, she anchored at Santa Barbara under Pedro Angulo, a rough Chilean who feigned French airs to mask his poor Spanish. His crew racked up debts and misbehaved, departing with a parting shot—two cannonballs fired at the presidio. Captain José de la Guerra wrote to Argüello on May 6th, recounting the visit. Angulo had stumbled into a wedding—Guerra’s sister to Englishman William Hartnell—where Hartnell plied him with wine, hoping to loosen his tongue. The ruse failed, but news of the Asia at Monterey sent Angulo racing back to his ship, leaving a pilot and seven men behind. Mexico later ordered strict measures—no food, hostages, seized sails—should he return.
Another voyager left a mark that year: Benjamin Morrell, Jr., aboard the Tartar. Sailing from New York in 1824, he reached San Diego in April 1825, perhaps with cargo from Chile for Hartnell, though seals were his quarry. He lingered twelve days, later spinning a yarn in his 1832 book of a fantastical inland battle—seven Spaniards and he against fifty native horsemen, seventeen slain, himself bloodied. Pure bunk, though his geographic notes rang truer. He described San Diego as a circular fortress of freestone, complete with a nunnery—a flight of fancy. Finding no seals, he sailed to Hawaii from Monterey and San Francisco in May via Cape Blanco and Socorro Island. He foresaw the Colorado River as a trade artery to the Pacific—a prophecy yet unfulfilled.
Trade itself was modest, yielding $8,000 to $11,000 in customs revenue—$1,061 at San Francisco, $471 at San Diego, $1,220 at Santa Barbara, and the rest at Monterey. In 1824, Mexico’s ambitious new government crafted a plan to regulate California’s burgeoning trade, setting duties and rules for its coastal ports, yet Governor José María Echeandía—distracted or perhaps overwhelmed by the rugged frontier he inherited—let the decree abolishing export duties languish unpublished until March of the following year, a lapse he later chalked up to a forgivable forgetfulness. Governor Echeandía forgot to publish the export duty repeal until March. He confined trade to four presidial ports, irking mission traders, until San Pedro won an exception for Los Angeles.
Amid this bustle, the Mexican government grappled with its missions. A plan emerged: Friars needed state approval and pious fund stipends to convert gentiles. The supreme government would manage the fund, assigning pay, while locals proposed priests and sites. Evangelizing was open to all orders, and current friars stayed as curates—two per mission, plus transients—drawing stipends to dodge taxes. Missions would persist until handed to bishops, their lands managed and given to neophytes when ready. Escoltas (escorts) were to vanish, protection assured, and laws adjusted by Congress—a slow unwinding of an old order.
Foreigners took root too. William Hartnell and William A. Richardson wed local women. Newcomers like John Burton, Robert Livermore, and Alpheus Thompson arrived—dates debated—joined by Fisher, a Black man, William Gralbatoh, and James Grant. Captain Henry Gyzelaar may have drowned in the Russian River, though the year blurs.
The winter of 1824-1825 roared in with floods—Sonoma’s adobes crumbled, Santa Cruz’s river raged, crops rotted, and southern rivers blocked delegates from Monterey. Yet the harvest hit 68,500 fanegas, a peak save for 1821. So unfolded 1825—a year of storms and sails, mutiny and mirth, as California edged into the vast tale of a republic still finding its way.
🦶🎵s:
Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XX: History of California, Vol. III, 1825-1840 (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, Publishers, 1885). Pages 23-30.