The members of the Mormon Battalion were far from being the first of
their faith to tread the golden sands of California. Somehow, in the
divine ordering of things mundane, the Mormons generally were very near
the van of Anglo-Saxon settlement of the States west of the Rockies. Thus
it happened that on July 29, 1846, only three weeks after the American
naval occupation of the harbor, there anchored inside the Golden Gate the
good ship Brooklyn, that had brought from New York 238 passengers, mainly
Saints, the first American contribution of material size to the
population of the embarcadero of Yerba Buena, where now is the lower
business section of the stately city of San Francisco.
The Brooklyn, of 450 tons burden, had sailed from New York February 4,
1846, the date happening to be the same as that on which began the exodus
from Nauvoo westward. The voyage was an authorized expedition, counseled
by President Brigham Young and his advisers in the early winter. At one
time it was expected that thousands would take the water route to the
west shore, on their way to the Promised Land. Elder Samuel Brannan was
in charge of the first company, which mainly consisted of American farmer
folk from the eastern and middle-western States. The ship had been
chartered for $1200 a month and port charges. Fare had been set at $50
for all above fourteen years and half-fare for children above five.
Addition was made of $25 for provisions. The passengers embraced seventy
men, 68 women and about 100 children. There was a freight of farming
implements and tools, seeds, a printing press, many school books, etc.
The voyage appears to have been even a pleasant one, though with a few
notations of sickness, deaths and births and of trials that set a small
number of the passengers aside from the Church. Around Cape Horn and as
far as the Robinson Crusoe island of Juan Fernandez, off the Chilian
coast, the seas were calm. Thereafter were two storms of serious sort,
but without phase of disaster to the pilgrims. The next stop was at
Honolulu, on the Hawaiian Islands, thence the course being fair for the
Golden Gate.
When Captain Richardson dropped his anchors in the cove of Yerba Buena it
appears to have been the first time that the emigrants appreciated they
had arrived at anything save a colony of old Mexico. But when a naval
officer boarded the ship and advised the passengers they were in the
United States, "there arose a hearty cheer," though Brannan has been
quoted as hardly pleased over the sight of the Stars and Stripes.