Historic Shipwreck Profile: Additional Background on Vessel

Source: The New York Herald (New York, NY), 12 July 1853, p. 8, col. 3.
Courtesy of The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Transcription:

Insurance on the Lost Ship Carrier Pigeon.
Boston, July 11, 1853.
The clipper ship Carrier Pigeon, mentioned in the last California news as having been lost near San Francisco, was a new vessel, built at Bath, Me., in December, 1852. She was valued at $54,000. The vessel, cargo and freight money, were insured in this city as follows:

Neptune office $22,915
Boyleston 1,750
Suffolk 4,800
United States 1,848
Equitable Safety 13,000
Hope 10,000
Manufact's Mutual 17,090
New Eng. Mutual 80,000

American $1,070
Merchants' 5,500
Boston 17,000
National 700
Commercial 15,000
City Mutual 28,000
Alliance Mutual 26,000
Total $195,283

Source: Daily Alta California (San Francisco, CA), 30 September 1853, p. 2, col. 2.
Courtesy of California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside.

Transcription:

LOCAL MATTERS.
THE PEARL SHELL.— We fancy that one of our contemporaries was slightly sold yesterday morning in the matter of some shells, which Dr. Worcester brought here from near the wreck of the Carrier Pigeon, and which are stated to be genuine “mother of Pearl Shells, taken from the rocks at low water mark, by Dr. Worcester’s own hands." Surprise is also expressed at this recent discovery, and were it a genuine one, it would certainly be very important. A pearl fishery on our coast would certainly be a decided acquisition to the wealth of our territory. Besides there is a good deal of romance and beauty about pearls. They look well on pretty ladies’ necks and about their wrists, and it seems a strange thing in nature that such gems of purity should come from the body of such a villainous, slimy looking article with such “an ancient and fish-like smell” about it as a pearl oyster. If a pearl placer could be discovered on our coast, it would open a new field of industry for enterprising men who have a fancy for diving, or exploring the ocean bottom in an India rubber armor. Pearl oysters lie embedded in the bottom of the Gulf of California in great quantities, but we very much doubt their discovery on our coast. Dr. Worcester brought some of the same shell, we presume, to our office, taken from the same place, and they are no more “like a pearl oyster, than a stick of candy man’s “variegated,” is like a bar of soap. The pearl oyster is a vivalve (sic) found on the bottom, which the shell in question is univalve, which attaches itself to rocks along the coast, and is very plentiful in the vicinity of Monterey, known there as the concha de la mar.