Georgiana, a small side-wheel steamboat made in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1849, one of the first on the waters of the

Mokelumne River The Mokelumne River ( or ; ''Mokelumne'', Miwok for "People of the Fish Net") is a -long river in northern California in the United States. The river flows west from a rugged portion of the central Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada into the Ce ...

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, San Joaquin and

Tuolumne River The Tuolumne River ( Yokutsan: ''Tawalimnu'') flows for through Central California, from the high Sierra Nevada to join the San Joaquin River in the Central Valley. Originating at over above sea level in Yosemite National Park, the Tuolumne ...

s of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Construction

The ''Georgiana'' was a 30-ton steamboat,Jerry MacMullen, Paddlewheel Days In California, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1970. built for the Aspinwall Steam Transportation Line in Philadelphia, knocked down and sent by sea to San Francisco in 1849. It was to be reassembled at the shipyard of

Domingo Marcucci Domingo Marcucci Jugo (Maracaibo, 1827 - San Francisco, 1905), was a Venezuelan born 49er, shipbuilder and shipowner in San Francisco, California. He owned or captained some of the many steamships, steamboats, ferries, and sailing ships he built a ...

on the beach on

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

just south of Folsom Street and east of Beale Street. Her keel was laid on February 22, 1850. She was 73 feet long, with a 16 feet beam and a 4.5-foot-deep hold and had machinery was put in by George K. Gluyas. Marcucci launched her with steam up and she began her trial run immediately. Scott, Erving M. and Others, ''Evolution of Shipping and Ship-Building in California, Part I'', Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 25, January 1895, pp.5-16
from quod.lib.umich.edu accessed March 10, 2015 San Francisco Call, Volume 87, Number 99, 9 March 1902, p.6 FIRST BOATBUILDER ON THE PACIFIC COAST by J. M. Scanland
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History

Shortly after it was launched, in April 1850, ''Georgiana'' pioneered the shortcut route through the

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between

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and Stockton, through, the

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, which connects the Sacramento River with the San Joaquin River through the Mokelumne River. The route was named the

Georgiana Slough Georgiana Slough, is a slough within Sacramento County, California. It is located in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, and links both the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River above their confluence in the Delta near Pittsburg, at the ...

after the steamboat. In May 1850, the ''Georgiana'' pioneered the route from Stockton up the San Joaquin River and Tuolumne River to Tuolumne City. Subsequently, her captain began a weekly service from Stockton to San Joaquin City Grayson City and Tuolumne City timed to leave after the arrival of the ''Captain Sutter'' from San Francisco. Following a dry summer, the low water in the river grounded the ''Georgiana'' ending the ambitions of Tuolumne City to be a river port until the 1860s. With overwhelming competition by the larger steamers of Simmons, Hutchinson & Company and the flood of other steamboats arriving from the East causing a decline in fares, in the fall of 1851 Aspenwall sold out. Georgiana was sold and by June 1851 was steaming between San Francisco and Sonoma, 3 times a week for Engels, Hooper and Company. Daily Alta California, Volume 2, Number 181, 9 June 1851, p.1, col.2
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Fate

The ''Georgianas

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blew up as it was departing

Petaluma Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census. Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village nam ...

, and scalded 3, with loss of life on November 23, 1855. Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 10, Number 1456, 24 November 1855 p.2, col.5

References

{{California Steamboats Sidewheel steamboats of California Ships built in San Francisco Merchant ships of the United States Maritime boiler explosions Sacramento River San Joaquin River Tuolumne River