The Bremen ship, later bark, GÖSCHEN was built at Vegesack/Grohn by Johann Lange, for the Bremen firm of D. H. Wätjen & Co, and was launched on 31 March 1859. 620 Commerzlasten / 1137 tons register; 50,1 x 12 x 7,1 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). She was built originally as a ship, but later retackled as a bark. Her maiden voyage, under Eldert Deetjen, began in Bremerhaven on 19 May 1859. She served mainly in the North Atlantic trade, carrying immigrants westward and returning home with cotton and tobacco. Other masters, after Deetjen, were Johann Daniel Probst, H. Bätjer, Diedrich Hein, and H. Henke.

In 1867/68, the GÖSCHEN sailed from Holmsund, Sweden, to Adelaide, Australia, reaching Hamburg in 1869, via Callao, with a load of guano. Since 1882, the bark GÖSCHEN, under captain Susewind, served in the petroleum transport trade. On her 27th voyage in the petroleum trade, with a cargo of 7,000 barrels, en route from New York to Stettin, she sprang a leak, but reached Stettin intact in August 1893. Soon afterwards, she was sold by Wätjen, probably to the shipowner Gustav Ludwig, from Swinemünde. She was wrecked in 1894.

Source: Peter-Michael Pawlik, Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993), p. 234, no. 241.

The U.S. ship GOLDEN EAGLE was an extreme clipper, built at Medford, Massachusetts, by Hayden & Cudworth, and launched on 9 November 1852. 1121 tons; 192 x 36 x 22 ft (length x beam x depth of hold); dead rise 20 inches; figurehead a gilded eagle on the wing; old-style single topsails, 3 skysails; spread 7,000 yards of canvas in a suit of sails. She was built to the order of William Lincoln & Co, Boston, under the superintendence of Capt. Samuel A. Fabens, who served as her master until 1858. The Boston Daily Atlas for 23 November 1852 contains a detailed description of the GOLDEN EAGLE by Duncan McLean, that newspaper's marine reporter. The GOLDEN EAGLE was registered at New Bedford.

The GOLDEN EAGLE made a total of 8 voyages from the East Coast around the Horn to San Francisco, the first out of Boston, the others out of New York. On the homeward leg of last of these voyages, she sailed from San Francisco for Howland's Island, where she loaded a cargo of guano, and from which she sailed about 20 November 1862, bound for Cork, for orders. On 21 February 1863, 90 days out, in lat 29 N, lon 45 W, she was attacked and burned by the Confederate commerce raider CSS ALABAMA. Her owners, E. M. Robinson, of New Bedford, and John A. McGaw, of New York, claimed, and were allowed, insurance in the amount of $56,000 for the vessel, $30,000 for freight, and $27,522 for cargo.

Sources: Octavius T. Howe and Frederick C. Matthews, American Clipper Ships, 1833-1858, Marine Research Society Publication 13, vol. 1 (Salem, Massachusetts: Marine Research Society, 1926), pp. 228-231

The wooden side-wheel steamship GOLDEN GATE was built for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co by William H. Webb, New York (hull #56); keel laid 1 July 1850, launched 21 January 1851, along with the sailing ship ISAAC BELL (for Fox & Livingston) and the clipper GAZELLE (for Taylor & Merrill). 2067 tons; 262 feet x 40 feet x 30 feet 6 inches (length x beam x depth of hold); 2 funnels, 3 masts, 3 decks, round stern, round tuck, spread-eagle head; mean draft 10 ft 2 in, load draft 13 ft 8 in; two oscillating engines (Novelty Iron Works): bore 85 inches, stroke 9 feet, steam pressure 18 psi, approximate ihp 1150, 14 revolutions per minute; wheel diameter 33 feet 6 inches, float width 10 feet 6 inches.

2 August 1851, maiden voyage, New York - Rio de Janeiro - Valparaiso - Panama (arrived 16 October) - San Francisco (arrived 19 November 1851; her passage from Panama to San Francisco of 11 days, 4 hours, stood as a record until 1855). The GOLDEN GATE entered the Panama-San Francisco service, where she proved a fast, but unlucky vessel: in 1852, an outbreak of cholera aboard resulted in 84 deaths; in May 1853, she nearly collided with the Vanderbilt steamship SIERRA NEVADA off the Mexican coast; 1854, engine breakdown and grounding at Point Loma; October 1857, broken shaft. 24 July 1862, sailed from San Francisco for Panama. 27 July, about 15 miles from Manzanillo, Mexico, fire was discovered in the engine room, and the vessel was headed for what is now called Playa de Oro, in order to beach her. Many of the passengers sought refuge in the stern, but the flames spread in that direction, and when boats were launched in the heavy surf the occupants were crushed against the ship or drowned; the ship broke up in the surf. Between 175 [Dunbaugh and Thomas] and 223 [Kemble] passengers and crew lost their lives, together with the baggage, mail, and nearly all the cargo of $1.4 million in specie (gold valued at $300,000 was recovered from the wreck and brought to San Francisco by the Pacific Mail steamship CONSTITUTION in February 1863).

Sources: John Haskell Kemble, The Panama Route, 1848-1869, University of California Publications in History, 29 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943), p. 228; Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark: University of Delaware Press, c1981), pp. 178-180, 272, 355-356; Edwin L. Dunbaugh and William duBarry Thomas, William H. Webb: Shipbuilder (Glen Cove, New York: Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, 1989), pp. 182-183; see also http://www.gomanzanillo.com/beaches/index.htm.

The U.S. ship GONDAR, 645 tons, was built at Wiscasset, Maine, by John Johnston & Son, in 1847, and named after the capital of Abyssinia. Registered in Wiscasset.

1848

Georg Barstow, master, advertised as sailing in the Nesmith & Walsh Line of New York-Liverpool Packets (passenger manifest, dated 12 June 1848, in National Archives Microfilm Publication M237, roll 73, list #544 for 1848).

1850

J. G. Barstow, master, advertised as sailing in the Philadelphia-Liverpool line of packets.

1852

13 May, Barstow, master, arrived at New York from Liverpool, 12 April 1852 (passenger manifest, dated 14 May 1852, in National Archives, Microfilm Publication M237, roll 113, #531 for 1852).

1853

21 May, Barstow, master, arrived at New York, 38 days from Havre (passenger manifest in National Archives Microfilm Publication M237).

The GONDAR was destroyed by fire at Charleston, South Carolina, in mid-June 1853, when loaded with cotton and naval stores and about to sail for Liverpool. The figurehead, an image of the Queen of Sheba, famed for its beauty, was saved, and stood in Alexander Johnston's garden at Wiscasset for 30 years, following which it was owned by Dr. A. J. Stedman, of Georgetown, Maine, for some 20 years. It was then sold and sent around Cape Horn in a Bath Ship to Honolulu.

This vessel is to be distinguished from the vessel of the same name, 710 tons, that in 1860, Gooding, master, sailed in the Southern Line of Charleston-Liverpool packets.

Sources: William Armstrong Fairburn, Merchant Sail (Center Lovell, Maine: Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, [1945-55], V.3344-3346; Carl C. Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean; The Story of America's Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, c1961), pp. 386, 405, and 410.